South Carolina Gamecocks News: Basketball, Baseball, Staley, and Staley
By Kevin Miller
Here’s the South Carolina Gamecocks News from this week, starting with the women’s basketball team continuing to roll.
The South Carolina basketball team remained undefeated with another dominant SEC victory. The Gamecocks beat the Florida Gators for the fifteenth straight game, this time by a score of 87-56 to win their 32nd game in a row. Zia Cooke led the way with 22 points, and Ashlyn Watkins pulled down a double-double in only 16 minutes of play.
Dawn Staley is getting a statue.
The University of South Carolina is partnering with the Statues for Equality organization to erect a statue of Dawn Staley near the South Carolina Statehouse. The statue should take around a year to be built and put up.
The men’s team lost an ugly game at home to Vanderbilt.
Lamont Paris’ squad could not put together a second straight victory and fell to Vanderbilt in a worse-than-the-score-indicated beatdown. Making matters worse, the seeming rift seems to be growing between five-star freshman GG Jackson and Lamont Paris. Jackson played sparingly again on Tuesday, but he showed some visible frustration on the sideline and in the team huddle. The issue seems to be growing, and the team’s lack of overall success (2-11 in the SEC) is not helping.
The baseball team announced its starting rotation and revealed some of its starting lineup.
Preseason All-American Will Sanders headlines the three-man weekend rotation that also includes talented senior Noah Hall and now-healthy junior Jack Mahoney. Braylen Wimmer officially will be the opening day shortstop, Evan Stone will resume duties as the starter in center field, Caleb Denny will be the first option in left field, Gavin Casas will man first base, and Will McGillis will debut as the starting second baseman. The other positions are not 100% set and could see timeshares and/or platoons early in the year.
The SEC office implemented some new rules for the 2023 baseball season.
Three new clocks, a mercy rule, and a change to Sunday night curfews were part of the rule changes. A “between batters” clock (30 seconds), mound visit clock (30 seconds), and pitching change clock (2 minutes, 30 seconds) will be enforced during SEC play in 2023. A 10-run mercy rule will be in effect in-conference, as well, and in any games with out-of-conference foes who agree to the rule. Sunday games affected by weather can now start (or resume after a stoppage) at a later time in the visiting team does not have classes the following Monday.
Legendary Gamecock Duce Staley has gotten a new NFL gig.
The former South Carolina football star played a decade in the NFL before getting into coaching. He was brought on to new Head Coach Frank Reich’s staff with the Carolina Panthers and was officially named the Running Backs Coach and Assistant Head Coach this week. He held the same position(s) with the Detroit Lions the last two seasons and the Philadelphia Eagles the three years before that.
The SEC just announced the dates for football’s SEC Media Days.
The annual football media days will be held July 17th-20th in Nashville, Tennessee. Gamecock Head Coach Shane Beamer will speak with the media on Thursday the 20th.
Brian Kelly (LSU), Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri), and Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M) are scheduled for Monday the 17th. Hugh Freeze (Auburn), Kirby Smart (Georgia), Zach Arnett (Mississippi State), and Clark Lea (Vanderbilt) will be in front of the microphones on Tuesday the 18th. Nick Saban (Alabama), Sam Pittman (Arkansas), Billy Napier (Florida), and Mark Stoops (Kentucky) will meet with the media on Wednesday the 19th. Coach Beamer will be joined by Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss) and Josh Heupel (Tennessee) for the event’s final day on Thursday the 20th.
SEC Media Day Coverage will be available on the SECNetwork and the ESPN App.