Frank Martin's teams have made it a habit of exceeding preseason rankings. In his previous eight seasons, Martin has seen six of his squads surpass where they were picked to finish in the preseason media poll. They underperformed just once in terms of the preseason ranking and that was in Martin's second season at the helm.
The Gamecocks have been picked to finish eighth in the league as determined by voting by the SEC media. Last season, they were sixth in the standing with a 10-8 conference record.
CBS Sports basketball analyst Jon Rothstein went on the record saying he believes South Carolina will exceed that eighth-place prediction due to the level of talent that rivals that of the 2017 South Carolina team that advanced to the Final Four.
Junior guard A.J. Lawson, who returned to school after testing the NBA Draft waters, was named to the Preseason All-SEC Second Team. He led the Gamecocks in scoring this past season with an average of 13.4 points per game.
