Martin: 'If I’m wanted, this is what I want to call home'

Frank Martin held his weekly press conference Tuesday and, near the end, was asked a question about his job status moving forward, his contract situation and investment in the university.

Martin spent roughly five minutes giving his answer, speaking over 1,000 words about what might happen this offseason.

His first and main point was he loves Columbia and isn't chasing other jobs.

“I’ve been here nine years. If anyone has the opinion I’m trying to chase other jobs, I wouldn’t have been here for nine years. This is home. My family loves it here. I love it here. We’ve lived here for nine years," Martin said. "I’m not going to sit here and brag about who we are as a family but we’ve given ourselves to this community to help this community. I’ve said it from day one: I don’t want to be known as the basketball coach. I want to be known as a member of this community. That’s what we’ve done.”

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Martin's job has come under scrutiny this year especially with the Gamecocks at 6-14 on the season and 4-12 in the SEC.

ESPN and Yahoo Sports have each included Martin as coaches to watch for on the carousel this offseason in terms of coaches who might leave for other opportunities.

Martin's been connected to a handful of job openings in his time at South Carolina, most notably talking with Cincinnati about its vacancy after the 2018-19 season.

If you want to know where my stance is at, I don’t care what you read in the media and all that. My name’s been involved in a job every single year I’ve been here. Every single year I’ve been here you’ve heard my name involved for a job. I’ve never talked to another school other than the one you know of, which is the university of Cincinnati. I asked or permission, I spoke and a day later I pulled out of the job. I’ve been here for nine years. Everyone should know where I stand," Martin said.

"Now, where does the university stand? That’s not for me to answer because I’m not them. Then, number two, I’m not having those talks with people right now. I will when the season ends. Anyone that wants to discredit what we’ve done, I’m willing to argue it. If I have to explain to people of our successes, then those are people who aren’t convinced I need to be the basketball coach here.”

Martin currently has two years left on his current contract and is in a similar situation to where he was after his fourth year.

After that year, which ended going to the NIT, the Gamecocks signed Martin to a four-year extension which is set to expire in 2022.

Martin hasn't had any discussions with the Gamecocks' administration about his contract status yet, which isn't atypical. Those talks, he said, usually come after the season ends.

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“Anyone that knows me knows I don’t do contracts in the middle of the season. I’d not engage in my personal conversations. That’d be like our players talking to people about transferring while the season’s going on. I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t do that. At the end of my third year here, no one at the university approached me about a contract. I had three years left on my contract at the time. No one came up to me and said, ‘hey, Frank. We see what you’re building.’ Nobody. They didn’t say, ‘we see who you’re recruiting and like this and like that.’ nobody. Nobody said a word to me. I didn’t go home and worry about it," he said.

"I don’t worry about that stuff. When my third year ended, I went into my fourth year. After my fourth year I met with administration and two days later I signed a new contract, OK? After this year, I have two years left like I did that time."

Martin's had success at South Carolina, taking the Gamecocks to their first tournament in 13 years with the team's run to the Final Four, but hasn't been back to the dance since then.

South Carolina hasn't made the NIT since that run, either.

The Gamecocks were on the bubble last season, likely a NIT team, before things were canceled.

Despite the lack of tournament appearances the Gamecocks have had success in the league, finishing in the top four once and earning a No. 6 seed last year.

Before this season, they also finished .500 or better in six consecutive seasons.

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“This is the first time we’ve had six non-losing seasons since the 70s. The last five years, we have the third-most SEC wins—third most—in the SEC. Everyone says one postseason in nine years. Yeah, you can say that. That’s what’s on paper when you write it down. But when I got here nine years ago, you could have hired Coach K, Pat Riley and Phil Jackson as the staff. If they cheated, they would have fixed the problem a lot quicker. But we didn’t cheat. When you build things without cheating it takes time. The first three years we had no chance of being a postseason team. Maybe at the end of my third year we could have been an NIT team but weren’t an NCAA team," Martin said.

"Then the following year we gave the school the winningest season in the history of the university. Then the following year, just for the hell of it, we gave the school another record for number of wins. I told you guys the other day I don’t need to explain a Final Four. After the Final Four we hit the reset button. I took the grad transfers to get through the year,” “we got really young the following year and redid it. Then last year we were a postseason team again. Unfortunately, just like every school in the country we couldn’t finish our book last year. We were deprived of that opportunity, but we were a postseason team. Now you take this year and it’s been a complete you-know-what show. It’s been incredible."

This year's been frustrating for the Gamecocks with Martin dealing with COVID twice, the team having a nearly seven-week shutdown due to COVID and struggling to win games this year.

South Carolina plays Thursday in the SEC Tournament and barring winning the entire thing will miss the NCAA tournament this season.

After the Gamecocks' year ends, whenever that might be, those conversations between Martin, athletics director Ray Tanner and the university administration will take place.

“I would hope you know where I stand, me and my family. At the end of the day, I’m going to visit with my bosses who I respect tremendously when the season ends and the people who run this university. They know where I stand. They all know I’ve had countless opportunities to leave and I chose to not even talk let alone leave. This is our home. This is what we love. When the time comes, like I’ve done every year when I’ve been here—heck I did it at K-State when I took the South Carolina job—I didn’t talk to Eddie Fogler, who’s a friend of 20 years. I didn’t speak to him until the season was done at K-State. I’ve done the same thing every year I’ve been here. They know I don’t speak to them, who are the people who run the university, until the end of the season. I won’t do it. I didn’t do it at K-State, didn’t do it here and I’m not going to start this year. When the season ends, I’ll have those conversations.

"If I’m wanted, this is what I want to call home. You don’t live somewhere for nine years and invest yourselves in the community the way my family has tried to do, develop the friendships we have then run away from that. If you know anything about me, you know I fixed this program and I know what’s not working this year. But the program ain’t broke. Whenever I can hit the reset button, we fixed it once in a bad situation and we’ll fix it again.”