Henry details decision to come to South Carolina, talks transition

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL

Micaiah Henry, like a lot of college basketball fans, was glued to the television during the 2017 NCAA Tournament, and saw in real time Frank Martin and the Gamecocks make their magical run to the Final Four in Arizona.

The only difference between Henry and the majority of fans watching the tournament was two years later, it was Martin flying up to Tennessee to recruit Henry to play his final year of eligibility in Columbia.

“It didn’t really take them too long. What really triggered it was Felipe, when he decided to go a different direction, I think they decided they needed to fill that hole with an older guy,” Henry said. “Frank actually flew up to Tennessee. We sat down and talked—we had been talking on the phone for a while—and they were an instant prospect from the beginning. I knew who they had returning and I was really impressed with how they finished in the SEC.”

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Henry, who graduated from Tennessee Tech this summer, committed to South Carolina as a graduate transfer in May.

He joins a team with a lot of pieces returning and a coach he’s paid attention to for quite some time.

“I kept an eye on them watching basketball in general,” Henry said. “I probably say from that Final Four run was when I really started watching them. TeMarcus Blanton, we actually played AAU basketball with each other. I was probably 14 or 15 years old. I always keep an eye on guys I played with, so when he came here, I kept tabs on the team.”

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Henry joked it took he and Blanton, who was part of the Gamecocks’ 2014 class and is now a graduate assistant, a minute or two realize where they knew each other from but once they did it was back to work.

Henry had a lot of catching up to do, after all.

He came to campus in late August, over two full months after the Gamecocks’ freshmen class and has to learn on the fly trying to get up to speed before the season starts Nov. 6 against North Alabama.

“It’s a lot of film work breaking down what they do and what guys have done in the past and what I do in practice,” Henry said. “It’s making tiny, minute adjustments to make sure I’m in the right spots at the right time making the right moves and right rotations, everything from top to bottom. We’ve really been dissecting everything in the film room, sitting down and talking making sure I’m on the same page with everybody else.”

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It’s a lot to keep track of, learning a pretty complex system under Frank Martin, but Henry’s doing his best as the season inches closer.

“I knew what to expect,” he said. “I wasn’t really overwhelmed; I knew what I was signing up for. I haven’t really had that moment, fingers crossed. I’m just putting my head down and working every day.”

As he’s getting ready to start his final season of eligibility, Henry’s expecting to make a big impact in the Gamecocks’ frontcourt this season along with Maik Kotsar and a host of young talent.

Last season at Tennessee Tech, Henry averaged 9.7 points and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 57.9 percent from the field.

“I know they’re expecting me to help out a lot with having a presence in the paint and being a strong, tough guy scoring the ball, rebounding the ball and defending and playing defense. It’s all of those things,” Henry said. “They expect me to bring some of the experience I have to this team.”