Martin updates personnel before five-day road trip

SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL

When South Carolina takes off Tuesday to go to Wyoming, they’ll have one more player on the plane than they did a few weeks ago traveling to Connecticut.

Now that football is on a hiatus before bowl practice starts, Evan Hinson will officially join the basketball team full-time and will start working immediately with Frank Martin.

“He’s traveling,” Martin said. “We talked about it last night and he came into see me this morning and said, ‘Coach, I’m in.’ He’ll be at practice today; he’s been added to the manifest and away we go.”

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Hinson, who played in Saturday’s football game against Akron, will start practicing with the team Monday and travel with the team on its five-day road trip where the Gamecocks (4-3) play Wyoming and No. 5 Michigan.

He’ll rejoin the football program, Martin said, once bowl preparations start in mid-December.

Hinson saw his role expand tremendously last season after the Gamecocks’ got back from the Outback Bowl; he started 17 games and averaged 2.7 points and 1.3 rebounds, providing a little spark when he came over to the team.

“Evan’s a really versatile guy,” Maik Kostar said. “He can pretty much play every position…He’s really agile as well. He adds a lot to the team.”

Martin also addressed the Jermaine Couisnard situation, saying despite the first semester ending in December, there won’t be a quick resolution to his case and the team is still in a “holding pattern.”

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“His whole deal is off-campus,” he said. ‘The only thing that will help us with the semester coming to an end is the time restriction goes away and class attendance goes away, tutor time goes away. Now guys like Alanzo (Frink), TJ (Moss), Evan now, we can get a lot more reps out of them to get them better prepared to go through Christmas break.”

Couisnard is dealing with an academic issue right now that’s prevented him from playing in any games this season.

The first commitment in the Gamecocks’ 2018 recruiting class, Couisnard been practicing with the team that way if he is able to play he can fit right into a role. If he does get in a game, Martin said he’s excited about what he can bring to the team offensively.

“He can really score,” Martin said. “He needs to get better defensively. He doesn’t understand how to guard yet. That’s something if he were playing, he probably wouldn’t like me a lot if we were doing defensive drills. Offensively, he’s pretty good.”

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Justin Minaya will not make the trip this week, instead opting to stay in Columbia and focus on rehabbing after knee surgery.

Minaya had a “scary” knee injury in practice last Sunday and will be out tentatively four to six weeks, Frank Martin said on his weekly call-in show. Minay had surgery on his knee Friday and will aggressive start rehabbing as the team heads west.

“The most important part of rehabbing is immediately post surgery,” Martin said. “It makes no sense for him to travel. There’s thinks he can do from a rehab standpoint with mark on the road, but he’s got everything where we can be a lot more aggressive with him.”