South Carolina basketball: ranking the jobs in the SEC from best to worst

How does the South Carolina basketball job stack up against SEC counterparts?

There was a great deal of chatter surrounding a possible head coaching change following South Carolina basketball’s disappointing 2020 season. There were rumors of the athletic administration letting Frank Martin look around for a new position, as well as whispers of the program reaching out to gauge the interest of up-and-coming replacements like Mike Boynton and Wes Miller.

When the dust settled, though, South Carolina decided to keep Frank Martin on for another year. Martin obviously wanted to stay, having built a solid foundation both on and off the court in Columbia over the last decade, but it had us asking one question.

How attractive is South Carolina basketball’s head coaching job?

It’s an important inquiry, maybe now more than ever, as the future of the program seems to be a bit uncertain. Barring any unforeseen offseason changes, Martin will lead the Gamecocks for a tenth season in 2021, but with a number of players moving on from the program after the struggles of last year, his days in Columbia could be numbered.

Will Martin be retained should the team miss out on the NCAA Tournament again in 2021? That’s a debate for another day. But if the athletic department does decide to make a move over the next season or two, replacement candidates will certainly look to a few key attributes when deciding whether or not they ultimately want to take the job. Those keys include recruiting territory, facilities, and athletic department support, among others.

Where do the Gamecocks rank when compared to the rest of the conference?

Jeff Goodman of Stadium Sports has our answer. Not too long ago, Goodman ranked the SEC’s jobs from best to most difficult. His rankings took into account a number of different criteria, and he was able to get input from the league’s coaches, themselves, to determine pros and cons of each destination.

Criteria included the following:

• Tradition
• Media exposure
• Game atmosphere
• Budget
• Buy games
• Geographical recruiting base
• Facilities
• Professional representation

What Goodman came up with was a 12th-place rating for South Carolina among its SEC brethren. The Gamecocks ranked in the bottom half of the league in every category, cracking the top 10 in only one area – game atmosphere.

The areas that South Carolina struggle most include recruiting footprint, pro representation, and tradition. While the Gamecocks were a force to be reckoned with in the 1960s and 70s, they’ve experienced little sustained success since joining the SEC. The program has won the league just once in its three decades as a Southeastern Conference member, and prior to the 2017 Final Four run, the Gamecocks hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament game in nearly 40 years.

South Carolina has also had just two players drafted by NBA teams since the turn of the 21st century, after seeing 12 players selected between 1965 and 1980. That lack of tradition and professional representation negatively affects recruiting in an already small in-state prospect pool that doesn’t produce NBA level talent year in and year out.

When highly rated players like Zion Williamson do come about, they often look north to blue bloods like Duke and North Carolina, making it even harder for South Carolina coaches to secure top level talent.