Frank Martin on South Carolina's mindset entering SEC Tournament: 'We don't need a reset'

South Carolina’s regular season came to an end with an 82-71 loss at Auburn on Saturday. Now, the Gamecocks are gearing up for the SEC Tournament. As South Carolina gets ready for the tournament, head coach Frank Martin does not believe that his team is in need of any kind of reset.

Martin acknowledged that South Carolina wasn’t good enough against Auburn, but also said that the Gamecocks are a good team, and that the next 48 hours will be pivotal.

“We’re a good team. There’s nothing to reset,” Martin said on his mindset as South Carolina enters the SEC Tournament. “It’s just kind of take a deep breath and trust in who we’ve become. The season teaches you to win or teaches you to lose. And this team obviously is a winning team. So the season has taught us to win, and we’ve played really good basketball coming down the stretch. We just came into the building that probably has the best home court environment in the SEC right now, not from a size, but an energy, with really good players, and we went nose to nose with them.

“And again, not good enough. So in my mind, that’s not a good thing, but nothing to be ashamed of. We just got to separate now from the regular season. We got to utilize the next 48 hours to rest our bodies a little bit. It’s been a dogfight of a conference season, and be excited for the opportunity to play games hopefully for us on Thursday, and go from there.”

Martin, South Carolina begin SEC Tournament play on Thursday

The Gamecocks finished the regular season with an 18-12 overall record, including a 9-9 mark against SEC opponents. South Carolina entered SEC play with a 9-3 record, but after splitting its two first conference games, the Gamecocks dropped three in a row. Then, South Carolina responded with a three-game winning streak, before dropping three more games in a row.

The Gamecocks responded to their second three-game losing streak of the season with a four-game winning streak, but then lost two of their last three games to end the regular season. Ultimately, South Carolina finished with the seventh seed in the upcoming conference tournament.

South Carolina faces off against Mississippi State in the second round of the SEC tourney. The Gamecocks would then face Tennessee in the quarterfinals on Friday if they beat Mississippi State on Thursday.