The Daily Feed: March 18, 2012

TDF - She came and then drove away, sunlight in her hair.

Lady Gamecock Basketball

Life of a Gamecock: Lady Gamecocks Advance To Second Round with 80-48 Win Over Eastern Michigan. Adam's take on the big "W" from the NCAA women's tournament. Is Dawn Staley's team poised for a deep run? We have to get past Purdue first.

Gamecock Football

Post & Courier: Shaw fine-tuning his play. This is sweet music to my ears. Shaw might not have Wilson's, Bray's or Murray's pure QB skils (yet), but man does Connor have heart - and heart counts for a lot.

AJC: From Friday, a funny story how the HBC has paid the Peach State a not-quite-true, but genuine compliment - Is Georgia catching up with Florida in producing top-tier D1 prospects? With the recent luck that we've been having with metro-Atlanta/north-Georgia prospects, let's hope so.

Al.com: Recruiting progress report: Who's hot, who's not and who's going to shock you. I thought it was interesting that The Big Spur's J.C. Shurburtt was making such a big a deal out of Trammel Terry's re-commitment to UGA - after all, we're just about stacked at WR. In any event, J.C. is spot on when he says "there is never cause for concern in recruiting in March." My view is that we've have huge turnover on our coaching staff - all upgrades in my opinion, but it will take time for guys like Brown, Sands, Botkin and Robinson to get into their new territories, In any event - Dillon's Brice King was visiting USC on Friday to watch spring practice. We're fine. For now, at least.

Gamecock Baseball

Gamecock Central: Gamecocks drop game, series. In a division filled with giants (UF, UGA, Vandy), did we over-look the 'Cats as giant killers? Picking up the pieces starts today by avoiding a sweep at Lexington.

Gamecock Basketball

Ron Morris: It’s a tough job. On the whole, I'd say this is a pretty accurate and fair-minded piece from Ron about some of the inherent difficulties facing the USC basketball program, though I don't think they're insurmountable. For example, he points out that the Palmetto State doesn't produce a lot of basketball talent - but there is a good base if a coach can keep the good kids home (e.g., Brice Johnson, Sindarious Thornwell) and supplement with out-of-state recruiting particularly from Atlanta, Charlotte and Florida. Ron also says that players in ACC country don't want to play in the SEC, but it's not like ACC programs like Clemson, Virginia Tech and Maryland are reaping in the ACC-land talent, and despite recent success, FSU, Virginia and NCSU have been down more than they've been up. Again, it comes back to coaching - the players are out there, we just need to convince them that they'll be playing for a winner at Carolina. Finally, I disagree that the Colonial Life Arena is as big of an albatross as he makes it out to be ... its layout looks very much like the Bud Walton Arena at Arkansas and Ohio State's Value City Arena - which have great home-court atmospheres; and for those of you that never got to see a game in the Carolina Coliseum/Frank McGuire Arena, it wasn't all that great - I found it to be too dark and too vertical. Bring the right coach, and we'll turn out in droves to fill the CLA.

Matt Barber: Over at Dixie Fried Sports, Matt Barber separates the contenders from the pretenders in the South Carolina Coaching Search.

Athlon: Our friends at Athlon Sports also did a run-down on 6 Coaching Candidates to Replace Darrin Horn at South Carolina (from Thursday).

Bob Lutz: McClatchy Wichita Eagle sports columnist writes that the ball is firmly in Gregg Marshall's court. Well, we knew that all along, and it's not like he's the only fish in the ocean.

Anderson Independent-Mail: Along that same vein, Brad Senkiw reports that USC's Hyman begins national coaching search. From Friday.

Loose Feed

Andy Staples: UNC case shows how reward still outweighs risk for cheating. I'm still cogitating on what the UNC penalties mean for USC.