South Carolina Baseball: Gamecock transfer announces new team

South Carolina baseball has had a few players announce their intentions to transfer from the program this offseason. However, one player announced that he would enter the program (and leave the team) in the middle of this past season.

Corner infielder Kevin Madden announced in March that he was leaving the South Carolina baseball team so that he could transfer and play a sixth year of college baseball. Madden, a Virginia Tech transfer, was not seeing any playing time for the Gamecocks this season as first base (Gavin Casas) and third base (Talmadge LeCroy) had been taken over by better players in 2023.

Madden was in his second year with the Gamecocks after leaving Virginia Tech. He was a starter for much of the 2022 season when Carolina struggled mightily. In 2023, it was Madden who struggled. After losing his starting role in the offseason, he had just one hit in the first month of the season while playing in a bench role behind both Casas and LeCroy.

Madden abruptly left the team in March and has been searching for a new home ever since. On Thursday, he announced where he would spend his final year of college eligibility, and it will be with a face familiar to South Carolina baseball fans.

Madden announced that he would transfer less than two hours from Columbia down I-26 to the College of Charleston where he will play for former Gamecock head coach Chad Holbrook. After being an assistant on the Gamecocks’ national title squads, Holbrook was head coach from 2013-2017 and has been the headman at the College of Charleston since his dismissal in Columbia.

Madden’s new team went 36-22 last season, including losing 2 of 3 to his old team Virginia Tech. They finished fourth in the Colonial Athletic Conference in 2023, a league that was won by the Campbell Camels, one of South Carolina baseball’s victims in the Columbia regional.