The dead period. As C&F has noted before, things are closing down in terms of Gamecocks news, with season previews coming up fast. Like last year, there will be some posts focused on the keys to the 2008 Gamecocks, previews of each opponent (even Wofford), a preview of the best games each week and a look at what will define the coming season in the SEC and across the nation.
And once that's done, C&F will pass out.
In other words, there is work being done even if The Thread is sometimes light. As it is on this day.
Horn: We don't need no stinkin' players. At least not new ones. In fact, Horn apparently decided to all but forego recruiting this year. At least for the 2008-09 team.
The men who preceded Horn gradually found out how hard it is to recruit top-notch basketball players to South Carolina. The state isn’t overflowing with talent and is sandwiched between North Carolina and Georgia.
Horn decided against the quick fix, and at this point he will enter his first season with no new players. Instead, he spent his first few months at USC building relationships with high school coaches in the state and offering scholarships to younger players such as Smith. ...
The Gamecocks have no new commitments, though Horn continues to recruit the upcoming senior class. ...
But the key to Horn’s recruiting push might be members of the 2010 class, such as Smith. Another player to watch is 6-5 wing Jason Morris, who has ties to Augusta and attends school in Connecticut. [Emphasis, of course, belongs to C&F]
So we might now be talking the end of the decade before South Carolina's basketball team has the foundation to be a consistently winning program. C&F is all for patience, and realizes that basketball recruits can have a larger immediate impact than those in football. And maybe he's reading this wrong.
But it sure as heck sounds like Darrin Horn is saying, "Don't evaluate me by what would be my first recruiting class, which will now not exist. Don't evaluate me by my second recruiting class. Evaluate me by my third recruiting class."
If nothing else, it's creative.
Neal Lourie update. And it wouldn't be a thread without a story involving everyone's favorite Columbia attorney. (Seriously, Lourie's given some kind of money to the university; there's no other explanation.) But this time, his client might be a witness for the prosecution.
Fifth Circuit solicitor Barney Giese is reviewing a SLED report to determine whether to prosecute Columbia police officers accused of using excessive force against a South Carolina football player in the winter.Offensive lineman Kevin Young says officers punched him repeatedly and bloodied his nose while subduing him following an early-morning fight between Young and a West Columbia man in Five Points on March 2. ...
"He was punched multiple times by a police officer and still maintains that," Lourie said. "He has always maintained it, and we’re aware of witnesses to support that."
There is apparently no truth to the rumor that the police mistook Kevin Young for Stephen Garcia and simply believed it was time for his monthly arrest.
Elsewhere...
Happy Father's Day. Minnesota coach Tim Brewster is losing a quarterback. It's, um, Clint Brewster. That would be the head coach's son.
Tim Brewster says, "I respect and admire Clint's decision to further his education and play football elsewhere." ...The prospect of playing time dimmed, though, when Adam Weber was named the starting quarterback as a freshman.
That's gotta really have other teams chomping at the bit to sign Clint: His own father wouldn't play him.
Thoughts and prayers. This time to the family of "Bud" Dudley, the founder of the Liberty Bowl. That would be the site of Steve Spurrier's first (and so far, only) bowl victory, a 44-36 shootout against Houston that was one of the most entertaining South Carolina games C&F has ever seen.
Congrats to the Celtics. C&F isn't really all that big on the NBA, but he is a sucker for the good story. The Celtics exorcised their franchise's recent demons and gave KG a much-deserved trophy by absolutely stomping the Lakers. To see KG relieved of that most unfair weight on any player -- "yeah, but he's never won a championship" -- was truly something. The celebration is underway on the Green Bandwagon.