How new volleyball coach Tom Mendoza took USC from floundering to the NCAA tourney

When Tom Mendoza was introduced as South Carolina’s volleyball coach this past January, he made it clear — he wasn’t taking over a program in need of a complete rebuild.

At the start of his first season in August, he doubled down, saying his goal was the NCAA tournament, despite the fact that USC hadn’t made the postseason since 2002 and finished last year at 12-18 after coach Scott Swanson was fired midseason.

Three months later, Mendoza has done exactly what he set out to do. South Carolina will play Colorado on Friday in the opening round of the NCAA tournament in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Gamecocks finished the regular season with a 19-9 record and a 10-8 mark in the SEC, both the program’s best finish in the past decade. The last time a first-year coach posted a winning record for Carolina was in 1984.

So how did Mendoza do it?

“The buy-in was there from the student-athlete perspective,” Mendoza said. “I don’t think the attitudes have changed that much. I think we’ve tried to set a really clear path as to what it actually takes to get there and not put things like making the NCAA tournament on some unachievable pedestal.

“We tried to make it very realistic of, if you want to do it, this is the path, this is what you need to do, and let them go put the work in. Obviously we’ve added some transfers that have solidified some areas of our game that were a little bit lacking last year. But I said it at the press conference when I first got here, this wasn’t a tear it down and rebuild situation. There was talent in our gym, there were good players.”

Two of those good players, junior Mikayla Shields and sophomore Mikayla Robinson, were both named All-SEC on Sunday, marking the first time since 2002 that South Carolina has had multiple players earn that honor. Shields was All-SEC last year as well, and Robinson was on the conference’s all-freshman team, but both credited Mendoza for creating a culture change that unlocked the Gamecocks’ full potential.

“In previous years we’ve always had some good puzzle pieces and we’ve always had a lot of good little parts together, and I think Tom has been the glue that has brought us together and made us even better than we thought we could have been,” Shields said.

The key, the players said, has been Mendoza’s focus on staying in the moment and not putting too much pressure on the team.

“We just have a better mentality than last year because of the coaching staff, and it’s just more calm and collected,” Robinson said.

“Tom talks all the time about making sure we take every day as it comes, and every day treat it like the most important practice ever and that’s how we’ve been practicing all season,” Shields said.

Still, the magnitude of the moment South Carolina’s name appeared in the 64-team bracket wasn’t lost on anyone in the program.

“When you’re with a group when they do it for the first time, that’s pretty exciting, and I think that was maybe the best part, seeing this group experience it, seeing their name pop up on the bracket for the first time,” Mendoza said.

Moving forward, of course, that success means there will be pressure to do it again. That’s pressure Mendoza welcomes. His goal is not just to elevate volleyball at the University of South Carolina but across the entire state.

“A lot of high school coaches and a lot of club coaches in the area have reached out and said how much it means that we can show that South Carolina can compete against other areas and other regions .... This proves that we can do that at the University of South Carolina. Obviously there are still steps we can take to climb even higher, but this is a nice example that the model works,” Mendoza said.

In the more immediate future, Mendoza is focused on getting his team ready for an 18-13 Colorado squad. Now that the Gamecocks are finally in the NCAA tournament, the obvious hope is to mount a deep run. But the Gamecocks will still take some time to soak in the unfamiliar, exciting territory.

“We want them to be happy about the fact that they’re there, but we also want to make sure that we’re focused on the things that are important. And once we start getting ready for pregame, we’re 100 percent dialed in,” Mendoza said.

NCAA match info

Who: South Carolina (19-9) vs. Colorado (18-13)

When: 5:30 p.m. Friday

Watch: Not televised but will be streamed on BTN2Go (available only to Big Ten Network customers)

This story was originally published November 29, 2018 at 10:05 AM.