It’s a long way until March, but the South Carolina coach Frank Martin was invited to highlight one of his players who will receive more attention at the end of the season than he is receiving, as the team reports the pre-season training.
The nine-year-old Gamecocks coach mentioned the second-year striker Jalyn McCreary. After playing 27 games last season, McCreary is one of three players who will be asked to show improvements in attack and defense to help Gamecocks replace the All-SEC production striker Maik Kotsar accounted for.
“Jalyn has been really impressive in practice so far,” said Martin on Tuesday. “I have no idea how, but his jump is going to the basket now. He obviously spent a lot of time (in this off-season) working to find confidence in him and he did so. Now he is playing offensive aggression. He’s one of those Shawn Marion herky-jerky type of offensive players who don’t look good, but the ball goes into the basket. This is probably the guy I would say we will end up saying in the spring that everyone is going to want to know what the hell happened and how he managed to make all of these things so much better. I think he has improved a lot. “
After averaging just 10 minutes and 3.1 points per game in 10 games outside the conference (DNP in three) during November and December, McCreary saw a jump in game time and conference game production as a freshman. In 17 league games he averaged 12.4 minutes, 4.8 points and 2.9 rebounds.
However, in mid-February, a concussion forced him to miss the second half of the Tennessee game, the entire Mississippi game, and he only played six minutes in the next home game against LSU. Gamecocks were 1-2 in those competitions.
In all, he averaged 11.5 minutes, 4.1 points and 2.7 rebounds per game.
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The men’s basketball team Gamecocks held its first official training camp at the pre-season camp on Wednesday. The team will soon increase testing to twice a week and this will move to three times a week when the season starts in late November. In his pre-season press conference on Tuesday, Martin mentioned that discussions are ongoing with the season’s opening opponent on November 25, but the rest of the non-conference part of the schedule is over. The full list of games has not yet been announced, as the SEC has not yet released part of the conference schedule.
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