Must Win for South Carolina?
During Coach Darrin Horn’s first year with South Carolina he led the Gamecocks to an SEC Eastern Division Championship. The bar was set. And it was set too high. South Carolina does not have a great basketball tradition, but the fan base seemed to think that good times should keep rolling and that Coach Horn was the man to do it.
Now many think two years of missing out on the postseason should be enough to oust the coach. Yet, the issues in the end have not been the fault of Coach Horn. He has done a good job of recruiting in the state and it takes time to build a program. Injuries and defections have made the Gamecocks a young team over the last couple of years and the situation will be the same in 2011-2012. Again, it is not Horn’s fault and he should not be punished for it. The long term success of the program can happen under the current regime and changing things now, or after the season, will just leave more high hopes and more rebuilding.
Recently the Gamecocks brought back the key pieces to the 2009 title team. Devon Archie, Devan Downy, Zam Fredrick and Brandis Raley-Ross all came back to Columbia to remind the fan base how good they were in 2009. It was a nice reminder of what an experienced team can do and a tribute to a great group of players, but to some it may have also been a reminder that those were not Coach Horn’s players. He inherited a talented team and the wait continues for him to build his own great team.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview of this team
