Paul Mainieri: 'I had just underestimated the strength of the conference'

Paul Mainieri made it clear from the moment he became South Carolina’s head coach last summer. Given that he was about to turn 67 years old, he didn’t have a long-term plan to get the Gamecocks back to their winning ways. He was coming in with a one-year plan to turn things around.

“I don’t see why we can’t compete for everything right out of the gate,” Mainieri said at his introductory press conference last June. “I didn’t come here to lose. I didn’t come here to be mediocre. In my opinion, Carolina baseball represents excellence. I think we need to win now.”

But while Mainieri came in with the right mindset, his first season on the job hasn’t gone the way he expected. With three weeks left to go in the regular season, South Carolina is on the outside looking in for the postseason with a 25-20 record.

“I thought we would do better,” Mainieri said on 107.5 The Game on Monday. “I really did.”

Part of this season’s struggles has to do with the competition it has regularly faced. After getting off to a good start during the non-conference portion of the schedule, the Gamecocks were swept by Clemson at the beginning of March and then continued to take series losses, even some sweeps, once SEC play began.

South Carolina only has one series win against quality competition under its belt, which came against then-No. 11 Ole Miss over Easter weekend. Sitting at 5-16 in the SEC, the only team with a worse record is Missouri, which still remains winless at 0-21.

Being a part of the SEC for so many years at LSU, Mainieri knew how difficult the league was. At least he thought he did.

“I had just underestimated the strength of the conference and how much better the conference has gotten in the last couple of years,” he said. “The players are so much bigger and stronger and more experienced, older. We just have not been able to match up in some cases with them.”

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Though postseason odds are slim, the Gamecocks still have three series left to see what they can do. They’ll be at home for two of those weekends. Florida comes into town starting on Friday, then LSU two weeks after that. In between that, they’ll take a trip to face a top-10 Auburn team next weekend.

If there’s one way that South Carolina could extend its season, it would come by winning the SEC Tournament. Starting this year, all 16 teams will be in Hoover with a single-elimination format. Mainieri won the conference tournament six times when he was at LSU, most recently in 2017.

But with that being an uphill battle in and of itself, a long offseason most likely awaits the program in the coming weeks. Mainieri admitted they will have a lot of work to do to get things back on track.

“We’ve got to go out and get the players,” he said. “We’ve got to go out and recruit like crazy and make us better. But the kids have been great to work with. They’ve worked hard, and for the most part, they’ve done the best that they can.”

As tough as it has been, though, Mainieri has no intentions of waving the white flag. Not now and certainly not as long as there are games to be played.

“We’re never going to give up, and we’re not going to give up,” Mainieri said. “… I don’t care what our record is, we still have to represent our university and our state the way it’s supposed to be represented. We’re going to do that.”

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