Fifteen years ago, Frank Martin and Andy Kennedy went through one of the weirdest and wildest coaching seasons maybe ever.

Two months before the season started their boss and head coach at Cincinnati was unceremoniously forced to resign and Kennedy was thrust into the interim head coach role with Martin his lead assistant and partner during the ride.

After the season—a 23-15 year oddly enough ending with a NIT loss to South Carolina—their paths diverged with Kennedy making stops at Ole Miss and then in television to now UAB and Martin at South Carolina by way of Kansas State.

Now, a decade and a half later, the two get to meet again for the first time coaching against each other in a few years.

“I call a lot of colleagues in this business friends, but Frank is special. I don’t use the term lightly. I do consider him a brother,” Kennedy said in an exclusive interview.

“We both had to navigate an incredibly challenging season with me in the first seat and him in the second. Honestly we locked arms as partners to try and navigate through it for the kids on that team… very few guys at a power five are going to schedule a quote-unquote mid-major in a home-and-home series. I got Hugs to do it and I got Frank to do it.”

Kennedy took the UAB job before the 2020 season and has the Blazers one of the better mid-major teams in the country, a team that rolls into Columbia for a game against the Gamecocks Thursday night (7 p.m., SEC Network Plus).

It’s the first time the two will meet up in a non-conference game—Martin went 5-5 against Kennedy when both were in the SEC—in a game Kennedy thinks will be a good early test for a roster laden with transfer players.

“Regardless of what happens, I know a good guy is going to win. The challenge of playing a Frank Martin coached team is they’re going to really, really bring to surface that as a coach you know lie beneath,” Kennedy said. “We’re sitting here at 3-0 and haven’t really had a close game but haven’t played anybody to the caliber of South Carolina and the way they fight you for every catch and they’re so tough and so resilient and they’re prepared. Those things are going to be great for us. Regardless of the outcome Thursday night we’re going to know a lot about our team.”

There are few people Martin talks about in the college basketball business like Kennedy, who’s been one of his closest friends in the business dating back to their time together in the Big East as assistants and then the 2006 season.

Now, they’ll get to square off again in what again will be a very good test for South Carolina as well as those two friends reunite.

“Not only is he a heck of a man, he’s a really good basketball coach. He instills an offensive confidence in players that’s pretty darn good,” Martin said.

“It’s a typical AK team with unbelievable confidence offensively. They just come at you. It’s good to see him on the sideline again. I get credit for being feisty. He’s just as feisty as me. I’m watching him on the sideline chasing guys. Sometimes it’s a free throw situation and you think he’s going to shoot the free throw. I love it. I’m sitting here saying, ‘that’s awesome.’ That’s where he belongs. He’s a ball coach. He belongs on the sideline helping young people through coaching.”

The two can still look back and laugh about their time together as assistants and then the 2006 season together a decade and a half later. They grew from it and the two friends will finally be back on the court together for the first time in what feels like forever.

Kennedy is incredibly appreciative of the opportunity to play once again at Colonial Life Arena saying “not many Power Five (coaches) would do this thing,” and “this is what friendship is.”

“I have nothing but respect for him as a coach. I tell him all the time that 100 years from now people at South Carolina are going to remember Frank Martin because of the tremendous year he had making it to the Final Four,” Kennedy said.

“That’s something that’ll go down in the annals of Gamecock history forever and ever. I think he’s done a tremendous job there.”

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