Oct. 21, 2015

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – South Carolina head men’s basketball coach Frank Martin, along with senior forward Mindaugas Kacinas and junior guard Duane Notice traveled to SEC Media Day in Charlotte, N.C., on Oct. 21. The trio spent time at the ESPN/SEC Network studios, filming feature segments for the upcoming season, speaking with national media and meeting with media members throughout the day.

Below are quotes from Coach Martin’s media session:

On the preseason poll predictions…
You’d rather be spoken about in preseason than not. That creates excitement. In our locker room that doesn’t mean a thing. But it creates an atmosphere with your fan base, your community, on your campus where people say ‘you know what, they’re going to be good.’ So then they come and they show up. And then when they show up, they’re invested in your team and that’s what you want.

You want people to be invested in there from day one. Since I’ve been at South Carolina everyone has said, ‘well, they’ll come in January.’ Unfortunately the games we play in November count. I think we’ve started to get it to where they’re coming. We’ve upgraded our schedule and we’ve won some games. I think our brand of basketball is fun to watch sometimes. I’ve got to admit that sometimes I try to exit stage left. But I think it’s fun to watch. I think that there’s an excitement.

On depth in the SEC…
You’ve got some programs that have been in the establishing phase. Because of what Kentucky has done everyone thinks that with a recruiting class you’re ready to win because I hear a lot of people say this: ‘in basketball, one guy makes a difference.’ Well, understand this if one guy makes that big a difference then that one guy’s mistake also jeopardize’s you a whole lot. It’s a double-edged sword. It’s not just red is roses all the time. You’ve got to build a program. It takes time and I think like us we’re better. It’s great that our freshmen is the best group of freshmen that we’ve signed, but the burden of winning, which is understanding how to handle a good practice, a bad practice, a mistake, a successful moment, how to handle a win or a loss, that burden of winning falls on guys that have been through all of that. So they understand how to manage that so the freshmen don’t freak out. Because the freshmen, they’re going to over celebrate when we win and they’re going to sulk way too long when we don’t win. And you can’t move forward until you’ve got guys in the locker room (that understand) and I think there are a lot of programs in our conference that are at that stage right now.

On Notice and Kacinas saying he is a father figure…
Our relationship as player, coach is that big of a window (holds up hand to show small amount of time). Our relationship in life – God-willing – is a lot longer. I demand that those guys go to class, I demand that they act a certain way, that they go into the community, that they prepare as good players, that they embrace the responsibility that comes with what’s given to them. And when they do that, they’ve got me hook, line and sinker until it’s time for me to go. That’s what it’s all about. Those two guys specifically they’ve been unbelievable in preseason. They’ve acted in a way that three years ago, I kind of crossed my fingers and said, ‘I hope we can get this there some day.’ Now we’re seeing it and it’s exciting to have guys like that on the team.

On what stuck out at the start of preseason…
That one’s easy. Sindarius’ [Thornwell] health. To see him flying around and that joyful excited player that we couldn’t get last year. When you’re a good player and your body doesn’t respond and it’s the first time you ever go through it, it puts you in a different place mentally. And that was a grind for him last year. It was a challenge and we had to spend a lot of time keeping him excited about who he is he was so frustrated. Seeing that excitement – forget about jumping and dunking and guarding and running and driving and all that stuff – the joy that’s he practicing with that jumps out right away. And the second thing is leadership. We finally have got guys that are helping each other. Rather than doing their jobs, now they do their jobs along with helping the next guy. And that’s fun to be around.

On the next step for his team…
Here’s my thing, anytime you have numerous goals, if you don’t achieve every one of them so you go home and feel like a failure. My goal is real simple. We want to compete every day in practice and every day in the offseason and every game we play and to compete for an SEC championship. The day I walked in the locker room for the first time, that’s what I said and that’s where I keep it at. Our next goal is growth. I ask players to get better and that makes me become a better coach because if I have to continue to coach the same thing every day then I can’t make progress as a coach because how do I figure what the next step is. If you don’t get a little better every day then you’ll never get a lot better.