Frank Martin’s Gamecocks practice with ‘sense of doubt’ after COVID-19 pause
The South Carolina men’s basketball team will play its first home game of the season — and first game in nearly a month — against Florida A&M on Saturday afternoon.
Maybe.
Until both teams take the Colonial Life Arena court and until the referee tosses the basketball in the air at 1 p.m., there’s no way to know for sure. Not even head coach Frank Martin could say for certain that the Gamecocks will play, and that’s no indictment on him as a coach or on South Carolina as a program.
That’s the reality facing every college basketball coach — men’s or women’s — as COVID-19 cases surge across the country this winter.
The South Carolina men have missed five straight games due to positive tests within the program. Since a Dec. 5 road game at Houston, the Gamecocks have paused activities, restarted them, then paused a second time. They’ve practiced just a handful of times during that period, with few of those at 100% intensity.
This week was the first week in a long time in which the Gamecocks were able to string together a few weightlifting sessions and on-court practices, gradually building up their efforts after days and weeks in isolation.
But practice doesn’t feel the same as it did before the team’s COVID-19 outbreak.
“They’re excited because they get to be on the court, but there’s ... a sense of doubt,” Martin said. “Like, ‘Can we finally play a game? Can we practice more than one day without getting shut down again?’”
In a candid session with reporters Tuesday, Martin talked about the struggles and ethical conundrums of coaching during a pandemic. He said every time the Gamecocks attempted to get back on the court in the last few weeks, another positive test would roll in, restarting the team’s time in quarantine. While he couldn’t go into specifics about individual players, he said as a group that some players expressed symptoms while others were asymptomatic.
The effects of the team’s time in isolation have been more pronounced. Martin said Tuesday that he saw players gasping for air after 40-45 minutes of practice. Players in isolation can’t go to a gym, can’t work on their shot or their ball skills. Due to university policy, any student caught outside of his or her quarantine area will be suspended for a semester.
Through it all, Martin has found himself grasping for answers. He’s not alone in that.
Florida star Keyontae Johnson collapsing on the court was a moment that shook the entire sport. Doctors reportedly diagnosed Johnson with myocarditis — a condition that could be related to his case of COVID-19 before the season. Johnson has rejoined the Gators, but head coach Mike White said there’s no telling if or when he’ll play again this season. It is not yet known, at least not publicly, how much of a factor COVID-19 played in Johnson’s health scare.
In another surprising moment, the Duke women’s basketball team announced on Christmas that it would cancel the rest of its season “due to safety concerns” amid the pandemic. Earlier in December, Duke men’s coach Mike Krzyzewski questioned how safe it was to play and called on the NCAA to evaluate the situation.
Martin said he’s reached a point where he doesn’t care about winning or losing anymore, saying he just wants his players to be “at peace.” He worries about pushing players too hard come game time, saying he might have to treat Saturday’s game like a scrimmage in terms of how he manages minutes on the court.
There’s no talk of shutting down for the season like the Duke women’s team, no talk of players opting out. As of this moment, the Gamecocks intend to move forward with this season. Yet Martin acknowledged the fluidity of the situation Tuesday. He’s maintained throughout the pandemic that any opportunity to play a game is a victory in itself.
And he said that if his players want to play, he has a duty to help them do that.
“I’m a parent. I’ve got a son that plays Division I basketball. I’ve got a son that plays high school basketball. I’ve got a daughter that plays high school volleyball. It’s hard. It’s hard as a parent to, you know — do I take my daughter to the club volleyball practice? Am I exposing her?” Martin said. “... I don’t have that answer. I think we’ll get to the finish line. And I think there will be enough teams to have an NCAA tournament.
“...But if I’ve got five parents who say, ‘Man, I can’t have my child dealing with this anymore. I’m just shutting them down for the year.’ Then what am I going to do? Go play the rest of the year with seven, eight guys? That’s not fair for anybody. We’re not there, but that’s just a scenario I’m throwing out there.”
The Gamecocks have managed to play just three games this season, all on the road, winning just one of them. The team was still finding its identity when it shut down, and with Southeastern Conference play set to begin Jan. 6 against Texas A&M, the Gamecocks won’t have much time to shake off the additional rust they’ve gained during their shutdown.
Martin has consistently defended his players throughout the offseason and early portion of the season, saying this isn’t the year for fans to criticize struggling players or harp on wins and losses. At 54 years old, Martin said he has a difficult time handling the emotions that accompany COVID-19 and maintaining positivity — and said it must be even harder for the 18- to 21-year-olds on his roster.
“It’s really confusing, because I’m all about coaching to win, and I’m all about making young people do right, and I’m all about protecting young people, and right now those three things don’t connect with the environment that we’re dealing with,” Martin said. “(Villanova coach) Jay Wright is one of the great people in our business from an intelligence standpoint, from a coaching and from a success standpoint, from all of the above, doing right by players.
“He just got (COVID-19). They’re shut down. And it’s difficult, man. Heck, our own government don’t know what’s right. So how am I gonna figure out how to handle COVID? I got no idea. I’m trying to put two days in a row together is what I’m trying to do right now.”
NEXT USC BASKETBALL GAME
Who: South Carolina (1-2) vs. Florida A&M (1-5)
Where: Colonial Life Arena
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Watch: SEC Network
This story was originally published January 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
