South Carolina leading scorer Meechie Johnson enters the transfer portal

South Carolina is losing its leading scorer to the transfer portal.

The South Carolina men’s basketball team is losing one of their top players to the transfer portal.

Gamecocks’ leading scorer, Meechie Johnson, announced Monday that he is entering the transfer portal, likely ending his time at South Carolina. Johnson was the Gamecocks leading scorer this past season, leaving a large vacancy for the program.

Meechie earned All-SEC honors this past season, averaging 14.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 2.9 assists.

“Coach Paris has been very impactful in my life and my development, and that is my guy forever, but all being said, I will be entering the transfer portal and will also consider testing the NBA Draft waters.”

Johnson looks for greener pastures elsewhere.

Dawn Staley’s very good dog Champ adorably crashed her March Madness press conference

March Madness dog alert!

During Saturday’s press availability, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley brought a special friend with her to the table.

Staley’s dog Champ joined her as she took questions from reporters and joked that the dog wouldn’t answering any questions from the press until the NCAA gave the very good boy a proper name plate.

This dog is very adorable and deserves many treats and belly rubs, even if the poor little guy does look tired from all the March Madness festivities.

If you see Champ during this year’s tournament as he cheers on Staley and South Carolina, make sure to tell him he’s the bestest boy in basketball.

Even if South Carolina doesn’t go all the way this spring, the team will at least know that Champ is in its corner. That’s a pretty good thing to have during March Madness.

Also, NCAA, we hope to see Champ’s name plate at the press table the next time he and Staley make an appearance!

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Dawn Staley had the perfect advice for South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso before game-winning 3-pointer

Good advice, Coach!

South Carolina’s women’s basketball team stayed undefeated on the season on Saturday in a stunning finish against Tennessee.

Center Kamilla Cardoso hit a clutch 3-pointer as the clock expired to give South Carolina the 74-73 victory at home over the Lady Vols in one of the best endings to a basketball game this season.

After the game, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley told ESPN what advice she gave Cardoso before she saved the team’s undefeated season. It’s pretty perfect.

“The last thing that came out of my mouth was ‘Kamilla, shoot that blanky blank,'” Staley quipped in the postgame interview about her advice to Cardoso.

Cardoso took her coach’s suggestion and it worked out more than fine for South Carolina as the team earned the hard-fought victory over Tennessee.

The team will undoubtedly remain atop the rankings and should be a favorite once the 2024 NCAA women’s tournament gets going later this month.

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Candace Parker hilariously called Aces teammate A’Ja Wilson on Facetime to celebrate Tennessee right before South Carolina’s epic buzzer-beater

Celebrated too soon!

The South Carolina women’s basketball team refused to lose on Saturday, as Kamilla Cardoso scored her first 3-pointer of the season to top Tennessee at the buzzer.

The heroic bucket from Cardoso kept South Carolina’s undefeated season alive and sent the Lady Vols home with a devastating defeat.

The last-second South Carolina victory also caught Tennessee great and current Las Vegas Aces forward Candace Parker off-guard as she Facetimed with her teammate, a former South Carolina standout.

Wilson posted on Twitter (X) a screenshot of the two talking on Facetime, as she said that Parker called Wilson thinking the game was over only to realize it most certainly was not after Cardoso’s shot.

It’s never a good idea to celebrate until the final buzzer, especially in a sport like basketball where so much can change with one bucket.

Parker probably won’t hear the end of this for quite some time, as Wilson both got a big victory for her alma mater and a good laugh out of Parker’s confident Facetime call.

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South Carolina at Alabama: How to watch, injury report, players to watch

Where will you be watching from?

The Alabama men’s basketball team will have its SEC home opener on Tuesday night when they welcome in the South Carolina Gamecocks.

Both the Tide and the Gamecocks were able to collect wins this past Saturday with Alabama getting a road win over Vanderbilt and South Carolina taking care of business at home against Mississippi State.

Alabama currently sits a 9-5 on the season after facing one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country while South Carolina is an impressive 13-1, but their non-conference slate was not near as difficult as the Tide’s.

Below is everything you need to know to catch the action between Alabama and South Carolina from inside Coleman Coliseum.

Social media reacts: Clemson takes down rivals South Carolina to remain undefeated

Here is a look at how social media reacted to Clemson’s excellent win over rivals South Carolina.

Brad Brownell and the Clemson men’s basketball team remained undefeated as they took down rivals South Carolina 72-67, ending the Gamecocks undefeated season.

The Tigers trailed 7 heading into the half (30-23), but that didn’t stop this team from rallying to beat their bitter rivals. The team fought hard behind 13 second-half points from Chauncey Wiggins to reach 8-0 on the season as arguably the hottest team in college basketball right now.

Starting your season this way is as good as it can get for a team, but this win makes it that much sweeter. When you and your biggest rival both have tremendous starts to your season, and you walk away with the big rivalry win, it is the best feeling for players and fans.

Here is a look at how Twitter/X reacted to Clemson’s big win.

Brownell updates injuries ahead of Clemson vs. South Carolina battle of undefeated teams

Clemson head coach Brad Brownell updated the injury status of multiple players ahead of Clemson vs. South Carolina.

Brad Brownell and the Clemson men’s basketball team have a huge matchup Wednesday as the Tigers host undefeated rivals South Carolina for what is shaping up to be an excellent matchup.

Forward Jack Clark has been dealing with lingering injuries, but played through it until recently. Clark did not participate in the Tigers’ win over Pittsburgh, and it sounds like his status is still up in the air ahead of this matchup against the Gamecocks.

“We’re still kind of trying to figure it all out. I would say he’s doubtful for this game. I’m going to get with Brad (Crowe) right before practice and just see what it looks like. It’s been challenging for him. Just hasn’t been able to kind of get all the way there. He’s had some steps back, if you will, so we’ve just got to kind of deal with it day-to-day,” Brownell said.

Along with Clark is Alex Hemenway, who is dealing with a lower leg injury. Hemenway has some time to go before the team believes he’ll be back to full strength.

“Jack and Alex, that’s been really challenging. I anticipated those guys being probably two of our top six guys. It’s just, they both haven’t been able to do as much,” Brownell said.

Clemson won’t be at full strength for this matchup, but they’ve been banged up throughout the season. Clemson faces South Carolina on Wednesday, Nov. 6, at Littlejohn Coliseum with tipoff at 8 p.m., televised on ACC Network.

A South Carolina girls basketball team won their opener 95-0

A girls high school basketball team posts a shutout.

The score is simply incomprehensible.

The Dutch Fork (Irmo, South Carolina) girls basketball team opened the season on Friday with a 95-0 win over Lamar (Lamar, South Carolina). That is right.

It bares repeating: Dutch Fork won their season opener 95-0 over Lamar.

On one hand, scoring 95 points in a high school basketball game is incredibly rare. It is an incredible amount of points to score. But to then hold an opponent to no points is…well…it just doesn’t happen.

And it doesn’t happen with this kind of margin between the two teams.

In a comment on social media, one person questioned the sportsmasnhip of the winning school, saying that Dutch Fork probably used a full-court press the entire game. There is no tap-dancing around that tweet, which implies that Dutch Fork ran up the score and didn’t let up.

Interestingly enough, the program responded to the tweet and defended their head coach:

 

Well, that will make Lamar feel better…’The score could’ve been much higher’…

Last season, Dutch Fork went 14-10.

There were no stats for the game given that the poor high school student charged with being the scorekeeper first ran out of ink and then developed severe arm cramps midway through the first quarter when trying to keep up with the action.

Explaining why GG Jackson could fall out of the first round in the 2023 NBA Draft

Gregory “GG” Jackson II was considered the best collegiate prospect in the 2023 recruiting class.

Gregory “GG” Jackson II was considered the best collegiate prospect in the 2023 recruiting class. But his draft outlook doesn’t look great.

Jackson, who helped team Team USA to win a gold medal at the FIBA Americas Under-18 Championships in 2022, opted to reclassify and forego his senior year of high school, becoming the highest-rated recruit in program history for South Carolina.

He averaged 15.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, earning SEC All-Freshman honors, before declaring early entry for the 2023 NBA Draft. He is the youngest player eligible to hear his name called in this draft class.

By all accounts, an 18-year-old who performed at such a high level in the SEC would typically project as a potential lottery pick. But there are also valid reasons why Jackson may slide on the night of the draft.

Here is what one college coach told NBA reporter David Aldridge (via The Athletic):

“He’s got to have self-awareness as to what the next phase of his career is, because he did speed up the process. 
 mentally, was young, immature.”

NBA draft expert Jonathan Givony has more (via ESPN):

“He gives very little effort, looking very upright in his stance, not covering ground well, struggling to get over screens and looking lethargic with his reaction time, providing next to nothing as a rim-protector due to his poor 6-11 wingspan 
 South Carolina’s coaching staff hasn’t been able to coax much effort or physicality out of him, with his body language looking very concerning at times.”

South Carolina was outscored by a whopping 18.4 points per 100 possessions when Jackson was on the court, per CBB Analytics, but outscored opponents by 8.7 points per 100 when he was not. That swing (27.2) was the largest of any Division I men’s college basketball player to log at least 500 minutes last season.

Unfortunately, there were major concerns for Jackson on both offense and defense.

Jackson is a decent shooter for his size but offers very little efficiency. He averaged 0.70 points per offensive chance, per Stats Perform, which was the worst among all NBA prospects included in the latest aggregate mock draft provided by HoopsHype.

He can create his own shot but he shot just 31-for-119 (26.1 percent) on his jumpers off the dribble, per StatsPerform, also the worst among high-volume top prospects.

His defense wasn’t great, either. Opponents were 16-for-26 (61.5 percent) when defended by Jackson in the paint, per Stats Perform, and 18-for-28 (64.2 percent) when he was credited as the nearest defender in the restricted area. Both were near the worst among top prospects.

The pre-draft process also wasn’t kind to Jackson. Adam Finkelstein wrote about what he saw during Jackson’s Pro Day (via 247 Sports):

“GG Jackson’s workout led to some questions. Jackson looked noticeably winded less than 10 minutes in and, while the progression of his face-up skill-set was evident, the overall pace of the workout ended up being slower than most others. Given some of the questions that emerged at South Carolina this year with regard to his efficiency, body language, and overall maturity, this showing didn’t do anything to reassure NBA decision-makers.”

According to NBA Big Board director of scouting Raphael Barlowe, however, Jackson was dealing with bronchitis during the workout.

That was an unfortunate time for his illness, which provides helpful context to his performance, and the reality is that Jackson still has a ton of upside.

But the numbers don’t paint a positive picture of his outlook on draft night. Put it all together with the catch-all metric box plus-minus and Jackson (-0.5) had the lowest mark among all top prospects.

In fact, per Bart Torvik, there are only five players on record since 2008 to hear their name called on draft night after posting a negative box-plus minus during their collegiate careers. Only one was selected in the first round and only two were selected in the top 40.

We projected Jackson at No. 36 overall in our latest NBA mock draft.

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Where in the world is Marcus Freeman: Fishing with QB1 edition

Your clues: Visiting a national champion basketball coach, seeing an ND grad/prominent ACC AD, and seeing his QB1.

A quick search of “Marcus Freeman is everywhere” on Twitter shows that the Notre Dame head football coach certainly isn’t scared to get up and go.  One minute he’s in South Bend and the next he’s at the White House.  Whether its recruiting, doing public speaking, or something in-between, Freeman is certainly active.

During the first week of May, Notre Dame’s athletic webpage started a blog to track Freeman’s whereabouts as he is booked with events nationwide this month that aren’t directly related to on-the-field activities.

So what was the Notre Dame head coach up to in the last few days?  Throwing some lines with his starting quarterback was just one of the things he was up to.