After Saturday’s win over Georgia, Frank Martin was in a good mood. His team just beat the Bulldogs for the second time this season, this time on Senior Day and to clinch a top four seed in the SEC tournament.
In his good mood, he took time postgame to explain why he thinks the Gamecocks should be in the NCAA Tournament conversation, and Tuesday he did it again, trying to lay out South Carolina’s tourney resume before conference tournament play starts.
“When teams have 17 or 18 wins, we’ve got 16 and we have three or four quadrant one or two wins and our strength of schedule is that strong compared to those strength of schedules” he said. “I feel like I have a responsibility since no one else wants to represent that to represent that. People want to call me a liar, a, bully or stupid? I don’t care. My job is to stick up for what I believe in and I believe in that locker room and what they accomplished. Whether we belong or don’t belong, we only have one way of absolutely belong: that’s win Sunday.”
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With a handful of tough games and battling injuries, the Gamecocks (16-15, 11-7 SEC) struggled in non-conference play going 5-8 before rattling off 11 conference wins, including three games against Quad I teams.
They currently sit at No. 80 in the NET rankings, a system Martin said needs some tweaking. He said he doesn’t like the efficiency numbers being weighted into the rankings, which he feels penalizes teams that go on the road instead of getting sure-fire wins at home in non-conference.
Martin, who’s seen how the selection process works, has his own idea of how teams should be selected for the field of 68.
“I truly feel you better look at the totality of the schedule, record is important, where you played the games—I think that’s very important—who challenged their team and who didn’t challenge their team? I don’t care what anyone tells me about conference affiliation isn’t important, give me a break. How can conference affiliation not be important? How do you figure out strength of schedule if conference affiliation isn’t important?” Martin said. “At the end of the day we’re trying to identify the best teams, not who had the best conference record. I think that’s where conference affiliation shouldn’t be represented based on who had a conference record. It should be who’s a good team. When you play in one of the elite leagues and you do well, I think your team becomes a good basketball team.”
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The Gamecocks, who are 7-12 against Quad I or II teams this season, have a few bad losses as well: at home against Stony Brook (No. 159 NET) and at Wyoming (No. 319 NET), but Martin said most teams on the bubble right now have a bad loss.
What he’s arguing is his team should at least be in the conversation.
“If you put up our numbers against the other people on the board for those same spots, I really don’t see much different. Do we have a bad loss? Yeah, we have a bad loss. But so does everyone else on that board for those spots,” he said. “If we all got bad losses and they have one more overall win than us, how are they good and we’re not good?”
South Carolina starts its conference tournament Friday against either Auburn or Missouri (Missouri knocked off Georgia 71-61 in Wednesday's opening round game) —needing a strong showing to launch itself back into the NCAA tournament conversation.
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Right now, the Gamecocks have a 7.8 percent chance to make the tournament but that goes up to 11.1 percent with a win in Nashville and 46.6 percent if they make it to Sunday’s championship game.
Regardless of the result, Martin’s hoping his team is in the discussion come Selection Sunday and is honestly evaluated against other teams on the bubble.
“The biggest mistake people make is they want to compare the eight, 10 or 12 schools competing for those last four or five spots to the one seed or the two seed. Nah, man. They’re one and two seeds,” he said. “Their resumes are completely different. They’re going in as the CEOs. They’re not going in as the people that make coffee. When you’re trying to hire people that make coffee, there are a lot more resumes than for CEOs. Teams on the bubble? We’re applying for the jobs making copies and making coffee. There’s a lot more resumes. You have to study the resume a little deeper.”
