South Carolina Gamecocks News: Football recruiting, transfer portal wins, baseball, and more

The latest South Carolina Gamecocks news from the last week, starting with some updates in the world of South Carolina football recruiting

In-state offensive lineman prospect Anthony Baxter (South Pointe High School; Rock Hill, South Carolina) joined the class of 2026 commitment list with a pledge to the Gamecocks over the weekend.

2026 South Carolina football commitments Landon Duckworth and Rodney Colton, Jr. debuted in the ESPN Junior 300, slotting in at #98 and #144, respectively.

Class of 2025 USC pledge Shamari Earls (4-star cornerback) was named one On3's top-10 commitments from the month of April.

The transfer portal was kind to the Gamecocks, as well.

Florida State Seminoles transfer wide receiver Vandrevius Jacobs committed to the Gamecocks to help bolster a questionable wideout unit.

Another transfer wideout, Nevada Wolfpack defection Dalevon Campbell, also made a pledge to the South Carolina football program.

The Gamecocks are receiving visits this week from transfer portal offensive linemen Enokk Vimahi (Ohio State Buckeyes) and Steven Hubbard (UTEP Miners).

A former Gamecock in the coaching world has transitioned to the high school game back in the Palmetto State.

Former USC quarterback Jake Bentley is set to become the quarterbacks coach at Rock Hill High School. He served the previous two seasons as the quarterbacks coach at North Alabama (2023) and an offensive analyst at Florida Atlantic (2022).

Like the football team, Lamont Paris' South Carolina basketball squad also made some waves in transfer portal recruiting.

Coach Paris managed to flip elite Norfolk State transfer guard Jamarii Thomas, the 2023-2024 MEAC Player of the Year and a 1st team All-Defensive performer in the MEAC, from a previous commitment to the VCU Rams. Thomas' commitment should finalize the 2024-2025 roster.

The Gamecocks were not treated with much respect in multiple preseason projections.

*Both of these projections came prior to the Jamarii Thomas commitment*

ESPN's Joe Lunardi left the Gamecocks out of his preseason mock NCAA Tournament, and CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein didn't include South Carolina in his Rothstein 45 rankings.

The incoming South Carolina basketball recruiting class of 2024 got their final recruiting rankings from On3.

Cam Scott, Trent Noah, and Okku Federiko all ended up inside the top-150. All three players are now considered a 4-star prospect by at least one major recruiting service (Scott is a consensus 4-star).

Dawn Staley's team wasn't in the news much, but it was announced that a current Gamecock would be receiving a pretty cool honor.

Rising senior forward Sania Feagin will have her #20 jersey retired at Forest Park High School later this month.

Coach Staley was on 107.5 The Game last week and revealed a bit of scheduling news.

The Gamecocks will open their 2024-2025 national title defense with a game in Las Vegas against an unnamed opponent. Staley said that the game had been set up with a different opponent originally, but that team backed out. She seemed frustrated in the interview, saying, "good teams don't want to play us."

It wasn't always pretty, but the South Carolina baseball team had a 3-1 week.

After shellacking the East Tennessee State Buccaneers on Wednesday, the Gamecocks traveled to Columbia, Missouri and took two of three games from the Missouri Tigers.

Other than a poor performance all around on Saturday, the Gamecock offense appears to be hitting its stride as the season is coming to a close with just two series left before the SEC Tournament.

Even prior to the Missouri series, the Gamecocks got a favorable NCAA Tournament projection.

D1Baseball listed Carolina as the #10 overall seed, mocking them as a Regional host matched up against the Tallahassee (Florida State Seminoles) Regional.

Mark Kingston's team picked up two commitments in the class of 2025.

Barnwell, South Carolina native Cam Austin (outfield/RHP) pledged his services to the Gamecocks at the beginning of the week, and fellow Palmetto State native Bradley Anderson (SS/RHP) committed over the weekend.

South Carolina softball had a tough week.

The Gamecocks knocked off USC-Upstate in the mid-week but then took a beating at home in a 3-game sweep at the hands of the Missouri Tigers in which Carolina scored just 4 runs across three games.