Frank Martin took South Carolina to historic heights. So where did things go wrong?
By the end of the Frank Martin era, it just wasn’t enough. That’s all there is to it.
The third-longest tenured coach in South Carolina basketball history is done. In a decade, he took the program to the greatest heights it had ever seen, but the inability to get the floor just a little higher ultimately brought the end to that era.
His last season with the Gamecocks fit the mold perfectly: a decent record but not enough there to go dancing — or even reach the NIT — all after a rather messy continuation of the marriage last offseason.
He leaves a legacy that’s complicated, not particularly in an off-the-court sense, but because he brought uncommon success just below the level that keeps a coach around for a while.
What we know is he brought a program that has had a lot of struggles to a high point, breaking a range of streaks on the way. Before 2017, South Carolina had not made the NCAA tournament in 14 years. The Gamecocks had not won a tournament game since 1973. They’d never been to a Final Four. They’d never had the top player in the SEC.
All those things changed in one magical spring, when everything came together and the team made a Final Four run that frankly felt impossible at almost every step.
But there wasn’t a good enough followup.
One of the beauties of college basketball is that making the NCAA tournament stands as a key barometer. It’s a stark line. You make it, or you don’t.
At a school with history like South Carolina’s, acceptable might only mean qualifying once every two or three years. Doing that would carry a coaching tenure for a while.
Instead, Martin’s last five squads never reached that bar. The three season after the Final Four run each seemed about two wins away from a spot in the NCAAs, with sets of bad losses serving as albatrosses in two seasons and an inability to win a few more close games against good teams dooming the third.
In 2020-21, the ceiling fell in during a 6-15 COVID-riddled season, and then things got strange. Reports surfaced that he was being told to look around for a new job, and the school started to make efforts to find a replacement. Weeks later, the cost of his $6.5 million buyout was being called out at the State House, with then-President Bob Caslen not having a good answer about eating the cost.
In the end, Martin got an extension that wasn’t an extension, without the security of a bigger buyout. He couldn’t deliver the postseason, again, and he’ll get a smaller buyout around $3 million.
Remembering Frank Martin
In the announcement of the divorce Monday, Martin didn’t have even a stock quote.
Beyond that, a certain feeling of staleness had set in.
Martin’s public persona includes a certain tone of brashness. There’s a spirit of believing in himself and the way he does things, not caring what folks at-large think. That’s an acceptable approach for a coach, but when the baseline level of success isn’t there, the tone just doesn’t resonate.
At the end, the accounting will say some nice things about Martin. He’ll leave with the third-most wins in school history, one of the program’s nine NCAA trips, the best postseason run. He built a program that earned wins against notable opponents with regularity and often finished at .500 or better.
But after that magical ride in his fourth and fifth years, things stalled out. The teams in subsequent years were solid, but not good enough.
He imprinted a style for relentless defense, even if that came with offense that was more built on power than artful skill. He built the identity he wanted, and it carried through most of his tenure. His teams had trouble with turnovers in the latter portion of his time at USC. Large portions of the roster were rebuilt annually, often with transfers and odd recruiting finds. Landing star power became an issue late.
Martin will find a home somewhere. Hiring him won’t be the coup it was when Eric Hyman pulled him from Kansas State, but someone should hand him a program. If not, he’ll be a top assistant candidate at several spots.
The job he leaves is almost as unusual as his time in Columbia. It’s a program with little recent historical success, relatively speaking, sitting in town with a strong basketball tradition. But it has never been able to leverage that, or keep North Carolina powers and others from landing the state’s best talent. The resources are certainly there, but it takes more than that.
Whoever comes next will take on that uphill challenge. Names will float out, some working in-state (Bob Richey), others with S.C. ties (Mike Boynton) and some beyond that (Sean Miller?). Whoever lands the job will try to make the Gamecocks what Martin couldn’t: a semi-consistent NCAA tournament team.
But he shouldn’t just be remembered for how things plateaued. He was the fireball on the sidelines who shocked the sport by trading a good spot for a long-struggling program. His USC run featured quirks: his strange suspension early on, few big-time recruits, the Brian Bowen saga, the roster-altering BB gun incident, to name a few.
He had a knack for getting the best out of players late in their careers after they weathered years of his style. He often spoke of the players he lost from the roster for one reason or another as still being his “guys” in a sense that went beyond the game.
Fiery and philosophical, he created memories and moments many Gamecocks won’t forget. In a few years, when this divorce that was years in the making is behind them, maybe that will be enough.
Frank Martin at USC, year by year
2012-13: 14-18 (4-14 SEC)
2013-14: 14-20 (5-13 SEC)
2014-15: 17-16 (6-12 SEC)
2015-16: 25-9 (11-7 SEC) NIT appearance; lost in second round
2016-17: 26-11 (12-6 SEC) NCAA appearance, won four games, advanced to Final Four
2017-18: 17-16 (7-11 SEC)
2018-19: 16-16 (11-7 SEC)
2019-20: 18-13 (10-8 SEC)
2020-21: 6-15 (4-11 SEC)
2021-22: 18-13 (9-9 SEC)
TOTAL: 171-147 (79-99 SEC)
South Carolina basketball coaching history
Ranked by win total
1. Frank McGuire (1965-80) 283-142
2. Frank Johnson (1941-42/1946-58) 174-175
3. Frank Martin (2012-22) 171-147
4. Dave Odom (2002-08) 128-104
5. Eddie Fogler (1994-2001) 123-117
6. Bill Foster (1981-86) 92-79
7. George Felton (1987-91) 87-62
8. Darrin Horn (2008-12) 60-63
9. A.W. Norman (1929-32/1934-35) 57-57
10. Ted Petoskey (1936-40) 37-67
This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Frank Martin took South Carolina to historic heights. So where did things go wrong?."