‘We’ve hit the reset button completely.’ Inside Frank Martin’s USC team rebuild
Slowly and surely, Frank Martin is starting to look more like himself. His head still glistens in the light — shaved clean after two bouts with COVID-19. But Martin’s eyebrows are growing back, and a boundless zeal has re-emerged in the eyes below them.
“God, I feel good again!” Martin interjects during a July 7 news conference — a mantra he repeats multiple times. Compared to the sullen, ominous press conferences that came at the tail end of a six-win, pandemic-ravaged season, Martin seems joyful this July. He’s picking his teeth with a toothpick while talking to reporters, teasing them with his trademark sarcasm.
“I‘m just happy as I’ve ever been in my coaching career,” Martin said. “And unbelievably excited for what we have in place right now.”
Last season was not a happy one. The South Carolina men’s basketball team made more news for its multiple COVID-19 shutdowns and positive cases than it did for the games it played. The Gamecocks’ non-conference schedule was all but wiped out by COVID delays, and at the start of conference play USC lost both Martin and top assistant Chuck Martin for a road game at LSU, both testing positive for the virus and both dealing with symptoms that would affect them for weeks afterward.
Frank Martin said he didn’t start feeling like himself again until after the season ended. His first case of COVID-19, contracted before the season, weakened his immune system and triggered both arthritis and a latent case of alopecia, which caused his hair to fall out in chunks. Martin’s second case took a heftier toll. For weeks Martin said he struggled to keep food down, to stay awake past 7 p.m., to push past the fatigue and channel the energy for which he’s long been known.
Most of all, Martin couldn’t silence the doubt that lingered in his head. And doubt had never been an issue for the nine-year USC head coach, a coach who prides himself on toughness and who typically projects an air of bravado. But so much was unconventional about last season — the COVID-19 precautions, the unpredictability of postponements, the lack of in-person connection — and Martin said he didn’t manage it well. As a result, he could feel the trust decline between him and his players.
“I’ve never been in that moment. I’ve never doubted in my team,” Martin said. “Even my first year here, we were undermanned and I had players that didn’t understand what I was asking and I didn’t understand them. We weren’t good enough to win. But I never doubted in our team.
“... And last year I did. I doubted in my abilities. I doubted the team, and I learned a hard lesson. I better not do that ever again.”
The college basketball season is months away, but the feeling around this year’s team is already drastically different. The team itself is almost brand new, with seven players transferring out and six new players transferring in, along with three freshman signees who Martin and his staff have raved about. Even more, the COVID-19 restrictions that limited the team a year ago have been loosened. For five weeks, players have been able to work out together on campus, participate in weekly practices and interact with coaches in person.
After last season ended, Martin said he couldn’t wait to hit the reset button, and in many ways, the Gamecocks have done exactly that. Basketball games aren’t won and lost in the summer, but the trust-building USC is working on now is something the team didn’t have an opportunity to do a year ago.
“We’ve got a competitive energy in workouts that’s pretty powerful,” Martin said. “I got a feeling I’m gonna have to pull a couple of guys off each other in the heat of the moment next year, because there’s some hard-driving, demanding guys on our team right now.
“I think they’re genuinely excited about putting a South Carolina jersey on and doing their part to get us back to an NCAA tournament and see if we got it in us to make another run. And that’s the enthusiasm and the competitive energy that I think will keep us in a good place next year.”
A new-look Gamecock roster
The Gamecocks will return two key veterans in forward Keyshawn Bryant and guard Jermaine Couisnard, both of whom entered their names in the NBA Draft process but decided to return to school.
Both project to start, or at least play significant minutes, on a team that has more new faces than familiar ones.
Bryant is coming off a career-best junior season in which he finished second on the team with 14.4 points per game and flashed a more well-rounded skill set as a player, adding a mid-range shot to his repertoire and playing with more nuance in his game rather than sheer athleticism. After a standout freshman year, Couisnard experienced a sophomore slump, shooting just 30.2% from the field, but Martin has expressed confidence in Couisnard’s leadership abilities and believes he’s following a similar developmental path as former USC great Sindarius Thornwell.
The Gamecocks will need better shooting across the board, something that Martin said was a key priority in shaping this year’s roster. The team’s leading scorer, A.J. Lawson, was USC’s top 3-point shooter by far, with the team as a whole just shooting 30.5% from deep a season ago. And with Lawson leaving for the draft, the Gamecocks will need someone to fill the void.
Martin has praised the shot-making abilities of Murray State transfer Chico Carter and Washington transfer Erik Stevenson, while also consistently showing excitement for the scoring potential of freshman guards Devin Carter and Jacobi Wright.
“I think the transfer kids have thus far shown that they’re very capable,” associate head coach Chuck Martin said. “There’s a reason why those guys were winning in some cases on teams that played in the NCAA tournament.
“And then the young guys — I think one of the smartest things Frank did a year ago was wrap up Jacobi and Devin Carter. Obviously we were all involved, but Frank was the one that said, ‘Hey, we got to get these guys early because they’re more than good enough.’ ”
Beyond shooting, the Gamecock coaching staff has also shown a clear effort in trying to beef up the frontcourt, which was a point of weakness after the departure of Maik Kotsar and after veteran big man Alanzo Frink was ruled out for the season due to medical reasons.
The Gamecocks most recently added a rare intraconference transfer in the form of LSU 6-foot-11 center Josh Gray, who the team hopes will provide physicality inside the paint. The team also added 6-foot-7 George Mason forward A.J. Wilson, whom Martin said has flashed in early workouts, and they bring in freshman forward TaQuan Woodley.
Those additions will compete with holdovers Wildens Leveque and Tre-Vaughn Minott, both of whom were thrust into action with Frink out for the season. Frank Martin said he believes Leveque took a leap as a player down the stretch last season and that the 6-foot-10 rising junior might be in the best shape of anyone on the roster.
Minott, meanwhile, joined the team midseason as a freshman from NBA Academy Latin America and might have the most natural scoring touch of any big man on the roster. His offseason goal has been to slim down his 280-pound frame and improve his conditioning, which limited his minutes a year ago.
The outlook for next basketball season
Will it be enough?
In all his enthusiasm for the new season, new faces and new vibes around the team, Martin acknowledged that it’s easy to feel optimistic in July. Part of his renewed energy stems from the return to normalcy from the COVID-19 issues that plagued the team a year ago.
But Martin also knows as much as anyone how important this season could be for his status at South Carolina. Rumors of a coaching change circulated for weeks after the season ended. And after an extended review period, Martin signed a two-year contract extension that didn’t include a raise and lowered his buyout.
“I don’t think it’s any secret. I had to engage in some conversations after the season with the people I answer to that were real and honest,” Martin said. “And I respected them, but it’s the first time in my career that I have had a bad year. And I was disappointed because you would think that we’re coming off a bad four-year run and not the winningest six-year period since the ’70s in the school.”
Martin has posted a 153–133 (.535) record in his nine seasons at the school, sending the team to its first-ever Final Four in 2017 but missing the NCAA tournament in each of the subsequent years, creating a hunger for a return to postseason play.
While Martin said he loves the competitiveness and the joy he’s seen in summer practices, there’s still much work to be done in figuring out how all of the new pieces fit together.
Right now, though, it’s all about culture.
“What I’ve told our team is, we’ve hit this reset button completely,” Martin said. “Regaining trust is like from Day 1 again. And we’re all humbled for the opportunity that we have and excited to learn and grow and earn each other’s trust.”
The Gamecocks roster situation
New to the roster for 2021-22
- C Josh Gray (transfer)
- F Brandon Martin (transfer)
- F A.J. Wilson (transfer)
- G Chico Carter Jr. (transfer)
- G James Reese (transfer)
- G Erik Stevenson (transfer)
- G Devin Carter (signee)
- G Jacobi Wright (signee)
- F TaQuan Woodley (signee)
Back from last season
- G Jermaine Couisnard
- G Mike Green
- G Ford Cooper Jr.
- F Keyshawn Bryant
- F Wildens Leveque
- F Ja’Von Benson
- F Tre-Vaughn Minott
Departures
- G AJ Lawson (NBA Draft)
- G Trae Hannibal (transfer)
- G T.J. Moss (transfer)
- F Jalyn McCreary (transfer)
- F Justin Minaya (grad transfer)
- F Trey Anderson (transfer)
- F Alanzo Frink (transfer)
- G Seventh Woods (transfer)
