Can anyone tell me about Cam Scott, a basketball shooting guard from Lexington, SC? I assume he is really good? Anyone from Lexington have insight? Announcing on Friday.
Basketball recruiting: Cam Scott
- Thread starter BattleshipTexas
- Start date
From what I know he’s the highest prospect in the area since GG. We didn’t do anything with GG, but it would speak volumes for recruiting to land a kid of his talent.
We’ve got to get the kids this good in Columbia because there are not many and those that are this good often leave the state. He’s got some good schools on his list. If he comes here he should be able to start on day one.
All this coming from a guy who is usually very cautious in his analysis of high school players.
Scott has been a starter on a very competitive 5A ballclub since the 9th Grade. Dorman got them in the 5A Upper State this year. Lexington eliminated my son's team in the Second Round. I don't put him in the class of GG as far as potential, but very solid player. Good, not great athlete. Good shooter. I wished he would have grown a bit more as he has been in that 6-5 to 6-6 range since 9th Grade. Needs to get stronger. Nothing that a college weight program can't cure. Think of a more polished Zachary Davis as a comparison, and, although Davis got limited playing time last year, I am high on Davis.
That's sort of how they described BJ when he came out of Irmo. I remember watching him in the state title game his senior year at the coliseum.
I thought he was a good athlete but not a great one. He wasn't going to out athlete too many good players. But you could see he was a very smart player even then. He could anticipate things so well on the court and he played a little taller than his listed height. That gave him a really good advantage against most players.
Tight lipped over there. Claims Cam told one of his friends but he wont tell. Son guesses Texas but that isn't based on anything.
i think we will be decent. Meechie and Jacobi started to play well in the backcourt at the end of last season. I like the transfers of stute (very good shooter), Cooper (Good playmaker) and Mack. I’ve always thought Zachary Davis would be the most impactful player of last year’s class. Felt GG was too young to handle load of being relied on as a #1 and would be gone to the NBA before he really developed as a player. Would have liked Scott, but we have some answers on the wing this year. The big question will remain with the bigs. Can Josh Gray build on the flashes he would show last year and can Boseman Verdonk be willing to shoot the ball and give us anything.
I hope you’re right. We’ve been so bad for so long. 2017 feels like 30 years ago.
I like Meechie. He plays hard. Gotten a lot better. Jacobi has to work on ball security. Just seems to lack confidence with the ball in his hand.
Cooper should have an impact right away. Maybe the best transfer pickup under this coaching staff.
Josh Gray has potential. He’s still a project. Just not sure if he can consistently give us something. When he’s on we have a fighting chance.
Still a lot of question marks. Still extremely lacking in the depth department. I think we will be better than last year, but I’m not sure it’ll be by much. We did play better the second half of the season which was promising.
Do not forget about Collin Murry Boyles. I think this kid will get some playing time this season and could actually have an impact for the team.
Heard he is doing well in practice. I am cautiously optimistic with him, but you never know with freshmen until they get into real game action.
we should be much better than we are in basketball. I don't know what has to change at USC to fix this, but the leaders in the black communities around the state have been actively sabotaging our program (and Clemson's too) and steering talent in state prospects to leave the state for decades. This has to stop and we have to convince our best in state prospects to stay home and represent their state before our programs can see any sustained success.
Yep, to Texas. Said he wanted to help get them back to the Final Four. He could help us get back to the final four, but not to be. Maybe some NIL helped his decision.
These things take time and we have made inroads with local recruits. GG came. Zachary Davis is an in-state kid, Jacobi Wright is an in-state kid. Murray-Boyles and Conyers from the ‘23 class are both local kids. Talon Cooper didn’t come to us initially, but he has come home. You can’t reverse history of a couple hundred years with one Black coach. Even if you can, you are never going to win them all. So, we lost a recruiting battle in Scott. We have won a few in-state lately and we have to remember that.
I have a feeling this has more to do with greed than racial tensions. I think its far more likely that these church pastors and basketball coaches had their hands out looking for a pay day to steer blue chip recruits and the instate programs havent been willing to do that.
There's more truth to that than you know and its not just the parties you mentioned. The graft is DEEP...
Help team get back to Final Four or help team get back to .500. Playing time or not I take the Texas NIL and play with better players.
You are giving church pastors way too much power.
The church pastor that everyone talks about doesn't even lead a church. He is a youth pastor and does not have near the clout some Gamecock fans give him credit for. If he had real power, he wouldn't be crowing on the internet about it. That is an attention seeking move. I can tell you that a much bigger issue was that we were one of the last programs in the area to have a Black coach in basketball. I had to deal with that amongst my people all the time when I wore Gamecock gear. Would hear comments like even Georgia, Ole Miss, and Clemson have had a Black basketball coach. Another issue is that our program has not given due respect to grassroots (AAU) basketball in the area. Those coaches may not be the best teachers, but in many situations they are the first teachers of the game to players we may be looking at. As the old saying goes, "If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all". These AAU coaches have much more influence than high school coaches these days and usually are a big reason why the kids are being recruited. That's who we have to focus on more than a preacher. I don't know if some of you are aware, but church attendance has gone way down since COVID and the Black community is not an exception to that.
Finally, a big issue I see is that many think Black people have to be influenced by someone or something instead of assessing a situation and determining what is best for themselves. We have 5-6 in-state kids on our basketball roster. They assessed our program for what it was and have bought in. It would help if we begin to win some more games and maybe some bigger recruits will follow. However, GG's mom was a South Carolina grad and played a big part in GG coming. Give these parents some credit on assessing a situation for themselves and stop thinking there is some grave force steering kids away from us. Optimism breeds confidence which results in buy-in.
Sounds like you stick your head in the sand and are ignoring reality here.
Obviously there are some kids coming from good homes making good rational decisions. However, a majority of college basketball players are African Americans and most African American kids these days are coming from single parent homes where the father figure in the kid's lives are usually in the form of a coach or church pastor. These adults have sway in the decisions for these kids and you better believe that a lot of them are bad actors looking for a payday if they are associated with a kid with a future playing college sports.
In case no one believes me about this, these are the stats published by the US department of Justice regarding population statistics
Living arrangements of children by race/ethnicity, 1970-2022 | Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Find answers to frequently asked questions about: Living arrangements of children by race/ethnicity, 1970-2022
www.ojjdp.gov
I only pull for 2 teams and Texas is not 1 of them. I only pull for the Gamecocks and the other is anyone that beats Clemson.
i think most losing their minds over the Cam Scott commitment have never seen the kid play. All they see is 4* from South Carolina and lose their minds. Of course I would have liked to see him commit, but he is not this earth shattering prospect that would change the course of the program on his own. Zion coming out of HS he is not. He would have been good piece to a puzzle. Further, he may end up back here in 2-3 years with how wacky recruiting is today. You put together a team now from year to year and see how it goes.0
(Agree with your post)
I saw some of the "pastors" and others saying critical things about Frank that were totally unfair and not based in reality. It was just made up junk. Heck, I saw some be critical of him for taking players out into the community to meet with people at Fort Jackson - and other locations. They were being totally unfair to him. There was nothing he could do to make them happy.
Frank worked his backside off to reach out to local folks and South Carolina coaches. He didn't focus on his own minority heritage but he was very proud of it and that was obvious to any recruit, and any recruit's family and the high school basketball world in South Carolina.
There isn't an honest person in South Carolina that is involved in high school basketball on some level that could say Frank didn't do everything in the world to help his players be successful not just on the court but off the court. The guy was always talking about local kids being productive members of the community after their basketball days were over, etc..
You might not like Frank but it was OBVIOUS he deeply cared about his players. It oozed out of him. He was a pretty emotional guy talking about his players. Many players talked about feeling like they were members his family, eating dinners at his house, etc..
A number of folks in the high school basketball world still worked against him. I have no idea if some of those had any power or just pretended to - but no honest one could say Frank didn't try his best to make in-roads to every area - every community in South Carolina.
Like Frank or not (and I didn't like a lot of the way he acted during games) - I never questioned that he didn't care for his players and worked hard to be a father figure/big bother type person and to help them be productive, high quality members of society off the court.
They didn’t like Frank Dave. I thought he was an okay person, but I didn’t like his approach at all. I was done when he played favorites with his son for playing time. Frank’s approach did us no favors on the recruiting trail. …..and you guys just may have blind spot, but their are underlying racial issues dating back to the late George Glymph not being taken seriously for the job after Felton got fired. These are the things that most Black people won’t say to your face, but the Black Alumni that really support the school will let you know if asked. Have you asked yourselves even once, what’s the difference between the level of passion for the women’s program and the men’s program. It’s Dawn Staley. Not saying you have to have a Coach of a particular race. However, having a Rock Star like Dawn on the Men’s side tends remove whatever issues are out there. Whatever Coach you have, they will need to connect with the community where the players are. We haven’t really been able to hit with a hire in that area. We tend to go too old and established with our hires. Darrin Horn was the exception and he was a disaster too.
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Agree for the most part, Dawn was a very well respected coach and figure in women's basketball, but she didn't become a rock star until she built what she has here at USC. There is no way USC ever hires a rock star men's coach, they are going to have to come here and become a rock star and firing a coach every cycle is not going to get us there!
Yeah Frank did try really hard to connect with the local community. Anyone who listens to how Frank speaks about his players in his pressers is going to come away liking him, but his tough game coach persona was a huge turn off. He would usually spend time outs in key points of a game cursing a player out instead of drawing up a play to try to go win the game, and it cost us a TON of games... and that's why he's not our coach anymore.
In regards to the black community leaders... I dont think it was just Frank, I dont think anyone will be able to do anything to make them happy. We have an African American coach now and that still hasnt appeased that group which is why I was thinking it was more about not getting the handouts.
Its a shame. We have the facilities, resources, and fan support to be very successful.
I didn’t say they liked him. I said that he worked his butt off to make connections with high school folks in South Carolina and that is just a fact
if they didn’t like him then they didn’t like him but it’s not because he didn’t try
People that are gonna penalize a current coach because what a university did before some of them were even born are not people that are ever going to come around
George Glymph should not have been a candidate for the head coach job at the University of South Carolina. He was a high school basketball coach. If they had hired him, it might have worked out but there were 1 million reasons not to do such a thing
it’s unrealistic for anyone to expect USC to do something that 99.9% of basketball teams in division 1 would never even consider
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I know of a high profile player from the past in SC who used his uncle as the "gatekeeper" The kid wanted to come to Carolina but the uncle convinced him to let him meet with the coaches first and he would let his nephew know who would be good to meet with. You did not get access to the player without the uncles blessing. Lets just say our coach at the time wasn't willing to pay the price and the kid went out of state. I got this from a former coworker of mine who's brother was this players high school coach so I have no doubt it is completely true. Have heard similar stories about other good players from our state and other states where you had a litany of people that had to be gone through before you got access to the player. No doubt its even worse now with nil.
That’s my point. We haven’t done a good job in recognizing qualities of a coach that will be successful in this era of basketball. We just seem to go resume and hope it works out. A coach connecting with the community where the players are should be a significant part of the decision. Attacking that community, calling them cheaters, and throwing up your hands is never going bridge that gap.
NBA teams hired George Glymph Dave. Sometimes losers have to take chances, and since the 70’s we have been perennial losers. Further, you don’t give a guy a token interview if you are not taking him seriously for a job. There is also precedent for hiring High School coaches. Gus Malzahn was a high school coach and there are several other examples. Columbia HS basketball was really hot in the Mid-80s. George Glymph was a huge part of that. Even if you don’t trust him with the head job, there should have been some way to get him on staff and see where it goes. It was obvious that he wanted to move beyond High School. He ended up on NBA benches since we paid the man no mind. However, a rift doesn’t occur based on your viewpoint. Glymph may have not been the right man for the job, however, if a community feels a guy was disrespected, you have an issue. So, if there is a feeling of people trying to shake our program down, you have to think about where that energy is coming from. You don’t just write them off as bad people and throw up your hands. Otherwise, you are making excuses and will always lose.
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The man (Paris) has only been here one year. Like I said earlier, you are not going to turn around decades of negative energy overnight. Even if Paris makes in-roads with local recruiting, you are not going to win them all. Some kids may want to get away for college or get away from their current environment. I just see blaming Black preachers as a cop out or excuse to perpetually lose. Sort of like a Black guy saying I can’t win because of racism. Winners find a way to make things happen no matter the circumstances.
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For the record I like Coach Paris, he is hopefully pumping new life into the program.
Pointing out the reason why we cant keep local blue chip talent home is not an excuse for losing, but rather hopefully starting the dialogue on how to address it.
...and that is what I am doing, but from the perspective of how those preachers you refer to may see it. Still think that is not as big an issue as some make it out to be. Grassroot basketball factors play a bigger part in my opinion or the primary male figure in that players life. Could be a preacher, Could be a father or other relative, Could be a coach. The key is competing within the rules. We can't just make the excuse that everyone else is cheating and we aren't. That's just not true or won't really matter in the end. You will have some incidents, but other fanbases will accuse us of the same thing. Check out the Ohio State boards during the period after we got Dylan Stewart.
I don't think its a question of it others are cheating and we aren't... I think its more along the lines of are other programs having to deal with this extortion from coaches, pastors, or other representatives?
Why do you think that outside a handful of years that Gamecock men's basketball is a perennial cellar dweller?
Yes, everyone has to deal with handlers, hangers-on, in some cases preachers or some person of influence that the family trusts. It's a nasty part of the business and basketball is the nastiest because there are only 30-40 players in each class that will turn out to be real difference makers. The early bloomers of that 30-40 know it and people around them already have one eye on your program and one eye on the NBA. In many cases there are going to be asking for concessions of some kind because they have options (a lot of them). Sometimes a shoe company comes into play and you have little shot at a player because of his sneaker affiliation. For example, a kid playing in Nike EYBL is going to be hard for South Carolina to get. A kid playing on the Under Armor circuit we have a chance with. That's why some have mentioned that our contract with Under Armor hurts us for basketball. The key is finding what concessions you can make (with NIL or otherwise) while still being within the rules. All programs have to deal with this. This is not some issue that's specific to Columbia, SC.
Edit: Just did some research on Cam Scott's AAU participation. Plays for Nike EYBL affiliated team, Team United. Nike-Texas. Makes perfect sense now. These are the types of dots you have to start connecting in Basketball recruiting.
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