Ray Tanner discusses South Carolina men's basketball program

South Carolina athletics director Ray Tanner made his monthly appearance on 107.5 Wednesday. As part of his lengthy segment, Tanner touched on the state of the Gamecock men’s basketball program.

In it, he spoke about Frank Martin, this year’s team, some big picture discussions and about Colonial Life Arena as a facility.

The Gamecocks this year are largely out of NCAA Tournament talks right now with five games left in the regular season but Tanner said he likes the way they’re playing right now.

“You talk about nine new faces and older guys there, there’s some ability. They seem to be playing a little bit better consistently. A couple of guys would have good games and a couple of guys off, but they seem to be there together. The veteran guys have sort of taken over. If I were an opposing coach I would not look forward to playing South Carolina and coach Martin,” Tanner said on 107.5.  

“I’m just not. I know the respect he has in his ability to coach. But the way his team is, they’re hard to beat. We’d like to have some games back but he’s been in a lot of those games. You hear those things even out. Let’s hope we do get a few back that we’ve had great battles that got away from us. Maybe they come back to us.”

South Carolina (15-10, 6-7 SEC) sits at No. 98 in the NET rankings and No. 100 in KenPom.

The Gamecocks are 5-8 in games against Quad I and Quad II opponents and coming off a Quad II win Tuesday at Ole Miss.

KenPom projects South Carolina to finish 17-13 and 8-10 in the SEC. Tanner said he’s not going to do a full-fledged evaluation of the basketball program with the season going on but said the goal in every sport is to get into the postseason.

“We’re very hopeful we do that on a consistent basis. Some ADs will make bold statements that you have to make the tournament every year. That’s great. You hope it happens, but it’s not always an easy thing to do,” he said.

“Whether it’s a bad run, close losses or injuries. That’s what our aspirations are. You want to be in the postseason. That gives you an opportunity. We’re in a difficult conference. If you finish strong then you have a chance to beat anybody.”

Martin’s taken his team to one NIT and an NCAA Tournament in his first nine seasons, winning a game in the NIT and taking South Carolina to the program’s first-ever Final Four in 2017.

South Carolina easily could have made it in 2016 and were on the bubble in 2020 before the tournament was canceled.

“Looking back, I know we were close a couple of times but didn’t get in. I think we have the resources and opportunities to recruit at a high level that we should be able to do that,” Tanner said.

“I’m not blaming anybody or pointing any fingers because history is documented. Like Coach Martin said, I saw his quote about the history. There have been pockets in there but there have been voids as well.”

When asked if he gets fans calling about changing head coaches, he said there are a few of those popping up but he’s not “inundated” with those.

“I get my share of emails and phone calls, but it’s not a large majority of people who do that. There are some vocal people who are passionate we need to go in a different direction, but it happens in other sports too,” Tanner said. “I believe in our community Frank Martin is well-respected, he’s liked by a lot of people. Would they like to see basketball succeed more than it has? I mean we were pretty happy in 2017. I think that’s normal.”

The Gamecocks host Legends Weekend and are scheduled to bring in the No. 7 player in the country GG Jackson as well for an official visit this week.

Tanner also said he doesn’t think Colonial Life Arena is too big of an arena, something Martin alluded to earlier this week.

“I don’t think that plays in. We’re doing very well. I guess we’ve led the country in attendance on the women’s side but coach Martin’s team continues to draw,” Tanner said. “Ticket sales are doing well there. I know at times with the upper deck, it’s a big building. It was built many years ago, just over 20 years ago.

“There were a lot of considerations in the building and none of us had a hand in that. It was built for different events…our women’s basketball team is drawing at record levels. Coach Martin’s had a lot of games too,” Tanner said.

“At times a 10,000 seat arena could be ideal but there are times you do need more seats. I’d like to be in a situation where we can accommodate our fan base as much as possible.

“You could say let’s go in between and a lot of people have built smaller buildings but we have a lot of great concerts that come to town and a lot of different events we do have. I understand that comment but you can look at it a lot of different ways.“