Thoughts from the weekend: Rattler, baseball, and hoops recruiting

— This weekend’s big series win against fourth-ranked Kentucky is a good place to start on this Monday.

All three games were incredibly entertaining. Friday, because of the improbable come-from-behind, walk-off win on a Blake Jackson homer. Saturday, because of the back-and-forth nature and an offensive explosion that saw the teams combine for 28 runs. Sunday, because the Gamecocks thoroughly dominated the Cats, who have rarely been dominated this season.

In fact, it was the first time that this powerful UK offense had been shut out all season. Kentucky had only lost three SEC games in total coming into Columbia.

This season’s squad has been the subject of much debate among the fan base.

There are two things that we absolutely know about this team. The schedule has been absolutely loaded, and this team is capable of beating anyone it plays in a series. That’s better than the alternatives of playing weaker competition and seeing the losses pile up.

Three series remain. Missouri seems the most “winnable”, but it’s on the road. Can the Gamecocks sustain the momentum and hold serve by taking – or sweeping – that series? Then you have Georgia at home and Tennessee on the road.

Get into positional to host a regional, and this team could have the goods to make a run. As we’ve said the last couple of weeks, the home stretch of this season will tell the story.

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— The offseason roster reshape for Lamont Paris seems just a player away. South Carolina was dealt a blow on Sunday night when La Salle transfer guard Jhamir Brickus chose Villanova instead of the Gamecocks.

Dakota Leffew, the touted Mount St. Mary’s transfer, recently chose Georgia. Both Leffew and Brickus took visits to Columbia, and it would have really punctuated a nice recruiting stretch to land one.

While Cam Scott was not technically a transfer portal addition, you get the sense that he may be able to fill some of the scoring void in year one.

BJ Mack was such a unique player, but there’s a belief that Collin Murray-Boyles will step out to shoot more next season. The Gamecocks landed Alabama transfer Nick Pringle over the weekend, and that’s an exciting get because of his athletic ability in the paint.

Another intriguing big – Missouri transfer Jordan Butler – is also in the fold from the portal.

USC is still in need of a guard, so we’ll see where things go from here. Other than that, it’s come together quite nicely.

— The 2024 NFL Draft is in the books, and several former South Carolina Gamecocks now have a home – or potential homes.

In many ways, the draft played out exactly as expected. We knew Xavier Legette would be the first to hear his name called and that he would go late first round to early second. We knew Marcellas Dial would be drafted in the later rounds. We knew that if Nick Gargiulo went, it would likely be in the seventh – or that he would be a coveted undrafted free agent.

Spencer Rattler’s positioning was the hardest to gauge since he was thought to be in the third-round (best case) to fifth-round range. An early run of quarterbacks in the first round seemed to be the perfect scenario for Rattler, because teams in need of a passer may need to pick higher than if the selections were more spread out.

Rattler was indeed next in line, but there ended up being a pretty big gap between the first-rounders and the others. Bo Nix was picked 12th overall, and Rattler was the next quarterback taken at number 150 overall.

I don’t know if we have any actual data as to why that gap ended up being so big. It could simply be that teams had other more pressing needs or didn’t value Rattler and/or other passers high enough to take one in the third or fourth round.

Before Rattler was taken, national reporters Pete Thamel and Ian Rapaport both gave their takes based on what they had heard.

“It did not make him look great. And it is unbelievable how many different teams mentioned to me the image of him in that show and how they can’t get it out of their heads,” Rapaport said on the NFL Network broadcast in the midst of the fifth round.

Thamel and Rapaport are likely just repeating what scouts, front offices, and perhaps even agents are saying about Rattler. It was more of the same ol’ stuff, storylines that Rattler had buried pretty much immediately after getting to USC.

A call by front offices or reporters to, say, the South Carolina football office would probably have alleviated any concerns on this front.

The irony here, of course, is that many of those organizations putting out those opinions on Rattler frequently employ players with baggage and/or actual issues. Ask anyone in Columbia about Rattler, and there were no problems. In fact, he was a true pro in every facet whether it was how he handled himself on the field, off the field, and with NIL.

Tomorrow, May 1, will mark the completion of 15 years that I’ve been with GamecockCentral.com. I’ll have more to say on that soon, because I’m extremely grateful. To keep it on this subject, Rattler may be my favorite USC student-athlete to have interacted with since I’ve been doing this.

Watching the video of him taking the call from the Saints, there looked to be a mixture of excitement and even relief. As Rattler sat with his agent and family and watched his name being called on television, that familiar humble confidence showed up on his face.

All he needed was a chance. Here’s to number 7 continuing to tear down the narratives.

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