NCAA Tournament 2017, Baylor vs South Carolina: Highlights, score and recap

“Football was just another game”, said English, 63, an eight-time NBA All-Star who played at the University of SC for coach Frank McGuire, a native New Yorker with a reputation that rivaled that of any Southern football coach in the 1970s. They are taking their fourth consecutive trip to the Sweet 16. Kentucky, Florida and SC have won their six games by an average combined margin of 13.2 points. “This team just has so much talent I can’t do that”. They are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since the field expanded to 64, having beaten Duke in the second-round at Greenville, South Carolina, along the way.

The conference unveiled large-scale – as in massive – advertising in NY ahead of Friday’s East Regional Sweet 16 games at Madison Square Garden.

Win or lose, the games will cap off an extraordinary week for Gamecock basketball fans. “But once they started winning, the crowds started coming”. The upset was the “top draw” of the NCAA tournament’s second-round games on TNT last Sunday, according to Sports Media Watch.

The SEC player of the year has become the breakout star of the tournament after leading wins over Marquette and Duke with 53 points in the two games.

Back on campus there were kids swimming in the fountain outside Thomas Cooper Library. Thornwell wasn’t thinking of leaving but knew he didn’t sign on for this. “Coach has broken down every made shot that he’s had, and I mean-we have all watched at least about three hours of film on just Sindarius”.

A couple more great games in conjunction with his near-unicorn-ness will make his potential stardom more feasible.

He said he realized his team was going to claim victory when he saw Coach K signal to his players not to foul.

Any why not? SC is a great story.

That commitment has a very good chance of paying off in Madison Square Garden this weekend. The Bears and Gamecocks will be facing familiar foes Friday night in the Sweet 16.

“It’s been really exciting”, said Jen Krivan, president of the Charleston County Club. The Bears are 4-1 ATS in their last 5 Friday games, 7-2 ATS in their last 9 non-conference games and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 NCAA Tournament games. And he has led Louisville to the National Championship Game Twice. He wanted to help us build.

SC coach Frank Martin was more than happy to start that talk.

“One of the things I have thought a lot about since I became commissioner is that we should be better at men’s basketball”, said Greg Sankey, who took over as the SEC commissioner a year ago. “So I do see a lot of similarity with West Virginia and SC, and if we just take care of business and do what our coaches tell us to do, we should be successful”. He’s stayed the course and gotten it done. I learned this when I was a young junior varsity basketball coach.

Can this season have lasting impact for USC’s men?

“He’s a great player”, Wainright said. Out West is the same way – there are a bunch of great teams, but few guys who you’d say have star potential in the National Basketball Association. “Beating Duke was a program-changing win, on the biggest stage”.

“You move forward in this business”, he said, “by doing things the right way”.

Baylor and SC played two close games in 2013 and ’14, but multiple friendships began well before that. He’s always going to take care of his former players. “I’ll never turn down an invitation to speak'”.

And it might not be over.

It’s an instant gratification culture and, despite knowing what they signed on for, the Gamecocks’ then-sophomores were discouraged.