Fourth?

The University of South Carolina men’s basketball team has been picked to finish fourth in the SEC Eastern Division by the sportswriters who cover the conference – a bit of a slap in the face considering the Gamecocks won the division a year ago (or at least a share of it) and return all-SEC star point guard Devan Downey and three other starters from a 20-win team.

Where’s the love, yo?

Apparently, the SEC is supposed to be very, very good this year – and Kentucky, Tennessee and Vanderbilt are all supposed to be better than Carolina.

At least that’s the spin coming from the Gamecock apologists over at La Socialista, anyway.

Look, we get it … the chickens’ end-of-season collapse a year ago clearly wasn’t encouraging, although we continue to believe that USC head coach Darrin Horn’s first season was a rousing success considering the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that preceded his arrival on campus.

And yes, we were looking for any excuse to throw “soft bigotry of low expectations” in there.

Anyway, Horn’s solid first season now must be followed by a solid(er) second season.  Anything less than that would be, well, un-solid.

Plus, with his proclivity for wearing Capone-style suits and (too much) “Dapper Dan”-style hair product, here’s hoping Horn doesn’t give us a reason to start mocking him.

Cause them’s easy pickins, y’all.