South Carolina basketball has had a strange history. For years, Carolina was an afterthought in major college basketball. The Gamecocks had good players but couldn’t translate that into consistent winning, even in the Southern Conference.
A move to the ACC made winning even tougher, but when the Gamecocks brought in the right coach, everything changed.
Since then, the Gamecocks have had times when they were really good (conference champions, a Final Four, etc.) and times when they were really bad (multiple 21-loss seasons). Many different types of head coaches led the Gamecocks through the good years and the bad years.
But which head coaches were the best to ever draw up plays for the Gamecock basketball program?
Honorable Mention
Rock Norman: Rock Norman (1928-1932, 1933-1935) did not have a good first run with the Gamecocks. His 1-17 mark in the 1930-1931 season is the worst record in the history of the program. However, after a one-year hiatus in which football coach Billy Laval filled in, Norman triumphantly returned to the sideline and led Carolina to its best-ever record of 18-1 and its second-straight Southern Conference title.
Billy Laval: Just a one-year fill-in for Rock Norman, Billy Laval (1932-1933) put together one of the best seasons in Gamecock history by leading the team to a 17-2 record before turning the reigns back over to Norman. Laval won the Southern Conference, but, perhaps more importantly, also changed the losing culture into a winning culture (he also never had a losing season on the gridiron), and Norman followed him to go 33-10 in his final two years.
Johnnie McMillan: Johnnie McMillan (1944-1945) filled in for one of the seasons missed by Frank Johnson’s military service. McMillan did a tremendous job, guiding the South Carolina basketball program to its highest-ever win total up to that point in the team’s history. The Gamecocks’ 19-3 record included a Southern Conference championship.
Branch Bocock: The appropriately named Branch Bocock (1924-1926) was only the head coach at Carolina for three seasons, but he led the Gamecocks to three-straight winning seasons and a 33-16 overall record.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 7 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Bill Foster
Bill Foster (1980-1986) built Duke into a respectable team before leaving the program to become the head coach at South Carolina following the legendary Frank McGuire. Foster’s Gamecocks were good in his first year but really struggled in his second season. However, he led Carolina back to a 22-win season in the 1982-1983 campaign.
With the Gamecocks seemingly back on track, Foster suffered a heart attack at the beginning of the next season. He recovered physically but was never quite the same coach. Carolina struggled until Foster’s resignation in 1986.
The most-lasting positive impact from the Foster era was the coach’s push to get the Gamecocks back into a conference. 12 seasons as an Independent program had hurt South Carolina basketball and kept them out of postseason play multiple times, including in Foster’s best season. The Gamecocks joined the Metro Conference (and later the SEC) in part due to Foster’s efforts.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 6 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
George Felton
George Felton (1986-1991) played for a season under Frank McGuire at South Carolina, but he only played in five games in his career before graduating. After leaving the University of South Carolina, Felton was an assistant coach at several schools before returning to his alma mater.
Felton followed Bill Foster in Columbia and led the Gamecocks through a very tough Metro Conference. The Gamecocks had two 19-win seasons and a 20-win season during Felton’s five years as head coach and made an NCAA Tournament.
For reasons still unknown, South Carolina Athletics Director King Dixon fired George Felton after a 20-13 record in the 1990-1991 season. Dixon then hired Steve Newton who might be the worst coach in the history of the program. Felton never was a head coach again.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 5 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Dave Odom
Dave Odom (2001-2008) left Wake Forest to come to South Carolina and instill some energy back into the program that had disappeared at the end of the Eddie Fogler era. A 22-15 record in Odom’s first year was not enough to put the Gamecocks in the NCAA Tournament, but Carolina made a run all the way to the championship game of the NIT.
The ’02-’03 season was a struggle, but the Gamecocks made the NCAA Tournament the next year after winning 23 games. The next two seasons saw Carolina win 20 and 23 games, respectively, but the team missed the Tourney both years. A silver lining was that Odom’s squad won the NIT in both seasons.
Age caught up to Odom after the three-straight 20-win campaigns. South Carolina basketball won just 14 games each of the next two seasons before Odom retired. He retired as having the second-most 20-win seasons in program history behind Frank McGuire.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 4 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Eddie Fogler
The unenviable job of following Steve Newton as the head coach of the South Carolina basketball program went to Vanderbilt’s Eddie Fogler (1993-2001). After winning the SEC at Vandy the season prior, Fogler spent two seasons rebuilding the bottom-dwelling Gamecocks essentially from the ground up before winning 19 games in his third year with the program.
The following two seasons were two of the best years in Gamecock history. 24-8 and 23-8 records led Carolina to the reward of being selected as an NCAA Tournament 2-seed and a 3-seed, respectively, but Fogler’s teams bowed out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in both years with losses to Coppin State and Richmond.
Fogler and the Gamecocks won the program’s only SEC regular season championship in the 1996-1997 season. That team had two All-Americans (BJ McKie and Larry Davis) and was the first team to ever put three guards on the first team of an all-conference squad (McKie, Davis, and Melvin Watson).
The end of the Fogler regime was not what Gamecock fans would have hoped. Fogler did not adapt well after losing his more experienced players to graduation, and his recruiting wasn’t good enough to fill in the gaps. He resigned after three-straight seasons winning 15 or fewer games.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 3 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Frank Johnson
Frank Johnson (1940-1943, 1946-58) was the first great Gamecock head coach. Johnson had a terrific start to his coaching tenure in Columbia, putting together back-to-back winning seasons in a tough Southern Conference before abruptly resigning after just two games in the 1942-1943 campaign to join the military.
After spending over three years fighting in World War II, Johnson returned to Columbia and was immediately given his old job back. He picked up right where he left off with 5 of the next 6 seasons being winning ones for the Gamecocks. South Carolina began a transition to the ACC shortly after that, however, and the Gamecocks struggled.
Before retiring at the end of the 1957-1958, Johnson led the Gamecocks to one last run in his penultimate season. The 1956-1957 South Carolina basketball team went 17-12. It was the last winning season in Columbia for five seasons and one of just two winning seasons before the 1966-1967 year that was Frank McGuire’s breakout year as head coach.
South Carolina Basketball’s No. 2 Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Frank Martin
Some Gamecock basketball fans are still a little upset with the way things ended for Frank Martin (2012-2022) in Columbia, but with some objectivity, one can see that the fiery Martin was the second-best coach ever to lead the South Carolina basketball program.
After taking over a sinking ship from Darrin Horn, Martin took two seasons to bring the Gamecocks back to a winning season, but he then strung together six-straight winning campaigns. The 2015-2016 season was Martin’s first great team, but the 25-9 Gamecocks became one of the biggest NCAA Tournament snubs in college basketball history.
That wouldn’t happen twice.
The next season saw the Gamecocks win 12 games in the SEC (second-best mark in team history) and go a remarkable 26-11 on the way to the Final Four. The Final Four run was one of the most magical stretches in the 125+ years of South Carolina athletics, and, if not for Sindarius Thornwell getting the flu, the Gamecocks likely beat Gonzaga for a chance to play North Carolina for the title. Instead, USC lost by four to end the best season in South Carolina basketball history.
Unfortunately, that was the only season Martin would lead the Gamecocks to the NCAA Tournament. One snub and several popped bubbles were as close as Martin could get to the Tourney other than the one tremendous season, and he was let go in what became a messy breakup. He is now the head coach of the UMass Minutemen.
South Carolina Basketball’s Greatest Head Coach of All-Time:
Frank McGuire
Frank McGuire (1964-1980) is the greatest coach in the history of South Carolina basketball, and it isn’t particularly close. After coaching at St. John’s and North Carolina for fifteen years, McGuire spent one year in the NBA (and coached the Philadelphia Warriors when Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game). After the short professional stint, he took over a South Carolin program that had a losing record in 12 of the previous 14 seasons.
The first two years in Columbia were difficult for McGuire as the Gamecocks won just 17 games combined. After that, though, McGuire never had a losing season in Columbia for the rest of his 16-year career.
One of the best recruiters in the history of college sports, McGuire built his South Carolina basketball program by bringing in New York City kids and securing the state of South Carolina’s top prospects. Almost all of his best players were either from New York or South Carolina, and the results were tremendous for the Gamecocks.
McGuire won 21+ games in six-straight seasons and made 4 NCAA Tournaments (restrictive conference tournament rules kept them out of the Big Dance several other times).
The 1969-1970 season is arguably the greatest in South Carolina basketball history. The Gamecocks went 25-3 and a perfect 14-0 in the ACC. A loss in the ACC Tournament final kept them out of the NCAA Tournament, but All-Americans John Roche and Tom Owens would have made the Gamecocks one of the top contenders to win the championships if they would have been allowed in the field.
McGuire is the program’s all-time leader in wins, NCAA Tournament berths, and winning percentage. He is also one of just a handful of coaches to win over 100 games at three Division-1 programs.