How the Cocks Kept Crowing

South Carolina advances to Sunday's East Regional final. (MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES)

In NCAA college basketball bracket for 2017, I picked South Carolina Gamecocks to loose in the first round to Marquette on the fact that Marquette had a tradition for winning in basketball and Gamecocks previously did not have that kind of reputation in basketball for more than four decades of not being part of the college basketball big dance.


I am shocked and proud of Gamecocks success being a native born South Carolinian after the Cocks beat Marquette, then powerful Duke and #3 region ranked Baylor whom the cocks destroyed to move into the Elite 8 for the first time in school history and probably in state history for any of its college basketball teams.  Though, I believe, Clemson Tigers made the Elite 8 back in the 1990s when they were on par with their ACC North Carolina school counterparts (Duke, North Carolina, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State) but that was as far Clemson or any SC school ever got in college basketball.


I don’t expect this to happen.  


But what if ....?  


What if those Cocks go all the way to win it all?  That would mean, State of South Carolina, the Palmetto State, the Rebels without a cause, is a good place to be right now particularly for major college sports like football, basketball and baseball.  Of the 3, South Carolina has  2 reigning national champions::  Baseball (Coastal Carolina), Football (Clemson) and, TBD, in basketball.


Go Cocks!  This now California boy is pulling for you.