He needs a winning team that makes the tournament. Competitive isn’t going to cut it.
If Lawson, Bryant, and Cousinard all come back, combined with the guys he’s signed and the transfers, he’s going to have one of the most talented rosters he’s had at South Carolina... on paper.
Deploying that talent appropriately has been a challenge for Frank. He’s still talking about Seventh Woods coming back, which is silly. He has to answer for why that guy played at all last year, and what taking the ball out of Cousinard and Lawson’s hands did to this team. If Woods is back and playing at all, this team has no hope. I assume he is just being nice by mentioning his name at all. He also needs to move on from Cousinard if he can’t fix him. Don’t play Cousinard over Chico Carter, just because he’s a bigger body. Woods and Cousinard killed this team last year. Absolutely killed them. But Cousinard proved in 19/20 that he can play. Have to figure out what happened, but cut bait and don’t let him run this team into the ground. Guy thinks he’s an elite finisher at the rim and he is not.
If Frank can run different action for Bryant and Lawson, assuming both come back, and spread the floor with Chico, as a legit third scorer and three point threat, they have a chance. Figure out how two of Reese, Cousinard, and Stevenson can coexist in the second until. Which of those three could play with the crunch time guys if they go small.
I don’t have any faith in Frank at this point. The Woods stuff last year was just comically bad. That he kept letting Cousinard play them out of games was flat out awful. That said, I’d be interested to see what a competent coach could do with this roster— including Wright and Carter, who look like that can play as well. We’ll have to settle for Frank Martin though, never settling on a rotation, playing the wrong guys too much, running predictable action, switching between man and zone at the wrong time, and just generally being miserable.
