How Frank Martin’s philosophy shines through, even after a hard-fought road loss
South Carolina men’s basketball coach Frank Martin was given the chance. A lot of coaches would’ve taken it.
After his team staged a rally that always felt short on time before it finally was, he was asked about the Gamecocks’ fight, the way his team barged back into a game against Mississippi State and cut an eight-point lead with 24 seconds left to one point with seven seconds to go.
But after the 79-76 loss at Starkville, Martin quickly turned from any idea of pumping that up to a root cause of his team’s problems.
“We’re not going to give in,” Martin said. “The players aren’t just going to give in and get out of the way. But our fundamentals defensively, the way we try to play, we were just not good. The guards were not good.”
Most teams down like that, they go quietly. His did not, but to him that effort was expected.
Instead it was that defense, the defense that held a very good Bulldogs offense to its 10th-worst day of the season and fifth-worst in SEC play.
Sometimes that might win a game, but to Martin the point was how principles and fundamentals were missed. Guards left forwards in bad spots and the fouls piled up (28 made free throws tied for the most from a Gamecocks opponent this season).
In the face of miscues that kept South Carolina from getting over the hump in a building called, well, The Hump, Martin’s bench became a revolving door. Guards went in for other guards after a bad pass or hasty shot. Forwards replaced each other and back again after a mistake in motion or foul after a bad rotation.
“I wasn’t happy with some guys tonight,” Martin said. “So the hook was a little shorter for some. When you make mistakes playing, you let people play through stuff. When you make mistakes because you break away from the structure that you practice to play through every day?
“They break our structure, you’ve got to come out. ... They can be as aggressive as they want in that structure.”
It’s another piece of the philosophy. Players can play through certain things, but they must fit a part of the wider plan.
The baseline exception of fight is probably what had his team turning what amounts to an impossible situation into something at least within the realm of possibility. South Carolina had the ball down three points, made one free throw and was a rebound away from a shot that could have tied the game.
That effort should help his team in the NCAA’s NET rankings, likely something he’d scoff at coming off a loss. They took on a team that was expected to win by a solid margin and made things closer, less comfortable.
His counterpart, MSU coach Ben Howland, compared the game to a root canal, lavishing praise on Martin and his program.
The Gamecocks will have at least six more chances to make teams that uncomfortable. Depending on how that goes, they could have more. And through it all, that mantra, an expectation of effort and demand of adherence to the fundamental structure will carry through.
As it did all the way to the end Wednesday, even in a defeat.
This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 10:17 AM.
