South Carolina not lacking any urgency after 'wake up call' moment
After an embarrassing loss to Georgia last Saturday, a frustrated Mark Kingston walked into the South Carolina locker room.
He simply asked his players if anyone was ready to quit, or if they thought the season was over. To no surprise, nobody said yes. But it was a hard reality check, one they might have desperately needed.
“It was kind of a wake up call if I’m being honest. I mean, it was just kind of enlightening. He was upset, obviously,” Jake McCoy told GamecockCentral’s Jack Veltri in a Garnet Trust exclusive interview.
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Despite all of the struggles in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Dawgs, Kingston still believes that his team could overcome this. However, there is no time to lolly gag.
“I think he holds us to a very high standard, and he was like, ‘We know you’re better, like let’s go. Nobody wants to quit, we all want to keep going. We want to host, we want to win a regional, win a super regional. Like come on, let’s go,'” McCoy said.
With one weekend to go in the regular season, time is seemingly of the essence for South Carolina. The Gamecocks have a critical series with No. 1 Tennessee starting on Thursday in Knoxville (6:30 p.m., SECN+). It’s safe to say a repeat of last weekend cannot happen again.
“I think the standard is set very high and that was something that we talked about is that I want to be held to a high standard,” McCoy said. “Not that I’m the type of person to slack off, but I don’t want that to be allowed to happen, you know what I mean?
“I think the standard of this program, what I’ve learned from coming in here, like it’s held at a very high standard. People expect South Carolina Baseball to win. And I mean, I’ve seen that. And I think Kingston and the coaches have that same expectation.”
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Heading into the series, the Gamecocks will have a lot of work to do to get to where they want to go. Hosting postseason baseball in Columbia doesn’t seem likely, as D1 Baseball has them as a two-seed in the Clemson Regional.
As this time, South Carolina sits at No. 19 in RPI and are 9-15 in Quad I games, which are some of the metrics taken into consideration to determine the postseason field. But another bad weekend could slide the team back even further than they already are.
Even with seemingly a lot at stake this weekend, it doesn’t change the mindset, according to Kingston. They know what they have to do. And it starts by handling business against a tough foe.
“There’s always a sense of urgency,” Kingston said. “If you have to ramp that up because you had a tough weekend, then something’s wrong. We always have a sense of urgency, and the guys know that every day is to be taken advantage of. And so that never changes.”
