Even with three wins over top 25 teams this and finishing with a winning record the USC men's basketball team did not receive an invitation to the National Invitational Tournament.
A few projections had USC coming anywhere from a fourth to a sixth seed but that was not the case tonight.
The Gamecocks' season officially came to an against Arkansas in the second round of the SEC Tournament.
Head coach Frank Martin said that the NIT was the only postseason tournament that the Gamecocks would accept an invitation to.
This year's team had to to try to reload after losing their four best players in Sindarius Thornwell, PJ Dozier, Duane Notice and Justin McKie. But Rakym Felder was suspended for the season for off the court issues, the newcomers showed spurts but not enough consistency in performance from them to get over the hump and Martin said there was a lack of leadership all season long.
Junior forward Chris Silva was the closest thing to a leader for USC has he earned Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors and was first team All-SEC. He'll be one of the team's top returners, we'll hopefully see how Brian Bowen will look in a USC uniform and Felder will return to the fold at point guard.
With all that South Carolina finishes the 2017-2018 season with a 17-16 record. That's actually something to be happy about.
For the first time since Frank McGuire's last season in 1980 the Gamecocks will have four straight winning seasons under Coach Martin.
Martin had this encouraging tweet for Gamecock fans.
Gamecock Nation my guys and our staff gave it everything we had and unfortunately the Arkansas game was our last opportunity to represent that Gamecock uniform. That’s 4 consecutive winning season for the first time in a long long time. We r still building.
We will b back!
