Stalking Darrin Horn

Well, let's see how long we can go with it this year.

It's early January, so you know what that means: NCAA tournament projections. And with South Carolina's win at Baylor last week, we can at least entertain the discussion for awhile.

ESPN's Joe Lunardi is out with his first bracketology of 2009.  According to these very early projections, South Carolina still has a ways to go, as it doesn't make Lunardi's list of top eight bubble teams that miss the tournament. The SEC only has three teams in Lunardi's 65: Tennessee as a No. 7 seed, Florida at No. 8 and Kentucky No. 11.

So yeah, in case you didn't realize yet, this is a really, really  down year for the SEC. I'll have a story later this week expanding on the league's state of basketball affairs.

Here's another interesting site: It accumulates bracket projections from the media and apparently anybody walking by the building. Out of the 24 brackets linked right now, South Carolina is in three of them, all as a No. 12 seed.

We'll keep following this as long as it's relevant. For now, a couple other quick numbers:

- South Carolina's RPI rank is 102 after the Wofford game.

- USC is No. 54 in the Ken Pomeroy ratings, which is aimed at being more predictive of how teams will do in the future. The Gamecocks slide in just behind Boston College, fresh off its upset at North Carolina.

Nothing major, just a few post-Baylor, pre-Wofford nuggets for ya:

- Before Friday's upset at Baylor, it had been almost 12 years since South Carolina beat a ranked nonconference team. That came on Feb. 15, 1997, when Eddie Fogler's Gamecocks beat No. 8 Cincinnati.

- The last win over any ranked team, on the other hand, was less than a year ago, when the Gamecocks won at No. 22 Mississippi. 

- Darrin Horn is now 2-5 in his career against ranked opponents. That counts the win over Drake in last year's first round of the NCAA tournament. Drake was 14th in the final AP poll. (Western Kentucky at that time was only receiving votes from a couple sportswriters. I remember that well because I was one of the two. The second-to-last week, when Horn's Hilltoppers only received a lonely one vote, that was me.)

- It has apparently been awhile since a Gamecock scored 60 or more points in consecutive games, as Downey did last week. Records from the past 15-20 years can be spotty (don't ask), but it looks like Downey is in rarified company.

- Zam Fredrick will likely reach the 1,000-point barrier for his career Monday night against Wofford. He's seven points away, counting his first two seasons at Georgia Tech. (I'm told South Carolina is not planning on stopping the game or anything.)

- Downey has long since reached the career mark, and also has 838 as a Gamecock. He had 403 his freshman season at Cincinnati.

- The Gamecocks are leading the SEC in 3-point field goal percentage.

- Finally, South Carolina now ranks 108th in the all-important RPI, which is still relatively low but an improvement of about 80 spots over where they stood before last week. Playing two good teams can really be a help.

Well, how about that?

It may be small consolation to Gamecock fans in general this week, but the men's basketball team on Friday night earned a very, very good win at No. 20 Baylor. A lot of fans didn't see it because it was unavailable on regular cable. (Yours truly wasn't in Waco, either, and had to go to a friend's house to view it.)

So for those of you who missed it, just an excellent performance for Darrin Horn's crew, which got the quality nonconference win it needed to at least have an outside chance at the NCAA tournament. Now it's on to the SEC portion of the schedule, after Wofford's visit on Monday.

The rest of the SEC also appreciated it, as the beleaguered league gained another much-needed victory. South Carolina's win at Baylor joins a couple from Tennessee (over Georgetown and Marquette) and Arkansas (over Oklahoma).

It was also just another typical road showing by the Gamecocks.

Since Devan Downey and Zam Fredrick became eligible, this team has come up with these type of performances away from home. Last season they won at Ole Miss – its last win over a ranked team before Friday – and at Arkansas.

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Don't quite put Beas Hamga in a South Carolina uniform just yet.

The 7-footer from Cameroon, who is transfering from UNLV, said Friday he has not committed, and doesn't have a timetable for a decision. Hamga still thinks the South Carolina visit went well, but is apparently still sorting through his decision.

Hamga had a visit to Rutgers temporarily scuttled by bad weather, but he may reschedule. Recruiting maven Phil Kornblut reports that other schools, including DePaul, may become involved.

It's hard to say right now what will happen or when we will know. I know is this is why I'm glad I don't cover recruiting as a full-time job.

Anyway, it may be until next week that we hear something official, or maybe later. Hamga still hopes to enroll somewhere for the spring semester. Wherever he goes, he will be eligible to play after the 2009 fall semester, or sometime in mid-December.

Ah, the last blog post of 2008. It was a wonderful year, featuring three months of a coaching search, plenty of subsequent Darrin Horn stalking, some snide football posts that elicited angry e-mails, and plenty else.

Don't worry, this will not be a retrospective. We have neither the inclination or the time to do so. Instead we'll finish 2008 with a little news: It looks like the Gamecock men's basketball team will have a new addition soon, in the form of a 7-footer from Cameroon.

Beas Hamga, who has left UNLV, may have already committed by the time you read this. I exchanged voice mails with Hamga Wednesday night, and the last I heard he was planning on calling Horn later that night.

"Everything went well there," Hamga said of his visit, which wrapped up Wednesday.

Horn and his staff cannot comment at this juncture because Hamga is a recruitable athlete. They can talk once he enrolls, if that indeed happens.

Phil Kornblut has already reported, citing a source, that Hamga was expected to commit. That didn't surprise me, after I found out Hamga had canceled a visit to Mississippi, and his only other scheduled visit was to Rutgers. Coupled with a charged atmosphere Tuesday night for the Clemson game, you could see where Hamga was impressed.

My understanding is that Hamga would be eligible to play once the 2009 fall semester was over, in about mid-December. He would have to wait because he played five games this season for UNLV.

Hamga only played five games for the Running Rebels, getting sparse minutes and totaling five points and four rebounds. This was actually his second season on the Las Vegas campus, having redshirted last season.

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This blog comes with the requisite disclaimer that we don't endorse gambling, yada yada yada. But I thought this was interesting.

The Las Vegas sportsbooks have Clemson as a 3-point favorite over South Carolina tonight. That apparently seems like free money to a lot of people, as more than 90 percent of wagerers as of this afternoon have taken Clemson and the points. (That's according to http://www.sports.com/sportsbook/liveodds.php?sportName=ncaab.)

And yet rather than move the line in Clemson's favor, the books are keeping it at a 3-point line. What that means, who knows. But I've learned that those guys in Vegas know what they're doing.

First off, I hope you'll forgive the lack of a blog the past five days. The Christmas break saw yours truly go home to Washington to see family and friends - and along the way see a few cars with Gamecock decals.

In fact at one point in Fairfax, Va., I saw a South Carolina logo on one car, drove one block and saw a Clemson one. And here I thought I was on vacation from the rivalry.

I guess when you're a part of it, even as an impartial observer, you never escape it. There's a good psychological paper to be written on whether fans would want to be away from it: Does the average Clemson or South Carolina fan need the rivalry, do they feel each needs the other to exist, or would some rather the other school just go away?

That sets us up for Tuesday night's visit by Clemson to South Carolina. The basketball rivalry is always a fraction of the intensity of the football one, but this year the game really snuck up on people. That has a lot to do with the timing; USC asked for a switch from the usual date, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, claiming that an exam reading day fell on that date.

But the game is also being overshadowed by the pending bowls, which is also instructive for how football dwarfs everything in this state. Clemson and USC are getting set to play what essentially are two meaningless football games, and more people appear interested in that than a game that will be critically important for the Gamecocks.

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You know those car commercials out now where older actors reminisce about their best Christmas gifts? (A pony, a big wheel, an early video game system). Well, Darrin Horn's holiday gift season was a bit different.

You see, the South Carolina coach was born on Dec. 24. So on this Christmas Eve, while not only scrambling to wrap gifts for his wife and two kids, he's also celebrating his 36th birthday. As for Horn himself, and what it's been like to go through life with a Christmas Eve birthday ...

"You get shorted on your presents of course," Horn said this week, smiling. "Nothing to look forward to during the year. I don't know. It's kind of like anything else, when you don't know any different it's just what it is."

Those of us lucky to be born smack in the middle of the year (May 22, to be exact), would naturally assume that parents would double-up. Then that creates the problem of making the siblings jealous that young Darrin was getting, say, two big wheels while everyone else got one.

Horn said his parents didn't double-up much, but he doesn't appear scarred for life. The biggest drawback was not having the proper space between gift opportunities.

"I never wanted for anything, but I think the one true negative was if you had that big thing you wanted, like maybe a bike or something like that, most people said, 'Oh wait for your birthday.' Well my birthday was at the other time that something good was coming," Horn said. "So that would probably be the only thing. But all in all it's not too bad."

Last year I imagine Horn asked Santa for a high-major coaching job.

So this year, I'd think he asked the North Pole to deliver a five-star big man.

In this economy, maybe Santa can only make it a four-star. I'm sure Horn would take it.

Happy birthday, Darrin. And to everyone, a merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, and all that.

And I don't just mean chicken nuggets. But they were good too.

I spent Monday night over at the Chik-fil-A Classic at Richland Northeast High School, mainly watching a game filled with high-major prospects. So did Darrin Horn, almost all his staff, and his entire team, as they all got a look at future Gamecock Lakeem Jackson.

Jackson put on a good show for his future coaches and teammates, helping lead Christ School of Arden, N.C., past Miller Grove of Atlanta. That set up an intriguing matchup Tuesday night: Christ School will play Pinewood Prep for the tournament championship, meaning it's also a battle between South Carolina's best recruit (Jackson) and Clemson's (Milton Jennings of Pinewood Prep.)

I hate to say it, but if you have the choice between seeing this game and the South Carolina-Presybterian game, go to the high school game. Not only will it probably be closer, but there will be more overall talent on the floor.

Christ School has at least one future Duke player, senior center Mason Plumlee, as well as sophomore Marshall Plumlee. That's why a guy named Mike Krzyzewski was sitting in the front row behind the Christ School bench, along with assistant coach Chris Collins.

The same team also features Belton native Lucas Troutman, a junior who as I've also said is still on South Carolina's radar. Troutman, a 6-foot-8 forward, is definitely a prospect, but it's still unclear at what level. I'm not absolutely sure he fits Horn's system yet, because I didn't see much of his outside game.

This was the third time I've seen Jackson play, and I've already written extensively about him. I will say that he continues to impress with almost all facets of his game. He struggled with his free throw shooting on Monday, another sign it'll be awhile before he's a factor with his outside shot. But as for his overall game, from talking to other knowledgeable observers, the consensus is that Jackson is the kind of fill-up-the-box-score type of player who will help the Gamecocks down the road.

Finally, I wanted to weigh in on a player in another game: Center Keith Clanton of Orlando Christian, who nearly became a Gamecock. Why bother with a guy who won't be here next year? Because it's instructive to Horn's recruiting.

Clanton has signed with Central Florida. The fact that South Carolina pushed so hard for a guy that picked UCF, and even had South Florida ahead of USC, was on the face of it a bit confusing. But after watching Clanton in the Chik-fil-A, I see why Horn and his staff wanted him so much.

He's very comparable to Mike Holmes, whom Horn has described as the perfect kind of big man for his system. Clanton is about 6-8, physically well-built, but runs the court well. On Monday night he hit a 3-pointer, handled the point during one possession, and made about the prettiest interior behind-the-back assist that you'll ever see.

So why didn't USC get him? I'm told Clanton was simply a homebody, and Tampa was even too far for him to go. Central Florida may have gotten a steal, if they use him right.

Too bad for the Gamecocks, who really could have used him. But I certainly don't blame Horn and his staff for trying so hard.

You will forgive, I hope, the corny phrase, but the Chick-fil-A Classic is quite the feast for South Carolina hoops recruiting. (I know, I know. Look it's three days before Christmas and I've still got shopping to do.)

Mere minutes after finishing off The Citadel on Saturday night, Darrin Horn and most of his staff drove over to Richland Northeast High School to watch Lakeem Jackson. The senior swingman at Christ School in Arden, N.C., has already signed to play at South Carolina next season.

Jackson's team gets a prime time slot Monday night at 8:30 p.m., for those of you who'd like another look at him.

I've written about Jackson before, but just to reiterate, I think he's a very good prospect who will be a favorite to replace Zam Fredrick in next year's starting lineup. He's not a program-changer, at least not yet, because his outside shot isn't there. But he can make a good impact at South Carolina as a physical guard who can rebound, defend and score when needed.

He might not be the only future Gamecock at the Chick-Fil-A. Ridge View junior Mike Green has been offered by South Carolina, Auburn, Utah State and Winthrop. You hear a lot of different opinions on Green, who is a lean 6-foot-7 and plays the post for his high school team.

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