Gamecock Central Exclusive: Kingston breaks down recruiting plan

Mark Kingston knows a lot of the players on South Carolina’s roster and he’s only been on campus for two days. It’s not because he’s gotten a chance to meet one-on-one with every roster player; he’s recruited a lot of the players that were on South Carolina’s team last year.

At South Florida, he scouted and recruited a number of Gamecock players. After losing them eventually to South Carolina, now he’s reunited with them and ready to coach.

The Gamecocks have four players originally from Florida: Riley Hogan, John Jones, Christian Flint and Carlos Cortes. Now, with more facilities and resources to go get players, Kingston likely won’t be hampered on the recruiting trail like he was in Tampa.

“It’ll be nice to win these recruiting battles when you’re trying to get some of the best players around,” he said in an exclusive interview with GamecockCentral. “We had to scratch and claw for every player we got at South Florida. I think when you make a call and you say you’re calling from the University of South Carolina, I know kids get excited about that.”

Kingston’s also not afraid to scour the country looking for top talent. While the majority of the players on South Florida’s team last year were from Florida, there were two players from up north, one from Massachusetts and another from New York.

He’s already reached out to players committed to South Carolina in the 2017 and 2018 classes.

Under former head coach Chad Holbrook, the Gamecocks pulled primarily from South Carolina but also dipped into North Carolina, Georgia and Florida for their players.

Florida, where Kingston has recruiting roots, is also home to a number of junior college powerhouses, like Chipola College and Sante Fe. He said his strategy won’t focus solely on junior college players despite knowing the recruiting area there.

The Gamecocks had seven junior college players on their roster in 2017.

Where his recruiting pitch will start is in South Carolina where he’ll try and do what Chad Holbrook did and keep the state’s top talent in state and in Columbia.

After that, he’ll branch out into surrounding areas like North Carolina, Georgia and Florida while keeping an eye on top prospects nationally as well.

His recruiting pitch, he said, will be simple. He’ll make sure recruits know the coaching staff has three goals for prospective players: get a degree, get to Omaha and prepare the players for professional baseball.

He also said he’s going to try and recruit players who share the same goals as the coaching staff.

The Gamecocks currently have 16 players committed for 2018, nine for 2019 and two in the 2020 class.

“We’re going to bring in the best players we can. Obviously the first thing is to make sure you get the best players from within your state,” Kingston said. “We’ll go wherever the best players are. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where a player is from, it matters how much they’re helping this team.”

Also see: Inside the Commitment: Lavonte Valentine | Monday Recruiting Notes | More insight into Kingston | Steven Gilmore Jr looks ahead to decision date

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