Last chance to dance for South Carolina seniors

It began with a Tweet.

South Carolina’s basketball players each stared at the nearest phone, dialed to Twitter and displaying a leaked NCAA tournament bracket during last year’s selection show. Nobody knew if it was accurate, but the Gamecocks didn’t see their name among the 68 teams and began to add two and two.

They were told to meet as a team for the show and not attend USC’s watch party for fans. They groaned when Vanderbilt, a team they beat and had more wins than, was summoned for the tournament. Then came the agony of a congratulatory text from the NCAA selection committee, a hasty apology for sending a false message and the realization that the leaked bracket was correct, right down to the last team.

And that team wasn’t South Carolina.

“We thought after we beat Arkansas, we were locked in. Coming into that day, everybody was just waiting to see where we were going, who we were going to play,” Sindarius Thornwell said. “We were hurt. That’s the ultimate goal and we thought we did enough. A few of those teams, we proved we were better than them.”

But it didn’t matter. Coach Frank Martin didn’t rail at the selection committee or start punching numbers into his cell, seeking an explanation. He did the only thing he could, which was face his shattered team and say that as disappointing as the snub was, the Gamecocks still had a postseason game the next week.

“He just told us that we were waiting for the NIT and to get ready for that,” Thornwell said.

At that moment, Thornwell looked at Michael Carrera, the Gamecocks’ soul for four years, and began preparing. Duane Notice didn’t have to speak to his backcourt mate to know what he was thinking, and he was in, too.

Their taking of the leadership reins started with that leaked bracket and has carried throughout the short NIT run and a long summer, when the Gamecocks lost Carerra, two other seniors and four underclassmen. As the new season begins, Thornwell and Notice know they’ll be depended on to be USC’s best players every night, whether that means scoring 20 or helping Martin coach eight newcomers.

They’re ready. While it may be impossible to replace Carrera’s frenzied intensity, the two seniors have prepped their skills and personalities to make the 2016-17 Gamecocks their team.

Which it has to be, considering they’re USC’s two most experienced and proven players.

“Me and Duane are both 1,000-point scorers in three years, and the young guys look at us and say, ‘OK, if they’re finishing first with what they’ve done, I got to keep up with them,’ ” Thornwell said. “We try to lead by example.”

“We have to instill in them that when we first came here, we didn’t have all the fans that they see now, we didn’t have the gear we have, all the privileges that are coming with the success we’ve had,” Notice said. “When we came here four years ago, the program wasn’t nearly where it is now. They see how much we sacrificed to get us to this point.”

Neither dreamed they’d be seniors without an NCAA tournament, not when friends and former prep teammates or opponents were making the Final Four or in one case, drilling a 3-pointer for the national championship. Thornwell figured he wouldn’t make it as a freshman, but as a sophomore, of course he would.

When that didn’t happen, their junior years had to be it, because how could it not be? USC began 15-0. It won 24 regular-season games to only seven losses, and while a first-round SEC tournament exit stung, it shouldn’t have been a death blow. Power-5 teams with 24 wins don’t get left out.

And then they were.

The snub won’t be preached in every pre-game this year because the majority of this year’s team wasn’t there for it. Yet it’s always there for Thornwell and Notice, because they’ll carry the most pressure to ensure USC doesn’t have to face it a second straight season.

“It’s not something you can really ignore but it’s not something you can dwell on, either,” Thornwell said. “We keep it in the back of minds and know we got to do a little bit more to make it.”

The Gamecocks lost their inside presence, although they return above-the-rim authority Chris Silva and signed four posts that stand 6-9, 6-9, 6-10 and 7 feet. Senior Justin McKie has also been around for four years, although health has limited his role. Sophomore P.J. Dozier is hoping summer training with Steph Curry, among others, will help him avoid the quick foul trouble that dogged him last season.

Martin wisely bumped a summer exhibition trip to Costa Rica up a year to acclimate his rookies for what they’ll see this season. The extra practice and games didn’t hurt, but it also created instant chemistry – forced to be around each other all day every day for a week in a foreign country gave the players no choice but to start learning each other.

It seems likely USC will lean on Dozier, Thornwell and Notice to score and direct while the big men get used to the college game. Notice, the SEC’s Sixth Man of the Year last season, will probably move back into the starting lineup and has been fine-tuning his inside game so he won’t be pigeonholed as an outside shooter.

The X’s and O’s will be dissected when the first ball is tipped, but Thornwell and Notice know the rest of their seasons began with that Tweet. How will they handle it when adversity hits? How will they get their arms around a fresh-faced team and come up with a plan to -- as USC loves to promote -- win anyway?

“We’ve all had talks with coach. One of the first things he told us was we don’t have to be a Michael Carrera,” Notice said. “Mike led by his actions because of where he came from. The good thing about having senior leaders is we bring different attitudes to leadership. Me, I’m not a vocal rah-rah guy but I think we lead by example.”

The two were annoyed by one preseason projection, which picked the Gamecocks ninth in the SEC. They also weren’t pleased when their names weren’t on the same magazine’s preseason All-SEC first, second or third teams.

“They robbed us,” Thornwell said, teeth bared and 180 degrees from his usual joviality. “Three preseason teams, and me and Duane aren’t on one of them? We’re projected ninth with three starters returning, with two of them 1,000-point scorers? A lot of teams lost everybody.”

The narrative will feature talk of motivation, from that and last year, but the two say they won’t make it a season-long theme in the locker room. “We’re in that position every year, where we see the predictions and it’s ‘Wow, they picked us low,’ ” shrugged Notice. “The young guys don’t even know about it.”

They’ll coach, instruct and teach their teammates while making it clear there’s a way to conduct themselves, and then provide that example. USC could take that extra step this season, but will only go as far as its leaders take it.

“We got to be the hardest workers, we got to finish first, we got to be on top of everything so they know, this is what it takes,” Thornwell said.

Perhaps the selection committee will see that too, and if a bracket is leaked this year, USC will finally join the party.

This story was originally published November 10, 2016 at 9:21 PM with the headline "Last chance to dance for South Carolina seniors."