South Carolina basketball moving on from Frank Martin

For the first time in a decade, South Carolina is in the market for a new head basketball coach.

South Carolina announced Frank Martin was fired Monday at the conclusion of his tenth season in Columbia. It comes after a blowout loss to Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament.

South Carolina finished its season 18-13, 9-10 in the SEC. The Gamecocks missed the NCAA Tournament for the fifth straight season and ninth time in 10 years under Martin.

“After a thorough evaluation of our men’s basketball program, we have decided to make a change,” Ray Tanner said in a release. “We are grateful for the dedication that Coach Martin has made to Gamecock Basketball. We wish him and his family nothing but the best in the future.”

It marks the end of a tenure that took the program to the highest high but with largely non-tournament quality teams after that.

Martin took over a team and program on life support and built things consistently through his first few seasons.

Martin led the Gamecocks to 25 wins in his fourth season but South Carolina was snubbed for the NCAA Tournament. The year after, though, was the pinnacle of Martin’s time at South Carolina.

His team won a school-record 26 games, made the program’s first NCAA Tournament since 2004. They went on a magical run to the Final Four with upset wins over Duke, Baylor and Florida. They did it behind a core group of talent led by Sindarius Thornwell, Duane Notice, PJ Dozier and Chris Silva.

All went on to play professionally with Thornwell, Dozier and Silva getting shots in the NBA.

During that run, Martin won as many NCAA Tournament games (4) as the program had combined between 1971 and 2004, a span of eight tournament trips.  

In his time at South Carolina the Gamecocks have produced the league’s Player of the Year (Sindarius Thornwell).

They’ve also had one Defensive Player of the Year (Chris Silva), two Sixth Men of the Year (Duane Notice and Hassani Gravett), three first-team all-league selections and five players named to the all-freshmen team.

After finishing with a losing record in each of his first two seasons, the Gamecocks only finished below .500 overall just once the remaining eight seasons.

South Carolina’s COVID-riddled 6-15 year in 2020-21 was the only time during the last half of Martin’s tenure he didn’t finish with at least a .500 record.

The Gamecocks undoubtedly showed progress after last season’s putrid year but ultimately it was not enough. The 10 losses in SEC play came by an average of 15.9 points.

What ultimately marked the end for Martin was the lack of postseason success coming off the program’s highest achievements.

Despite success in the league, Martin hasn’t led the Gamecocks to a postseason of any kind since the Final Four. That’s a span of five seasons, four excluding COVID-shortened 2020.  

“Our expectation is to compete for Southeastern Conference and national championships,” said Tanner. “We have great facilities, a passionate fan base and we provide our student-athletes an outstanding experience at the University of South Carolina. We will hire someone with a winning coaching history, who has the energy, passion, and commitment to excellence in all areas of the student-athlete experience.”

More often than not, it came because of bad non-conference losses to the likes of Wyoming, Stetson and others. Those losses crept up again this year with games dropped to Princeton and Coastal Carolina.

South Carolina also struggled to take advantage of a good run on in-state talent. They missed out on a few highly-ranked players that went to schools like Murray State, Ole Miss, Alabama and Tennessee.

The Gamecocks almost moved on from him after the six-win year, opting to bring him back after the state legislature got involved. He returned with a restructured contract.

It’s a combination of all of it that ultimately led to Martin’s dismissal. Now South Carolina will have a full coaching search on their hands for the first time since the 2012-13 season.

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