Ellington leaves mark on team in absence
When coach Frank Martin cleaned house leading up to the start of the current men’s basketball season, it was assumed that there would be some growing pains with a team of eight newcomers.
And as the Gamecocks sit at the bottom of the SEC with just one conference win, Martin continues to begrudgingly acknowledge that his South Carolina team will have to wander through some darkness before they reach the dawn.
“Everyone wants to talk about patience,” Martin said. “We live in a society where no one has patience for anything, and I’m included in that group. I want things fixed now, not in six months.”
The Gamecocks (8-15, 1-9 SEC) will set off in search of their second SEC win Wednesday night when they take on a Vanderbilt team that has surprised many college basketball fans with its competence.
The Commodores (13-9, 5-5 SEC) are currently seventh in the conference with wins over Tennessee and Georgia, who both sit above Vandy in the SEC standings.
Although that level of success might not be enough to draw an NCAA tournament bid, Martin contests the Commodores can hang with anyone they play because of their attitude.
“They don’t get wrapped up in the emotion of a possession, let alone a game, let alone a week,” Martin said. “And they know what coach (Kevin) Stallings wants. He knows what they’re good at.”
Vanderbilt enters Wednesday’s contest on the heels of their first loss in a few weeks. Before falling to Arkansas on Saturday, the Commodores rattled off a four-game win streak that began on Jan. 25.
While Vandy isn’t a team known to live and die by the three-point shot and forwards don’t typically wander behind the arc, Commodore forward Rod Odom is fifth in the SEC in three-point field goal percentage. Perhaps even more impressive, he’s made the second-most threes of any player in the conference with 67; he’s behind only Ole Miss guard Marshall Henderson.
“I think Odom is as good an offensive player as we have in our league, and he understands how to play in that system that he’s in right now,” Martin said. “When you watch them play, they put him in so many different actions. That’s a player and a coach that are both understanding of system and coach understanding of player.”
Odom is a senior, and he’s spent all four years of his college career at Vanderbilt, an example of what Martin wants — upperclassmen who buy into their coaches’ ideologies and reap the rewards of that kind of relationship.
Before Bruce Ellington decided to forgo his senior season of basketball to take a stab at an NFL career, Martin thought he had his own elder statesman to act as something of a coach on the floor. But even with Ellington out of the picture, Martin said the two-sport athlete’s presence is still felt on the South Carolina team in the form of freshmen guards Duane Notice and Sindarius Thornwell.
“Duane and Sindarius saw a guy that never gets out of a drill, never gets out of practice, never makes an excuse, never rolls his eyes, never drops his head, shows nothing but positive vibes, and they kind of took to that,” Martin said. “We were actually starting to play better, and it was because of that — those 10, 12 days.”
Martin has looked at each game as a part of the process of building a program from the ground up and has continuously pointed to Notice and Thornwell as reasons for encouragement.
Wednesday’s game against Vanderbilt will be no different, and the coach said he thinks that for South Carolina to secure a win, it will be all about execution.
“Hopefully we play better this week than we did the Saturday game last week,” Martin said. “We’ll continue to focus in.”