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FRank Martin's contract

Stay with Frank.  Frank had 2 teams that should have been invited to the NCAAT but were not.  That's on the NCAA, not on Frank.  This has been a strange year with a lot of disturbances.   Probably not fair to consider this like other seasons.  

 
We've had four losses where the opponent put up 90+ points on us.

That's just uncharacteristic for a Frank Martin squad.

It's just been a jacked-up season from the gitgo.

 
Stay with Frank.  Frank had 2 teams that should have been invited to the NCAAT but were not.  That's on the NCAA, not on Frank.  This has been a strange year with a lot of disturbances.   Probably not fair to consider this like other seasons.  
Just to play Devil's Advocate on this, there is always a group of just-missed-out teams who feel they should have been picked ... the trick is not to be in the bubble group. Bottom line: this is his ninth season, with 1 NCAA bid to show for it. Frank is a wonderful human being who runs a clean program. But 1 for 9 just doesn't fall into the "give him another year to turn it around" category for me.

 
Just to play Devil's Advocate on this, there is always a group of just-missed-out teams who feel they should have been picked ... the trick is not to be in the bubble group. Bottom line: this is his ninth season, with 1 NCAA bid to show for it. Frank is a wonderful human being who runs a clean program. But 1 for 9 just doesn't fall into the "give him another year to turn it around" category for me.
For comparison purposes:

Frank McGuire: (1964-1980): 12 winning seasons, 5 winning seasons in ACC conference play, 7 winning seasons in Independent play, 2 seasons in 1st/2nd place ACC, 4 NCAA appearances (3 Sweet Sixteen).
Bill Foster: (1983-1986): 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in Independent play, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 0 Post-season appearances.
George Felton: (1986-1991): 4 Winning seasons, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 1 NCAA appearance.
Steve Newton: (1991-1993): 1 Winning season, 0 winning seasons in SEC Conference play, 5th place in SEC Ease, 0 NCAA appearances.
Eddie Fogler: (1993-2001) 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in conference play, 1 First place in SEC, 2 NCAA's (0 wins).
Dave Odom: (2001-2008) 4 winning seasons, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 3rd in East for SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (0 wins).
Darrin Horn: (2008-2012) 1 winning season, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 1 tie for First place in SEC, 0 NCAA appearances.

Frank Martin (2012-present) 5 winning seasons, 4 winning seasons in conference play, 2 - 3rd in SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (Final Four).

In my assessment from the above, since Fogler's tenure at USC, we've been in reverse, with the exception of Frank Martin's tenure.  Martin has had one more season than Fogler, but has more total winning seasons, more winning seasons in conference play, and has the ONLY victory in the NCAA's in decades for the Gamecocks.

This is just my opinion, but I'm not ready to show the man the door yet.  I think he gets a mulligan on this year, and we see how 2021-22 looks.  There is a LOT of talent on this team.  We've got a pretty full kitchen at every position with a small amount of retooling.  If he can't right the ship next year, we let him serve out his contract and work on his replacement in his final year of the contract, with replacement ready to go immediately after NCAA Tourney.

 
Technically 1 for 8 - no one made the tournament last year. And letting him go after this year is beyond unfair - when Frank has had covid twice, and his team has missed more practices and games than anyone in college basketball.
Fair enough and spot on about 8 seasons since nobody danced last year. Totally disagree about how letting him go after this year would be unfair. Bottom line is 1 for 8 after the end of the season which makes it plenty fair in my eyes. 64 teams, through a variety of circumstances, will be dancing, and barring a miracle we will once again not be one of them. Could you say Frank had bad luck in what was basically a must-win year for him? Sure. Does that mean he should get another year? Not in my opinion.  Is there anything about recruiting and young talent that screams "team on the rise?" Again, in my opinion, no. We depend on length and defensive intensity to win games. Our best player is almost assuredly gone. We lack either a talented and steady backcourt (our distributors are turnover machines and our shooters aren't good enough to bail us out) or a frontcourt that can take away the paint, or score inside reliably. In other words, this team isn't really good at anything besides team defense, which shows in how we claw and scrap (admirable) but we rarely have the stars align enough to put offensive pressure on the other team, especially if we are unable to force turnovers. All that said, I'm prepared to accept that Ray will give him another year, and since it's not up to me, we'll just have to see how it goes.

 
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For comparison purposes:

Frank McGuire: (1964-1980): 12 winning seasons, 5 winning seasons in ACC conference play, 7 winning seasons in Independent play, 2 seasons in 1st/2nd place ACC, 4 NCAA appearances (3 Sweet Sixteen).
Bill Foster: (1983-1986): 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in Independent play, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 0 Post-season appearances.
George Felton: (1986-1991): 4 Winning seasons, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 1 NCAA appearance.
Steve Newton: (1991-1993): 1 Winning season, 0 winning seasons in SEC Conference play, 5th place in SEC Ease, 0 NCAA appearances.
Eddie Fogler: (1993-2001) 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in conference play, 1 First place in SEC, 2 NCAA's (0 wins).
Dave Odom: (2001-2008) 4 winning seasons, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 3rd in East for SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (0 wins).
Darrin Horn: (2008-2012) 1 winning season, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 1 tie for First place in SEC, 0 NCAA appearances.

Frank Martin (2012-present) 5 winning seasons, 4 winning seasons in conference play, 2 - 3rd in SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (Final Four).

In my assessment from the above, since Fogler's tenure at USC, we've been in reverse, with the exception of Frank Martin's tenure.  Martin has had one more season than Fogler, but has more total winning seasons, more winning seasons in conference play, and has the ONLY victory in the NCAA's in decades for the Gamecocks.

This is just my opinion, but I'm not ready to show the man the door yet.  I think he gets a mulligan on this year, and we see how 2021-22 looks.  There is a LOT of talent on this team.  We've got a pretty full kitchen at every position with a small amount of retooling.  If he can't right the ship next year, we let him serve out his contract and work on his replacement in his final year of the contract, with replacement ready to go immediately after NCAA Tourney.
While we may disagree on the current talent level of the team, a big +1 to you for the research! Sadly, all that list shows me is that we've never found our bellcow coach - "fits and starts," as my grandmother would say, is our predominant pattern, followed by a descent and a new hire.

 
Martin has a below 45% winning percentage in conference games at USC...meaning he has lost over 55% of every conference game he has coached here...5 of the 9 years he has been at Carolina he has had a losing conference record...please stop using his conference record as a plus as to why we should keep him around

 
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For comparison purposes:

Frank McGuire: (1964-1980): 12 winning seasons, 5 winning seasons in ACC conference play, 7 winning seasons in Independent play, 2 seasons in 1st/2nd place ACC, 4 NCAA appearances (3 Sweet Sixteen).
Bill Foster: (1983-1986): 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in Independent play, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 0 Post-season appearances.
George Felton: (1986-1991): 4 Winning seasons, 1 winning season Metro Conference play, 1 NCAA appearance.
Steve Newton: (1991-1993): 1 Winning season, 0 winning seasons in SEC Conference play, 5th place in SEC Ease, 0 NCAA appearances.
Eddie Fogler: (1993-2001) 3 winning seasons, 2 winning seasons in conference play, 1 First place in SEC, 2 NCAA's (0 wins).
Dave Odom: (2001-2008) 4 winning seasons, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 3rd in East for SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (0 wins).
Darrin Horn: (2008-2012) 1 winning season, 0 winning seasons in conference play, 1 tie for First place in SEC, 0 NCAA appearances.

Frank Martin (2012-present) 5 winning seasons, 4 winning seasons in conference play, 2 - 3rd in SEC (best place), 1 NCAA (Final Four).

In my assessment from the above, since Fogler's tenure at USC, we've been in reverse, with the exception of Frank Martin's tenure.  Martin has had one more season than Fogler, but has more total winning seasons, more winning seasons in conference play, and has the ONLY victory in the NCAA's in decades for the Gamecocks.

This is just my opinion, but I'm not ready to show the man the door yet.  I think he gets a mulligan on this year, and we see how 2021-22 looks.  There is a LOT of talent on this team.  We've got a pretty full kitchen at every position with a small amount of retooling.  If he can't right the ship next year, we let him serve out his contract and work on his replacement in his final year of the contract, with replacement ready to go immediately after NCAA Tourney.
Don't want to put words in your mouth...but...are you saying Martin is better than our worst coaches ever like Newton and Horn...not as good as our best coaches like McGuire, Foster or Felton...and about as good as Fogler...only Eddie Fogler went to more NCAA/NIT tournaments and won our only outright SEC Championship in Men's basketball history ever...so we should ignore his current performance/record? Over the last four years...a full recruiting class...Martin is coaching 500 ball and has a losing conference record...yet for some reason we should be satisfied with being a terrible basketball team and not believe we are better than this...stick with the current plan?

 
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Hate to correct you again, but there are actually 68 NCAA tournament teams, LOL. Not that it makes missing the tournament look better, LOL.

But this does. There are 31 guaranteed slots for the 31 conference tournament champions - meaning that we are vying with 322 other teams for the remaining 37 slots. Assuming that we do not win the conference championship, that is, which is tough in the SEC.

Last year, we had a competitive team that finished in the upper half of the SEC (10-8). The only player gone from that solid team is Maik Kotsar - and that is from the entire roster. We had a guy sitting out that was looking like a strong replacement in Alanzo Frink - but he is out now.

Unless the player is a major star, you figure on your team being better the next year if youu only lose one player. Maik was solid, but so was the rest of the starting five. So - if we have most of the same talent - what else could account for our poor season?

Well, playing fewer games and practicing less than any other team in the NCAA. Which you overlook - and that is not fair to Frank. He deserves a non-covid season to show what he can do with a talented and veteran group - over a full season.
This quite simply isn't true...after we play Miss State tomorrow night we will have played 17 games...as I type this:

#2 - Baylor - 17-0

#3 - Michigan - 16-1

#8 - Villanova - 14-3

#11 - FSU - 13-3

 
I like Frank and hope he stays but I’m beginning to believe SC basketball is middle to low tier. 

 
Well, playing fewer games and practicing less than any other team in the NCAA. Which you overlook - and that is not fair to Frank. He deserves a non-covid season to show what he can do with a talented and veteran group - over a full season.
There are plenty of teams that have played about this many games, and the the good ones will be in the "field of 68" (thank you again for correcting my muscle memory on that). The only way in my mind that he would get a do-over for this season would be if he hadn't been able to play enough games to qualify for the tournament, but he has - he's just lost way too many of them. In the end, I don't buy the logic that this year shouldn't count, sorry. In addition, nothing from the whole nine-year data set - one magical year excepted - tells me this program is going anywhere.

 
Before the season, I thought this might be a very good team.  We had some juniors and redshirt sophomores.   Only two freshmen, who I didn't expect to play much.   But, I had never seen Woods play.   I expected Couisnard and Minaya to shoot  better.   I expected Frink to play all season.  I didn't expect Covid to interrupt practice and games.   Or I hoped it wouldn't.    Things have not worked out as I expected.   

The positives are that Lawson has had a pretty good year.  So has Bryant.  Hannibal has shot the ball better than I thought he would.   Leveque has been forced to grow up faster than he would have if Frink were available, and has shown flashes of what he is capable of.  Three games and the SEC Tournament are left.   Some good things still might happen.  Couisnard might play at Miss St..  If not, I expect him to play on Saturday at UGA.   I want to see how the season finishes, and who will be on the team next year.   

 
It just feels like we bring in way too many project players, many who are not SEC caliber guys that end up leaving the team year after year.  It is always about how long it takes to pick up Frank's system.  I believe Frank is a good x's and o's coach.  I just am not sure that his system works at a school like ours.  If he were at a program that gets good talent and can develop that talent over 3-4 years it would probably be jam up.  The best players going into a major conference to play ball don't seem to want to play in his type system, so we always seem to end up with marginal players and I am not sure the evaluations in recruiting are the strongest to get us the players that can reach the potential we need them to.  The final four run was really a good collection of guys, but without a player like Sindarius, who is a bruiser and Dozier (who only really only chose us because of family connections) we would not have been close.  I think if he stays he is going to need to adapt his system to fit what players coming out of high school want to play or we will just continue this carousel of developmental guys year in and year out.  

 
Actually I am not ignoring it.  I am saying that a system that takes players 3-4 years to develop will not work in the SEC and does not attract the top players that could give us a boost while the other less talented guys develop.  Lawson is talented, but not on the level of Dozier, so we have not had any top-level talent since Dozier and don't appear to have any coming in.  I agree that this year is not the year to judge, but just looking back, we did not capitalize on the final 4 run and we continue to bring in players that do not pan out.  Something is broken somewhere in the system. 

 
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Frank's squads have historically needed the reps to get better and we're just in a hole this year from that standpoint.

 
Disagree with your opinion that Lawson is more talented than Dozier. PJ was on a stacked team dominated offensively by Sin and with viable and capable interior players in Maik and Silva. Lawson has been surrounded by a far less capable supporting cast and has been the go-to guy in that rather mediocre cast since day 1, so those two data sets are total apples and oranges.

 
I went with two things - my own two eyes and stats. In their first two years:

AJ Lawson had the edge in Points - Field Goal percentage - Three Point Shooting Percentage - FT Shooting Percentage. And, for the most part, the edge was pretty significant.

Lawson had more assists and rebounds as a Freshman, while Dozier had the edge as a Sophomore. That is it - and Dozier played 7 more minutes per game as a Sophomore than Lawson.

Your point about being surrounded by better players just make it worse - it is easier to get assists and open looks if your team is good.
Ace, you’d argue the paint off a wall, and I mean that with all admiration. So I’m not going to try to change your mind because I’ve never seen anyone successfully do it, lol. But I disagree about Lawson’s stats because like I said, in my opinion, the sets of numbers you compare are not comparable. When you are the sole scorer on a team of scrappy role players, your numbers benefit. The ball is ALWAYS looking to go though you on most sets. When you are one of four viable offensive options, you have the numbers that reflect that. So that’s my take and my reasoning. I know you don’t agree, which is cool. I hope Lawson is a huge success, and that you are right and I am wrong, because any success for our players benefits the program as a whole.

 
At some point, it has to go back to coaching (and recruiting).  We can sunshine pump with stats and compare this, compare that, but it Wins and Loses.  And Frank's teams have too many loses.  He is the guy in charge, so either get more wins or leave.  To me, it's really just that simple.  It's not like he has only been here a few years.

 
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