For the fifteenth consecutive year, I am publishing an account of my top 10 best and worst sports moments of the past year.  Scroll through the blog archives from late December or early January of each year if you want to see the previous editions. Keep in mind that these are given from a purely subjective viewpoint.  When I say “best/worst moments” I’m not talking about great or horrible sporting events.  I’m talking about moments that affected me the most positively or negatively.  Overall, this was a below average sports year for me with the bad moments outweighing the good. Without further ado, here are my best and worst sports moments for the year 2024.

Best Moments:

1

South Carolina women win national title with undefeated season and Cody Rhodes wins WWE title at Wrestlemania

April 7

The men’s tourney did not bring me much joy in 2024, as the biggest early round upset occurred against my favorite team in the dance (Kentucky). However, the women’s tournament was epic as my South Carolina Lady Gamecocks won their third national title in program history (first undefeated title) by knocking off Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes in the title game. That same night also gave me a great moment to share with my son, as his favorite wrestler Cody Rhodes won an epic main event match over Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania XL to win the WWE championship for the first time.

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2

Kentucky basketball beats Duke for Mark Pope’s first signature win as UK head coach

November 12

Even though I have been a diehard Kentucky fan since birth, I was never a fan of Coach Calipari. That is why I was so happy to see Mark Pope take over for Coach Cal this past and then subsequently beat my most hated sports team on the planet (Duke basketball) in his first big game as the Cats’ head coach.

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3

Kentucky baseball wins Super Regional to reach the College Baseball World Series for the first time in school history.

June 9

Back-to-back University of Kentucky moments are featured on this list, as the Cats finally ended their drought as the lone SEC program never to make it to Omaha.

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4

Palmetto Perfection: South Carolina upsets Texas A & M at same time that Clemscum gets upset by Louisville

November 2

This was one of those rare Saturday nights during college football season where all of the right teams pulled off all the right upsets. These nights don’t come often, so they must be celebrated when they do (see SC field storming above).

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5

Warrior Chiefs finish off unbeaten season and win local youth flag football championship

May 11

I always like to throw in a personal sporting moment into this list every year and here is my entry for 2024. This was the first-ever league championship in my not so illustrious career as a youth sports coach.

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6

Rivalry Weekend Revelry: South Carolina upsets Clemson and Michigan upsets Ohio State in early window of games

November 30

This moment would have been higher on this list, but for the fact that neither of these upsets meant much in the grand scheme of things. Clemscum and Ohio State still went on to make it to the College Football Playoff, while South Carolina fell just short of an at-large bid. With that being said, it was still great to see two of my most hated teams in all of sports lose at home to their underdog arch rivals at the same time.

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7

Wake Forest basketball upsets Duke and takes out Filipkowski during court storming

February 24

This moment would be # 1 on this list but for the fact the Demon Deacons completely collapsed after this loss and ended up falling short of their first NCAA tourney bid in seven years. At the time though, this win felt absolutely massive.

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8

Super Saturday: South Carolina has epic come from behind win over Mizzou, Denmark wins first-ever Miss Universe title

November 16

This was another great college football Saturday that even featured a major beauty pageant milestone from my family’s most direct country of origin.

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9

Wilmington Sharks win first Petit Cup in team history and first Coastal Plain League title in 25 years

August 2

I admittedly did not follow this local sports conquest as closely as I should have because of the olympics going on at the same time. Nevertheless, this was a milestone baseball win for a team that seemed to always fall just short of their league’s coveted postseason title.

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10

Xander Schauffele wins first major title at the PGA Championship

May 19

I have always been a big fan of Xander, so I was quite happy when he claimed his first major title this past May, even though I cashed out a bet I had on him minutes before, which would have won me a lot more money.

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Worst Moments:

1

Black Christmas: Kentucky and SC both get upset in first round of NCAA tourney and Samford gets screwed in opening round game vs. Kansas

March 21

Just a really bad first round of the NCAA Tournament for me in 2024.

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2

Andy Murray retires from tennis

August 1

It was definitely the right time for this to happen, but any time your all-time favorite athlete leaves competitive sports, there is going to be a lot of heartbreak. I was really glad to see him go out with one last magical run to the quarterfinals of the Olympic men’s doubles bracket.

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3

Homecoming Weekend Hell: SC and KY lose football heartbreakers to LSU and Georgia and Wake gets demolished by Ole Miss. I then lose fantasy baseball semifinal on a stat correction.

September 14-15

Lots of bad things happening in the same 48 hour period. The Gamecock loss was particularly heartbreaking because it ended up being the reason they were left out of the College Football Playoff bracket.

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4

Baseball Regional weekend: Wake gets eliminated in heartbreaker to ECU and SC and UNCW get eliminated before regional final

June 1-2

2023 was a magical baseball year for me as both South Carolina and Wake won their regionals, and then the Diamond Deacs almost won the national title. That good fortunate did not carry over to 2024, however, as all my teams were vanquished early in this past year’s NCAA baseball tournament.

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5

After Christmas Apocalypse: all Cinderellas lose in 2nd round and Wake loses in Elite 8 of NIT to Georgia as heavy favorite

March 23-24

My first weekend of the NCAA tournament both started badly (see worst moment# 1) and ended badly based as you see here.

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6

Clemson football wins ACC football title to make it into CFP over Alabama and South Carolina, despite Palmetto Bowl loss

December 8

Nothing quite summarizes the unfortunate existence of a South Carolina fan like the fact that they beat their arch rival Clemson on the road to end their season in what was proclaimed “the biggest game in the history of the rivalry”, just to see Clemson earn a bid to the College Football Playoff a week later, while the Gamecocks were left out.

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7

Georgia Tech sinks Wake Forest’s NCAA tourney chances with an upset at the buzzer

March 5

For the third straight season, a late season losing streak cost the Deacs an NCAA tourney bid. The culmination of this past year’s meltdown came with this shocking loss on their own homecourt.

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8

U.S. soccer fails to advance in COPA America tournament

July 1

I am not a huge international soccer fan or anything, but this was a major disappointment for the national team.

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9

Champ Week begins with sadness: UNCW, Hansel Emmanuel, Indiana State, and Pinewood Derby car all pick up losses on same day

March 10

One of the days where nothing went right. The car my son and I built even finished last amongst his Cub Scout den in his local pinewood derby that day.

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10

New Year’s No-Shows: Alabama and South Carolina get upset in bowl games and Boise loses CFP Quarterfinal Game

December 31

Nothing quite like ending the year with the horrible sports day that we saw yesterday. Not only did Alabama and South Carolina lose in dramatic fashion but Boise squandered itself to be the Cinderella story of the College Football Playoff. Oh well, here’s to a better sports year in 2025!