If Tennessee Can Do It. . .
posted by Scott Hood on Tuesday, February 26, 2008
One reader contends I’m comparing “apples to oranges” since the baseball team has “the best players available,” while the basketball team doesn’t.
The key question is this - how did it get to that point?
People forget that 40-win seasons and conference championships and College World Series appearances weren’t always the norm over at Sarge Frye Field.
In June Raines’ final three seasons from 1994-1996, USC saw its win total plummet from 35 to 32 to 25. In 1999, Ray Tanner’s third season as head coach, the Gamecocks didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament.
How did he turn it around? By steadily building the program through smart recruiting. Getting players like Kip Bouknight and Trey Dyson and Landon Powell and Brian Buscher.
And on and on. The number of great baseball players I’ve seen wearing the garnet and black at The Sarge is substantial.
But, they didn’t just show up in Columbia.
Tanner’s diligent efforts finally paid off in 2000 and USC has been one of the premier programs in the SEC ever since.
The best part? USC has managed to be highly successful despite playing in one of the worst ballparks in the SEC, possibly the country if you consider BCS conference schools.
Obviously, we haven’t seen that same level of success from the USC basketball program. Why not?
Does USC have a winning basketball “tradition” to sell to recruits? Probably not, considering it’s been 35 years since the school won a NCAA Tournament game.
But they have something else - USC’s basketball facilities are among the best in the SEC.
The Colonial Center is far superior to most arenas in the conference. If you don’t believe me, take a tour of the league and see for yourself. I’ve seen just about every SEC arena and most don’t come close to the Colonial Center.
One of the league’s arenas that compares favorably to USC is Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn. By the way, have you seen who the No. 1 team in the country is this week?
Funny thing is, Tennessee’s basketball “tradition” isn’t that much better than USC’s. Yet, the Vols are currently the best college basketball team in the land.
But Tennessee wasn’t always this good. In Buzz Peterson’s four seasons as head coach from 2001-2005, the Vols went 15-16, 17-12, 15-14 and 14-17. They failed to make the NCAA Tournament every year.
On January 23, 2001, USC beat Tennessee by 34 points (94-60) in Knoxville. Two years later, on Jan. 17, 2003, the Gamecocks trounced Tennessee by 21 points (84-63) at the Colonial Center. A year ago, USC beat the Vols by 17 points (81-64) at home.
Here’s more: in a seven-season span from 1990 to 1997 under two different head coaches, Tennessee averaged 12.1 victories per season overall and 4.4 wins in the conference.
Winning tradition? I don’t think so.
But Tennessee did one thing right. They found a jewel in head coach Bruce Pearl, whose previous head coaching experience had been at Division II Southern Indiana and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Pearl has succeeded through the sheer force of his personality and, of course, his superior recruiting skills. People may laugh at the orange sport coats and his occasional quirky behavior, but whatever he’s doing, it’s working spectacularly well.
Frankly, if it can happen at Tennessee, it can happen at South Carolina. I’m not saying USC will someday sit atop the national polls, but it’s entirely possible IF the school hires the right guy for the job.
Because of what’s going on at Tennessee and some other schools, the reality of USC struggling to finish above .500 for a second consecutive season is unacceptable, even if the roster is comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores.
Unfortunately, one of the primary reasons the Gamecocks are struggling to finish with a break-even record is the fact they’ve blown enough second-half leads in the past three to four months to last until the next decade.
And that doesn’t even count the 20-point first-half lead it blew in about five minutes against Baylor before losing that game.
The USC hoops team has simply committed too many boneheaded blunders in the final minutes of games. In short, as I said Monday, they’ve found multiple ways to lose games.
The lack of defensive discipline USC showed in the final seconds against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State is inexcusable. Actually, absurd might be a better word. Defensive breakdowns of that magnitude have nothing to do with talent or recruiting base or tradition.
What disturbs me the most, though, are Dave Odom’s statements after each of those bitter defeats asserting he instructed the players on what to do, but they failed to carry out those orders.
Odom won’t say it, so I will – it appears the players have stopped listening to their head coach. But, the funny part is most of these same players will still be out on the court running around on Wednesday night when USC hosts LSU.
That would never happen with the baseball team. Tanner would instantly bench any player he thought wasn’t listening to him or didn’t follow his instructions or played as poorly as some of these basketball players have.
Maybe Odom doesn’t have that luxury.
Again, that might be the problem, if you know what I mean.
- Permalink, Discuss, Blog Home
I want to continue our discussion today comparing the South Carolina baseball and basketball teams.
One reader contends I’m comparing “apples to oranges” since the baseball team has “the best players available,” while the basketball team doesn’t.
The key question is this - how did it get to that point?
People forget that 40-win seasons and conference championships and College World Series appearances weren’t always the norm over at Sarge Frye Field.
In June Raines’ final three seasons from 1994-1996, USC saw its win total plummet from 35 to 32 to 25. In 1999, Ray Tanner’s third season as head coach, the Gamecocks didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament.
How did he turn it around? By steadily building the program through smart recruiting. Getting players like Kip Bouknight and Trey Dyson and Landon Powell and Brian Buscher.
And on and on. The number of great baseball players I’ve seen wearing the garnet and black at The Sarge is substantial.
But, they didn’t just show up in Columbia.
Tanner’s diligent efforts finally paid off in 2000 and USC has been one of the premier programs in the SEC ever since.
The best part? USC has managed to be highly successful despite playing in one of the worst ballparks in the SEC, possibly the country if you consider BCS conference schools.
Obviously, we haven’t seen that same level of success from the USC basketball program. Why not?
Does USC have a winning basketball “tradition” to sell to recruits? Probably not, considering it’s been 35 years since the school won a NCAA Tournament game.
But they have something else - USC’s basketball facilities are among the best in the SEC.
The Colonial Center is far superior to most arenas in the conference. If you don’t believe me, take a tour of the league and see for yourself. I’ve seen just about every SEC arena and most don’t come close to the Colonial Center.
One of the league’s arenas that compares favorably to USC is Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tenn. By the way, have you seen who the No. 1 team in the country is this week?
Funny thing is, Tennessee’s basketball “tradition” isn’t that much better than USC’s. Yet, the Vols are currently the best college basketball team in the land.
But Tennessee wasn’t always this good. In Buzz Peterson’s four seasons as head coach from 2001-2005, the Vols went 15-16, 17-12, 15-14 and 14-17. They failed to make the NCAA Tournament every year.
On January 23, 2001, USC beat Tennessee by 34 points (94-60) in Knoxville. Two years later, on Jan. 17, 2003, the Gamecocks trounced Tennessee by 21 points (84-63) at the Colonial Center. A year ago, USC beat the Vols by 17 points (81-64) at home.
Here’s more: in a seven-season span from 1990 to 1997 under two different head coaches, Tennessee averaged 12.1 victories per season overall and 4.4 wins in the conference.
Winning tradition? I don’t think so.
But Tennessee did one thing right. They found a jewel in head coach Bruce Pearl, whose previous head coaching experience had been at Division II Southern Indiana and Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Pearl has succeeded through the sheer force of his personality and, of course, his superior recruiting skills. People may laugh at the orange sport coats and his occasional quirky behavior, but whatever he’s doing, it’s working spectacularly well.
Frankly, if it can happen at Tennessee, it can happen at South Carolina. I’m not saying USC will someday sit atop the national polls, but it’s entirely possible IF the school hires the right guy for the job.
Because of what’s going on at Tennessee and some other schools, the reality of USC struggling to finish above .500 for a second consecutive season is unacceptable, even if the roster is comprised mostly of freshmen and sophomores.
Unfortunately, one of the primary reasons the Gamecocks are struggling to finish with a break-even record is the fact they’ve blown enough second-half leads in the past three to four months to last until the next decade.
And that doesn’t even count the 20-point first-half lead it blew in about five minutes against Baylor before losing that game.
The USC hoops team has simply committed too many boneheaded blunders in the final minutes of games. In short, as I said Monday, they’ve found multiple ways to lose games.
The lack of defensive discipline USC showed in the final seconds against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State is inexcusable. Actually, absurd might be a better word. Defensive breakdowns of that magnitude have nothing to do with talent or recruiting base or tradition.
What disturbs me the most, though, are Dave Odom’s statements after each of those bitter defeats asserting he instructed the players on what to do, but they failed to carry out those orders.
Odom won’t say it, so I will – it appears the players have stopped listening to their head coach. But, the funny part is most of these same players will still be out on the court running around on Wednesday night when USC hosts LSU.
That would never happen with the baseball team. Tanner would instantly bench any player he thought wasn’t listening to him or didn’t follow his instructions or played as poorly as some of these basketball players have.
Maybe Odom doesn’t have that luxury.
Again, that might be the problem, if you know what I mean.
- Permalink, Discuss, Blog Home
Previous Blog Entries
Scott Hood. Since February of 2005, Scott has covered the South Carolina football, men's basketball and baseball programs for GamecockCentral. He may be reached by email at scottblog(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.