Oct. 28, 2015

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina men’s basketball team held its on-campus media day on Wednesday, as the squad prepares for the upcoming 2015-16 campaign. Fourth-year head coach Frank Martin met with media members, before returning players also met with the media.

The Gamecocks host Allen University on Nov. 8 in their lone exhibition game of the season. Game time is set for 4 p.m. ET at Colonial Life Arena.

Below are quotes from Coach Martin’s press conference:

Opening statement…
I’m excited. We’re a little closer to actually playing somebody. We’re 10 days away from playing an exhibition game. The older guys are ready to go play. They’ve been great. You guys have sat here and listened to me for three years complain about leadership and personality and all those things. There’s nothing to complain about when it comes to those things right now. Those guys have been absolutely phenomenal. I couldn’t have asked them to take that on and especially in today’s day and age with that age group you’re taught to be so self centered. Who’s got the most followers on this and that? Who is the most popular Instagram guy? All of that nonsense which is centered on attention towards the individuality. As a teammate when you’re a junior or a senior and there’s a talented freshman the coaches are asking you to help. Well, the more you help you have to realize that if it’s a talented player you’re also jeopardizing the opportunity of losing your starting job to a first year guy. You have to be extremely unselfish. Everything in your body and soul has to be about the team when you’re willing to do that. Our guys are not concerned with jobs and who’s playing and who’s not playing. They’re concerned with winning and winning beyond the years that they’re here. So it’s real fun to be around. They’re a fun group of guys. Their personality is great. But those old guys, they’re kind of ready to go play somebody right now.

On if this is the team he has been waiting for…
I felt that way last year. We’re just a year more prepared for what the season is going to throw at us. Everyone is a little more confident just because we’re older and we understand each other. We know how we’re all going to act when you’re in the fire, in the middle of everything. When you’re around people you trust you’re not as concerned because you know what’s going to happen. Mindaugas [Kacinas], Laimonas [Chatkevicius], Michael Carrera, Brian Steele, Sindarius Thornwell, Justin McKie and Duane Notice that core group of guys has been through it all in the last couple of years and none of us have flinched. That builds an unbelievable amount of trust in us for each other. When you have a group of guys like that you tend to sleep better at night.

On the defense…
They’re trying but we’re just not very good defensively right now. Effort and personality have been great but defensively we have not been very good. Am I surprised? No, because here’s the one thing we have guys that have been through it and guys that have no clue. We don’t have a middle ground outside of Marcus Stroman on our team. So there’s always a guy in the middle of the whole thing that’s still trying to figure stuff out so you have a lot of breakdowns. You have four guys playing at a certain speed with certain disciplines and you have two guys who are playing at a different speed because they are not as comfortable mentally with what they are supposed to do. So they’re a little late on things and they don’t understand the urgency of some things. But they’re fine. We’ll get better defensively as we move on. But I’ll say this; we have had more blocked shots and more charges taken than we have had in any team since we’ve been here. That means that we are fighting to protect the rim, that we’re bigger; athleticism and urgency, all those things are there.

On Sindarius Thornwell…
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to see somebody have a great year as much as I’m wishing for him to stay healthy so he can have a great year. He’s a fighter. He’s a battler. For him to get through last year and help us be a good team with the circumstances, well… He’s knees were not shot, my knees are shot, but he was just in pain. It was the first time in his life that his body betrayed him. So mentally he lost a lot of confidence but he kept battling. But he’s been great. His attitude, his speed, his aggressiveness, his shot, just everything is better because he has legs underneath him. He has a great mental disposition for what we’re doing right now and for the game and for his team. It’s hard to root for someone individually when you’re trying to win games as a team but I’m rooting for him to have a real good year. Our team needs it but he needs it even more. He deserves it.

On Marcus Stroman returning following throat infection last season…
If he keeps turning the ball over he’s going to be sick again, sick of me that is. Marcus Stroman is awesome. He committed to us before he even bounced a ball as a junior in high school. He committed to us when I was new here and, to be honest, our team wasn’t very good here. He could have changed his mind but he did the contrary. On his days off from high school practices or games he would come watch us practice. Zach Morris, his high school coach, did such a great job preparing him that he was able to help in games as a true freshman. If he hadn’t gotten sick I think Stroman could have been one of the top five, six or seven freshman in the conference. When you’re a freshman and you lose 20 pounds in the middle of it (the season), then at the end of the year he started helping us again. He’s been great. He’s a great teammate. It’s important for him right now for his talent, his mind and his ability to play the game for him to learn how to verbalize it and be more demanding. Some of the mistakes that he has made and I was joking about earlier in practice are made because he has made the right plays but his teammates haven’t. He needs to learn how to demand that his teammate gets to the right place. That’s what point guards do. All the great ones don’t turn the ball over and they make sure their teammate gets to where they belong. That’s his next step. He’s fine. He has a great personality. He’s another guy in the locker room that brings the team together. You can tell who those guys are because after practice, good practice or bad practice, you see players migrate to certain guys and he’s one of the guys they all migrate too. That tells you a lot about who he is as a person.