Frank Martin has been meeting with administrators at the University of South Carolina, paid representatives of a Gamecock nation hungry for national success.
They are carefully considering whether or not to tell the school’s Final Four coach that he is no longer wanted on a campus that rarely needs new trophy displays.
And that is just one of the dramatic contradictions present almost a decade after former sports director Eric Hyman hired Martin from Kansas State.
The others bounce up and down like an over-inflated basketball on an unforgiving steel floor:
• South Carolina reached the Final Four of 2017.
And Martin and the team never profited from the recruiting trail.
• Martin, 54, has four of the six wins in the NCAA tournament in South Carolina (not counting the consolation games of the old guard).
But the Gamecocks under Martin’s command came to Big Dance only once in nine seasons. This is not as good as, in chronological order, George Felton (1 out of 5), Eddie Fogler (2 out of 8) or Dave Odom (1 out of 7).
• The Gamecocks’ Final Four race included two high profile wins at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Rather than helping, the exposure may have hampered Martin’s recruiting efforts, diverting high school applicants to his demanding style before he had a chance to lobby his lists of potential schools.
• Martin’s aggressive defense style unleashes a fast attack attack that smothers opponents when operated by veterans of the program.
A potentially good team led by AJ Lawson, Justin Minaya, Keyshawn Bryant, Jermaine Couisnard and Seventh Woods never found a rhythm during a 6-15 season interrupted three times by COVID-19. Martin caught the virus twice this season and suffered from a variety of associated diseases.
• Undoubtedly, winning the South Carolina Four Finals in 2017 is the greatest single-man basketball achievement in the history of the state of Palmetto.
What are the chances? College of Charleston, Wofford, Winthrop and Clemson have participated in the NCAA tournament since 2017. South Carolina does not.
• Martin is so tough on players during games that he is a YouTube star and was officially scolded in South Carolina.
Veteran gamblers love the guy, apparent again this week with so many of Martin’s former Gamecocks lobbying for South Carolina to remain firm.
• Martin has many friends in basketball and is respected across the country.
But the NCAA 2016 Tournament Selection Committee did not choose a South Carolina team with 24 wins.
Martin and the SEC
• The SEC has six teams in the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
What a difference from 2016, when the SEC managed only three teams. That year, the chairman of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, Joe Castiglione, Oklahoma’s athletic director, cited a “weak overall timeline” for leaving South Carolina out.
• The SEC is a good basketball conference, which makes things difficult for South Carolina.
Martin’s 2017 Four Finals race helped make it that way, encouraging other programs to invest more in basketball. SEC coaches hired since 2017: Nate Oats (Alabama), Eric Musselman (Arkansas), Tom Crean (Georgia), Will Wade (LSU), Cuonzo Martin (Missouri), Kermit Davis (Ole Miss), Buzz Williams (Texas A&M) and Jerry Stackhouse (Vanderbilt).
• Martin is 153-134 years old in South Carolina.
With a SEC winning record in four of the past six seasons.
• Martin occasionally jokes with members of the media about the popularity of football at a football school in a football state.
But with a post-Steve Spurrier slump in football creating outstanding opportunities at Gamecock, Martin’s recent teams have failed to capitalize. Many defeats in basketball by two or more touchdowns.
Crowd noise
• Martin touched on many aspects of life in the Midlands. He has a popular math program for schoolchildren, is involved with more charity projects than he allows to be mentioned, has reached out to the Hispanic community and makes friends in all tasks.
It was a bleak scene at home games in South Carolina for most of this season.
• Clemson has never been to a Final Four. Tigers’ only appearance at the Elite Eight was in 1980.
Brad Brownell and Co. are in the NCAA tournament for the second time since South Carolina’s 2017 presentation.
• Ray Tanner, South Carolina Athletics Director, is the face of the Frank Martin Decision (with great input from school president Bob Caslen).
But the two-time national championship winning baseball coach was apparently attracting the public this basketball season, mixing media messages about the impact of COVID-19 on Martin’s Gamecocks, the glory in the Final Four and Martin’s bid record in the tournament 1 to 9 of the NCAA.
Winston Churchill, the famous English statesman, in 1939 defined Russia as “an enigma, shrouded in mystery, within an enigma”.
He could be talking about Frank Martin’s management as a South Carolina basketball coach.
Follow Gene Sapakoff on Twitter @sapakoff