Tournament team? ESPN analyst has South Carolina men in Big Dance next year
The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament ended the South Carolina men’s basketball team chances of the postseason this year.
But Joe Lunardi thinks the Gamecocks will be one next season. The ESPN Bracketologist has USC in his first 2021 Way-Too-Early Bracket.
According to Lunardi, the Gamecocks will be an 11 seed in the East Region but will have to play in the First Four against Colorado in Dayton. The winner of that would meet Texas.
Lunardi also has in-state schools Furman and Winthrop in the bracket. Winthrop would have been in the 2020 tournament after winning the Big South Tournament title. But the NCAA Tournament was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Gonzaga, Villanova, Creighton and Kentucky will be No. 1 seeds, according to Lunardi.
The Gamecocks went 18-13 this season and would have faced Arkansas in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament before the postseason games were halted. Lunardi had USC as one of his last four teams out in his last Bracketology before the shutdown.
USC hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since making it to the 2017 Final Four.
“I know this, internally, I’m extremely excited,” USC coach Frank Martin said last month. “I’m proud of our guys, proud of how they fought this year, our growth and where we’re headed. I truly am of the belief that we were going into the SEC Tournament, play really well and put ourselves right back in the middle of that whole (NCAA) tournament if we were given the opportunity.”
USC loses senior starter Maik Kotsar from this year’s team but will return a bulk of this year’s squad. The Gamecocks are waiting to see if AJ Lawson will be back for his junior year. The Canadian is contemplating testing the NBA Draft process for the second year in a row.
USC also will have Seventh Woods, who sat out this year because of NCAA transfer rules, and bring in freshman Patrick Iriel and Ja’Von Benson.
