Former KSU coach brings fundamental approach
South Carolina men’s basketball coach Frank Martin hears new coaches talk about four- and five-year plans at their introductory press conferences all of the time, but he’s never understood what it means.
“I can’t tell you how many years it’s going to take to win a championship — it could happen this year,” Martin said in an interview with The Daily Gamecock. “It could happen in 10 years or it might never happen. I have no idea.”
As Martin approaches his inaugural season as the Gamecocks’ head coach, opening official practice on Oct. 12, he will look to set his own tone for the program — fundamental, but still aggressive.
“It’s not that the way they used to do things was wrong and we’re always right,” Martin said. “It’s just different. There’s different ways to do things. The style of play is going to be different.”
When Martin and his staff first arrived on campus, there were three weeks of 12 practices each week before the team went home for a short summer break. While the players were in summer school when they returned, the staff could work with them in only groups of four for two hours a week because of NCAA restrictions.
During that time, Martin said he and the staff were able to teach a lot of the fundamentals of his style of play, particularly the change of philosophy both offensively and defensively.
Martin said the Gamecocks were passive on defense last year, using a lot of traps in a zone defense, which he doesn’t believe in. He described his defense as a “good, hard fundamental pressure defense” that differs from the kind of pressure other teams apply.
“A lot of teams, when they pressure, they pressure by trapping, running around and kind of taking chances,” Martin said. “I don’t believe in that. I don’t believe in being completely passive and just protecting the basket, either. You have to protect the basket, but I also want to contest the passes and the dribbles and the shots in the perimeter.”
Offensively, Martin is about “attacking the rim” — he pointed out that his team at Kansas State last year shot 430 more free throws than the Gamecocks.
“It takes time, and like everything else, guys have to believe in it and trust in it and trust in one another for it to work,” Martin said. “We’re still in the phase where we’re getting them to believe in it, which means forgetting old habits and being willing to relearn new habits, so we can believe it and perform it as best we can.”
Martin will be without two-sport star Bruce Ellington, currently taking a break from point guard to play wide receiver for football coach Steve Spurrier. Martin said he’s not sure what the timetable is for Ellington’s return to basketball. He said he’d be comfortable with Ellington practicing during the break between the last regular season game or SEC Championship and the bowl game if Spurrier was comfortable with that, too.
“I’m too much of a fan of his right now, watching Bruce perform and be such an integral part of that team, to be worried about when he’s going to play basketball,” Martin said. “That time will come. And when it comes, we’ll make it work.”
While Martin is trying to get the returners to adapt to his style of play, he and his staff are also working with the newcomers, three freshmen and a fifth-year senior transfer, and getting them familiar with the system as well.
It was a no-brainer for Martin when the transfer senior — LaShay Page, a Dillon, S.C., native guard then playing at Southern Mississippi — contacted him and said he’d be interested in becoming a Gamecock. Martin was familiar with Page because he faced him in the first round of the NCAA tournament last season.
Also in the class are freshmen forwards Michael Carrera, Laimonas Chatkevicius and Mindaugas Kacinas. Martin said Carrera’s physical asset is his 7-foot, 6-inch wingspan, making him a “heck of a rebounder.”
As for the Lithuanian duo of Chatkevicius and Kacinas, he said “they’re typical European guys.”
“They’re big, they care about basketball and they bring a skill level that’s exciting to us,” Martin said. “They both have the ability to shoot, pass and understanding how to play. Our challenge with them is to just get them to play at the speed that we like to play with, which is pretty consistent with all freshmen.”
Along with setting his own tone with the style of play on the court, Martin said he would do things differently with the nonconference schedule in the future, having to honor contracts with some schools on this year’s schedule.
A home game against in-state rival Clemson and one at St. John’s as part of the SEC/Big East Challenge are the highlights of the nonconference, though the Gamecocks will also participate in tournaments in Mexico and Brooklyn, N.Y.
Martin said in the future, he’d like to only leave Columbia during nonconference for two reasons: To get on national television and to get kids home. He also wants to upgrade the home schedule.
“You have to expose your team through your nonconference schedule to prepare it for the SEC,” Martin said. “In this year’s schedule, you get a little bit of that, but it’s something that we definitely want to get better at.”
Though Martin doesn’t have a four- or five-year plan — nor does he want one — the goal with him has always been the same. As he starts from scratch with a team that was 10-21 last season, he knows that he has to begin with baby steps.
“Our objective everyday is to improve — I don’t care how little, but just improve and do something better than you did it yesterday,” Martin said. “If we can learn how to do that on a consistent basis, then our team will get better every day, our players will get better every day, which means our program will always continue to grow.”