Frank Martin, of South Carolina, admits he did a bad job as a men’s basketball coach last season. He also believes that his history shows that he knows how to turn things around.
“I did a bad job at the helm this year,” Martin said Thursday of the Gamecocks ’6-15 season, the worst showing of his 14-year coaching career in the state of Kansas and South Carolina.
South Carolina never found his foot and Martin acknowledged he couldn’t help his players pick up pace.
“We have work, man,” he said. “What happened last year was unacceptable. I think I’ll bet myself I’ll find out.”
The coronavirus pandemic played a certain role. There were two program shutdowns for 41 days in which the Gamecocks played only twice and did not have a full team to practice due to medical protocols.
Martin tested positive for COVID-19 twice since May, the second time he suffered a more serious illness during South Carolina’s dormant period in January.
Martin remains confident he can move things forward. He’s done it before, he noted, leading a South Carolina team that last stayed in the SEC the year before they arrived in 2013 in the Final Four in 2017. At 18-13, the Gamecocks were in the NCAA tournament bubble in 2020 the pandemic canceled the event.
Last week he got some breathing space for this to happen with a two-year contract extension linking him to the program during the 2024-25 season. There was no increase. In addition, Martin’s $ 6.5 million purchase if he was released right now would be reduced to zero if the school fired him after two more years.
“Is that the contract I wanted? No,” Martin said. “But if they didn’t want me here, they could have fired me.”
Martin said he had long, heartfelt conversations with athletic director Ray Tanner to discuss why things went wrong last season. Tanner said he was confident Martin had a plan to sort things out and recommended the extension to school president Bob Caslen.
“I think we made that decision, which was in the best interest of the university,” Caslen said earlier this week.
The new contract came after South Carolina was on parole for two years in February for bribes accepted by former assistant coach Lamont Evans.
Martin will have a different roster to help him try to win again. Five team members, including fourth-year striker Justin Minaya, have entered the transfer portal.
The Gamecocks have added four transfers, led by guard Erik Stevenson, who will join his third Division I school after playing two seasons at Wichita State and Washington last season.
Two two-digit starters and scorers, striker Keyshawn Bryant and striker Jermaine Couisnard, are going through the NBA draft process but have not signed with the agents. Martin said both have been in off-season training and hope to return.
The wait will be longer for the team’s top scorer last season, AJ Lawson, 6 feet 6, to decide his plans for 2021-22. He averaged 16.6 points per game in 2020-21. Since Lawson went through the NBA draft evaluation the last two seasons, Martin said he has no choice but to return this time if he decides to become a professional.
“Be careful,” Martin said.
Martin did not speculate that he would be fired or that he would analyze coaching opportunities to look for another job. He said he never wanted to leave, but used it last month to figure out how to fix the problem.
“I don’t get caught up in innuendos. I don’t get caught up in fake narratives,” he said. “This month has been frustrating for me because I didn’t do my job, not for anything else.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.