SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL

When you walk into the newly renovated men’s basketball offices in the Carolina Coliseum, chances are you’ll see the same videos on loop in the lobby.

It’s not a four or five second clip continuously looping for eternity, but a string of five games—arguably the most important games in program history—in South Carolina’s dream 2017 NCAA Tournament run that ended at the Final Four.

There are reminders of that run throughout the complex: a black jersey on a mannequin with that year’s logo emblazoned on the chest right as you walk into the office to the building-sized banner hanging from the rafters of the practice facility to the photo of Frank Martin and the rest of that 2017 team holding up four fingers on the floor at Madison Square Garden.

But one of the biggest reminders of that Final Four run hasn’t been one that can be measured in banners or jerseys on display; it’s been on the recruiting trail.

“That Final Four run put us on a national stage I don’t think the program’s ever been (before). When you go out on the road recruiting, the fact you can put a Final Four patch on your polo, it gives you that we made it, we’ve arrived type of deal. I don’t know if affects a 16 year old or 17 year old, but I know it has an effect on the coaches when we’re out on the road recruiting,” assistant coach Bruce Shingler said. “I think that Final Four, having that title to your pitch adds value to a kid. Like, ‘Oh, I can go to a Final Four because they’ve done it before.’ We’ve done it, and here’s how we did it and here’s the guys we did it with.”

Building momentum

The Gamecocks are in arguably their best stretch of recruiting since Martin and his staff took over before the 2012-13 season.

South Carolina was able to snag a few highly-rated players in the years leading up to the two best years under Martin between 2015 and 2017, but once they went on their run that started in Greenville, S.C. and ended in Arizona, they’ve been involved in far more high-profile races than they were before it.

They’ve signed three Rivals150 players the last three classes and it should have been four with potential first-round pick AJ Lawson, but Rivals doesn’t rate players who played outside of the United States.

“Before the Final Four, we can recruit a high profile kid, but the ones who didn’t have ties to South Carolina probably weren’t letting us in the home and weren’t taking it to that next level in recruitment. Since the Final Four, they’re letting us in the house. We’re becoming a player, and I’m talking about guys with no ties to South Carolina. We’ve become someone they listen to and are fully engaged and feel it all the way to the end. That’s even locally. We’re in a better place now,” Martin said. “There are kids who are on me because they want to go to school here.”

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With less time to recruit coming off a Final Four in 2017, they put the finishing touches on a class headlined by Justin Minaya with one Rivals150 recruit in David Beatty, who is no longer with the program.

After that, they’ve been doing nothing but building momentum it seems like on the recruiting trail. In their first full year being able to recruit after their run, they signed arguably the best class talent-wise under Martin in 2018.

It included high school players AJ Lawson, Keyshawn Bryant, TJ Moss, Alanzo Frink and Jermaine Couisnard.

While none of those players were considered Rivals150 guys, AJ Lawson would have been a “top 50 player,” according to Rivals analyst Eric Bossi, if he played in the states, Bryant was a Rivals150 player and slipped out when analysts thought he was going to go to a junior college while Couisnard was right on the cusp of cracking the top 150.

All of those guys, including ones like Moss and Frink along with transfers Tre Campbell and Jair Bolden in that class, committed on the heels of that Final Four run.

“I think when they have to make a decision—whether it’s AJ or Keyshawn or Jermaine Couisnard—and they have to make a decision as a family, it’s like hey the guy you’ll play for has lived through this journey you want to be a part of. You’re not selling a dream any more. This actually happened,” assistant coach Chuck Martin said. “Frank has the formula. We know how to do this. When you have to make a decision and you’re sitting there as an 18 or 19 year old kid or you’re a proud mom or dad, you’re like, ‘You know what? I trust this guy. This guy’s actually done this.’ I think it helped. I think it helped with AJ and with Jermaine and Keyshawn."

On the run, Martin and his personality away from the court was put on display for the nation to see as the Gamecocks took down perennial powerhouse Duke in the second round before beating entrenched powers like Baylor and Florida en route to a East region championship.

“I think the biggest benefit outside of it being the first Final Four in school history was the general public and the general recruiting world got a good glimpse into who Frank Martin really is and what he’s really about. He’s one of those guys who can be easily misjudged if you’re just watching a game,” Bossi said. “Obviously he’s colorful and very involved during a game. But if you get to know him off the floor, there’s not a coach in America who loves his kids harder and cares more about them. Those kids will run through brick walls for him, and the average kid got a chance to see that. I have to imagine it was beneficial in getting a guy like AJ Lawson out of Canada.”

Maintaining success on the recruiting trail

Since then, it’s been easier to head into areas they’ve recruited well since Martin took over like the Northeast and recruit players, even without ties to South Carolina or the Southeast. In the last three classes the Gamecocks have signed players from South Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Canada, Massachusetts and Connecticut (by way of California).

“Going to the Final Four allows us to recruit an AJ Lawson. It’s allowed us to go into New Jersey and get Justin Minaya and Alanzo Frink on, I don’t want to say easy recruitments, but those are two young men that we pulled out of the northeast part of the country. Alanzo had a scholarship offer from Georgetown and Patrick Ewing. He and his family said no thank you because they wanted to be here,” Martin said. “You go into the next year and get an AJ Lawson and get a TJ Moss that wanted to sign early but he holds off because he was so interested in us to make a decision in the spring because I wasn’t ready to make a decision in the fall. Then Keyshawn Bryant, his dad wanted him with us…They held off. You end up with that kind of scenario with Jermaine Couisnard… “That’s where the benefits come from.”

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Then in 2019 they were able to go out and sign two top 150 recruits in Jalyn McCreary (No. 135) and Trae Hannibal (No. 148), which is tied for the most top 150 players the Gamecocks have ever signed in a class under Martin, and they pair it with more high school talent in Wildens Leveque and Trey Anderson.

“You stack (those) two classes back to back. Are they the sexiest in terms of rankings? No, but they’re really good for what’s worked for you as a program. There is a talent upgrade going on overall in comparison to the first few classes. That theoretically builds momentum,” Bossi said. “They want to get back to being a legit competitor in the SEC, and these are the kinds of kids you do that with.”

Since the run, the recruiting pitch has become easier to try and sell to not only the 2018 and 2019 classes but also 2020 and beyond as they continue to recruit.

“Some coaches inherit the tradition and some coaches actually create it. Frank’s been to the Final Four. Whatever history exists here with the Final Four, he created that with the staff,” Chuck said. “There are other staffs that will walk around with Final Four patches but they themselves weren’t a part of that. They’re just inheriting the tradition of that. When you sit down with a recruit, you can say, ‘Frank Martin actually coached in the final four, he developed the program, he developed the players.’ I think there’s something to be said for that.”

Sustaining success

Now for South Carolina, comes the hard part.

The talent influx has come in the last two classes and the Gamecocks already have two commitments from in-state big men as they try to build another solid class in 2020. They’ve also been involved in other high-profile recruitments this cycle as well.

Now comes the part where they have to produce and continue to win at a high level so they can stay involved with more of the higher-profile players and begin landing more and more.

They’ve had regular season success, averaging 21 total and 10.3 SEC wins the last four seasons, but the goal now is making it back to the postseason with the hopes of another 2017-like run.

“Obviously the ultimate goal is to sustain,” Shingler said. “I think because the landscape of college basketball has changed so much with the portal and transferring, it’s maintaining and keeping a consistent flow into your roster. I think this is a year where we’ve had consistent flow and we feel comfortable with the guys we have. It helps us leading into the preseason and leading into the first game of the season.”

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When the Gamecocks take the court Wednesday night for their regular season opener against North Alabama, they’ll run right past the Final Four banner dangling from the rafters at Colonial Life Arena.

It serves as a reminder of what’s possible at South Carolina, and to the coaching staff and people around basketball validates the process Martin started at South Carolina almost a decade ago.

“I think it talked about it in terms of validation of what our program’s about and what we stand for, how we do things and how coach teaches the game of basketball. Here’s the funny thing: I don’t think if you talked to anyone before the Final Four or after the Final Four, they wouldn’t tell you Frank is one heck of a coach,” assistant coach Perry Clark said. “It was a validation but it was still there before. When you talk about it being a boost, it didn’t create a new mindset, it reaffirmed a new mindset."