All it took for Dave Dickerson to glance at the stat sheet postgame and point to two numbers as a way to illustrate his point.

After hearing all summer and fall in talks with Frank Martin, a coach Dickerson holds in high regard as the two bonded through struggles during the pandemic, USC Upstate’s coach spat out to numbers under South Carolina’s column: 52 rebounds, 17 on the offensive end.

“That’s Frank Martin. That’s who he is,” Dickerson said. “He wants to get you behind the arena and have a street fight, and that’s what his team did tonight. We couldn’t combat that.”

Dickerson’s Spartans fell 78-60 to a retooled Frank Martin team Tuesday night to open the season in a game where the Gamecocks showed some signs of getting back to the identity Martin spent years imprinting on South Carolina’s program.

It’s a style predicated by tough defense and rebounding on both ends of the floor and South Carolina showed progress, albeit not a complete showing, en route to establishing that identity.

South Carolina rebounded 35.4 percent of their misses Tuesday night and only allowed USC Upstate to haul in 7.9 percent of the Spartan’s missed shots.

Through one day of games, South Carolina’s 54th nationally in offensive rebound rate and second in opponent offensive rebound rate, incremental improvement to an identity the coaching staff went about addressing in the offseason through recruiting and the transfer portal.

“These guys want to play it and excited about doing it. I’m excited about coaching it. This team feeds off my passion,” Martin said. “I’m really enjoying these guys. Does that mean we’re going to win 26 and set a new school record for wins? I got no idea. I’m not worried about those things. but I don’t get out of bed and come into practice and sigh. I’m ready to go every day. They have a lot to do with that.”

Wildens Leveque had a game where Martin said he didn’t play well but played hard, and it resulted in a team-best 14 points on 4-for-8 shooting and going to the line 10 times, accounting for nearly half of the Gamecocks’ free throws. He’d haul in eight rebounds, five on the offensive glass.

Josh Gray, the only other big who played more than 15 minutes, had eight points on 4-for-7 shooting with eight boards as he and Leveque combined for 10 fouls drawn to six fouls committed.

Leveque ended the game plus-17 while Gray was plus-10—second only to Jermaine Couisnard—but even with their on-paper performances, Martin still sees a large amount of improvements needed.

“Those guys bring a resolve into practice every day. Wildens is a great kid. I was so mad at him today. He could have had 25 or 26 points,” Martin said. “He’s works so hard, but he couldn’t get at peace to get at an angle to catch the ball and score. He kept missing shots. He’s going to be great. Josh Gray’s a good dude. He just has to learn to accept responsibility.”

The competition ramps up over the next few games, having to play Princeton, KenPom No. 162, Friday and then either Western Kentucky (98) or Minnesota (112) two days later on Sunday.

They’ll need to have their guards—Jermaine Couisnard, James Reese and Erik Stevenson—continue to shoot the ball better after combining to shoot 12-for-34 from the field Tuesday, 3-for-14 from three.

As that continues, Dickerson said, that patented Martin identity will continue to show through.

“Throughout the summer and fall he really liked his team and I see why he likes them. They have to get better and get better and take advantage of the inside-outside game if they’re going to play like that the whole year,” he said. “Stevenson and Reese are good players. Inside-out, that’s the way Frank wants to play. Hopefully they can come around that way.”

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