South Carolina’s Frank Martin Began His Career in Miami
Martin stayed for four seasons at Northeastern before leaving to become an assistant on Bob Huggins staff at Cincinnati. It was another job that would change the course of his life.
Martin spent two seasons under Huggins at Cincinnati and one at Kansas State. When Huggy Bear left for West Virginia, Martin was named the Wildcats Head Coach.
He spent five seasons in the little apple of Manhattan, Kansas and was 117-54 for the Wildcats. His 2011 teams were ranked third in the pre-season. They were coming off of a 2010 season in which they finished 29-8 and reached the West Regional Final before losing to Butler.
Martin has turned the culture around at South Carolina. The Gamecocks were 10-21 and 2-14 in the SEC the season before he was hired. They went 28-38 in Martin’s first two seasons in Columbia. In 2015 they finished 17-16, their first winning record in six years.
In 2016, South Carolina earned its first postseason berth since 2009 when they received an NIT bid. They would be eliminated in the second round by Georgia Tech.
This season was South Carolina’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 2004. It was only their fifth bid since 1974. Their win in the first round over Marquette was the program’s first NCAA Tournament win since 1973. That broke a five-game NCAA Tournament losing streak.
This is the best that South Carolina has been since the late 1990’s under Eddie Fogler. Those Gamecock teams suffered heartbreaking first round losses to Coppin State as a two seed in 1997 and to Richmond as a three seed in 1998.
The run that South Carolina has had this year began with a first round victory over Marquette and continued in front of their home crowd in Greenville, South Carolina with an upset of Duke. Martin has gotten his players to buy into what he is teaching.
Down seven to the Blue Devils at halftime, Martin and his team still believed they could win the game. Martin relayed the conversation in the locker room at halftime between him and his players in the Players Tribune article.
"“You guys are playing the game, not me. But based on what I see, I think your defense is really bothering them.” And I looked around the room. “What do you think?” They all responded, “Yeah!” “So if you know you can guard them, and we’re only down seven after shooting 7 of 35 from the field, do you think we can win this game if we start taking better shots?” They all said, “Yeah!” And I just nodded, “Me too. Let’s go.”"
South Carolina shot 71 percent in the second half after shooting 20 percent in the first half. They blitzed Duke for 65 second half points and advanced to their first Sweet 16 since 1973.
Led by SEC Player of the Year Sinadarius Thornwell and Martin’s leadership, the Gamecocks surprised the College Basketball World. Martin and South Carolina lose Thornwell, third leading scorer Duane Notice and backup guard Justin McKie after this season.
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Martin will return second leading scorer P.J. Dozier and has created a culture of winning that should continue as long as he is there. That culture and work ethic began as the child of immigrants in Miami.