Thoughts from the weekend: Recruiting, Portal, Staley

— The South Carolina baseball program picked up an important road series win over the Florida Gators. Despite dropping Sunday’s game and losing out on a chance at a sweep, the Gamecocks got back in the positive win column in conference play.

Broken record alert: the schedule is difficult from here on out, with a series against Arkansas, Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri, and Tennessee remaining. After starting off 13-4 in the SEC last season, USC dropped its final four series in the SEC and finished just above .500 in conference play.

In the last weekly thoughts installment, I noted that it was too early to bury this program because of all the baseball left to play. The same could be said this week, while still noting that there’s a tough road ahead.

There have been some ups and downs with this team this year, and every game is becoming more and more pivotal. It was a gutty series win this weekend, and USC’s put together a pretty nice multi-game stretch. Can Carolina play .500 baseball or something similar to it down the stretch?

I try to make this thoughts feature actual thoughts, not questions. But that’s one I legitimately have about this team.

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— A bunch of thoughts ran through my head after Kentucky basketball hired Mark Pope as the new men’s basketball coach.

Admittedly, one of them came from the reporting perspective. Having covered coaching searches in the past, you hear so many things that you tend to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what’s true and what’s false. You have to be pretty careful about what you say, because you can be wrong in a hurry.

It seems there was not much of a filter among the UK media for some on the search, with some seeming to immediately to dismiss Pope’s name outright before vetting that it was a very real possibility.

Once it was clear he was going to be the guy, the reaction from “BBN” was pretty substantial. It seemed most of the fan base was having a hard time reconciling going from John Calipari to a guy with no tournament wins. Then the press conference happened, and it seems the vibes changed to where UK fans are talking themselves into it.

Me? I have no idea how it will work out. The only thing I know is we can’t say for sure whether Mark Pope will succeed or fail. There are too many instances of guys that were “terrible hires” turning out to….actually be really good hires. There have also been absolute slam dunks that have been absolute train wrecks. It is fun to assess the situation and try to guess, though.

By the way: you know it’s the year 2024 when a school’s former basketball coach, who also ended up coaching at your primary rival, is giving quotes saying he’ll make a NIL donation to your school. That’s exactly what happened with Rick Pitino.

— Recruiting is now picking up for South Carolina football. Four verbal commitments are in the boat, with another #WelcomeHome sent out by Shane Beamer on Sunday night to make five. The Gamecocks had seven at this same time last year.

It’s not a leap to envision more happening soon. The spring game is on deck for next weekend, and there will be plenty of visitors in for that contest. That weekend will be a key visit for certain guys – quarterback Ryan Montgomery comes to mind. Plus, the Gamecocks have built out a pretty nice slate of official visitors beginning the weekend of May 31.

There’s another part of this on the recruiting front as well….

— The spring transfer portal window opens at midnight – April 16 – and runs through April 30.

Nowadays, it’s wise to expect the unexpected when it comes to the portal. Sometimes you get word in advance that certain players are likely to go into the portal when it opens. They happen on some occasions and don’t end up happening on others. As of this writing, I haven’t heard of anyone from Gamecock football who’s planning on jumping in. But could there be? Sure. This is a 15-day window that everyone just has to sweat out in this new world.

On the flip side, we anticipate the USC staff monitoring the portal, particularly at the wide receiver position. We’ll keep everyone updated on any targets that emerge.

Hoops portal recruiting also continues. Lamont Paris had a very productive offseason in the portal last year, and it’s expected that there will eventually be some fruit from the portal this time around as well. Stay tuned on that.

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— Dawn Staley’s visit to South Carolina’s spring football practice on Saturday and the national championship parade in Columbia on Sunday had me marveling at how she has built the program.

This wasn’t someone coming in and resurrecting a blue blood program that had just slipped for a year or two. South Carolina did have some pockets of success in the past – Nancy Wilson had a stretch of five tournament appearances in six years, and Susan Walvius made an Elite 8. But it’s not like someone stepped in for Geno at UConn; there was a lot of work to do here.

Things have come a long way from her first games in 2008 in which it seemed like there were 100 people in Colonial Life Arena to watch. The Gamecocks lost to Clemson in her first ever regular season home game. USC had to play each of the previous season’s Final Four teams and got beaten by all – three of them in blowout fashion.

Now? Nobody can beat the Gamecocks, at least not this year. And not even Main Street can contain the amount of fans coming out to support.

I would say that others should copy Dawn’s blueprint, but that’s the thing: they really can’t. As my colleague Wes Mitchell says, she’s a one-of-one.

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