Meet South Carolina, the best Cinderella story of the NCAA tournament

NEW YORK – We’ve watched Northwestern storm into the second round in its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. We’ve cheered as Michigan, despite dealing with the trauma resulting from a harrowing plane crash earlier in the month, marched into the Sweet 16. We’ve been stunned as a Xavier team that lost its best player and three weeks ago was a bubble team made the Elite Eight.

While all of those are great stories, they fall short of being the signature one of this tournament now.

The true team to root for is actually more southern belle than Cinderella, more sweet tea than champagne. It’s South Carolina.

The Gamecocks, who hail from a conference far more famous for football, straw hats and spring scrimmages than anything else, advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history, throttling Baylor 70-50, with a defensive effort that would make the Old Ball Coach – or any great SEC football mind for that matter – proud.

“Defense is our staple and we can’t control if the shot goes in, we can’t control the referee making calls, but what we can control is our hustle, heart and effort and control how hard and intense we are on defense,” senior guard Duane Notice said. “Throughout the year we pride ourselves on our defensive schemes and we want to implement them every chance we get.”

It’s that kind of grit and commitment to the process – one that isn’t as flashy and flamboyant as something you’d see in a North Carolina, Kentucky or UCLA – that makes the Gamecocks the loveable, blue-collar team of this tournament.

“Attitude comes first,” head coach Frank Martin said. “We got to have guys that are going to believe in our mission, that are going to believe in what we want to do. Once they believe, then we can teach them the technique. It all starts with our mindset. We have got guys that are completely bought into what we do.”

And for every great fairy tale we’ve seen thus far in March, the Gamecocks are able to take the madness one step further.

While Northwestern stole the show by never making the Big Dance prior to 2017, South Carolina’s previous ineptitude was nothing to be scoffed at.

Prior to its opening-round win against Marquette, the Gamecocks hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game since the Nixon administration – when the tournament field contained just 25 teams.

“It’s a great thing, great win for the program, it’s a good feeling when we continue to make history and I think once we got a taste of it we kind of got addicted and want to continue doing it,” Notice said. “So we’re going to do everything in our power to make sure we do that.”

As the Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin and the entire Big Ten silenced critics by having a stronger-than-expected showing in the NCAA tournament’s first weekend in what was a “down” year for the conference, the Gamecocks and the SEC managed to fly even further under the radar. South Carolina was one of five teams to make the field of 68, with only the Pac-12 receiving fewer bids as a Power Five conference.

“I want to credit the teams in our league in the SEC for preparing us for the kind of games that you have to play at this time of year,” Martin said. “Those coaches, those players that we fought against every single day, got these guys prepared to harden, to understand how hard and how disciplined you have to play to have a chance to win at this time of year.”

And despite Xavier being a lower-seeded team in the Elite Eight and having taken down Florida State and Arizona, it can be argued that no team has had a more difficult road than Martin’s Gamecocks.

Considering that less than a week ago South Carolina’s season was 20 minutes from ending at the hands of the NCAA’s perennial villain Duke, the effort put forth over the past 60 minutes of basketball has been nothing short of Herculean.

Led by Thornwell, the Gamecocks embarrassed the Blue Devils in the second round, scoring 65 points – the most ever allowed in a single half by a Mike Krzyzewski-coached Duke team – and not only busting brackets, but also capturing hearts across America.

“We try to give everything we got every game, and the way we play the game, we play the game the right way,” senior guard Sindarius Thornwell said. “We have been doing it all season. It’s just now y’all gave us a stage to do it and we’re just showcasing what we have been doing all season.”

With the win, in front of a decidedly pro-Gamecocks crowd, South Carolina has cemented its status as this year’s giant killers. No other team remaining at this point in the tournament has had to beat two teams that were ranked No. 1 in the AP poll during the regular season.

The signature moment this time came in the first half. Martin’s team held Baylor scoreless for a nearly eight-minute stretch, going on an 18-0 run to seize a 31-15 lead that it wouldn’t surrender for the rest of the game.

“I felt like we were in their heads the whole game, but they’re a great team and we knew they were going to go on a run. It was just a matter of whether we were going to sustain that run and keep it going,” said Thornwell, a likely first-round draft pick in June’s NBA draft. “When the lead got extended and that’s when we knew that we took that run and just we just had to finish the game then.”

Who knows when – or if – the clock will strike midnight on South Carolina, but for now Martin and the Gamecocks are welcoming along any and everyone onto the bandwagon.

“Our fans are taking this ride with us and eventually we’re either going to party together or we’re going to cry together,” Martin said. “It’s one or the other. There’s not another alternative there. But that’s the way it needs to be.”

Maybe this run will end in tears, but don’t expect the Gamecocks – America’s new college team – to do that without a fight now that they finally have gotten their chance.

“We’re not done yet,” forward Chris Silva said.

“We don’t want to be just here. … We’re hungry. We want to keep winning.”

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