NCAA Basketball: The long journey for Seventh Woods to Morgan State
Woods committed to the wrong college in high school
On November 11th, 2015, many high school and college basketball enthusiasts patiently waited to see where the 53rd ranked player in the class of 2016 would decide to get his collegiate career underway.
As I mentioned previously, Woods is from Columbia, South Carolina which is why most recruiting services predicted that Woods would land at South Carolina. However, Woods decided that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to pass up an opportunity to play for a future hall of fame coach, which ultimately led to him giving Roy Williams another ESPN Top 100 prospect in the class of 2016.
An ESPN article published on the day of Woods’ surprising announcement (and written by ESPN college basketball writer Jeff Borzello) mentioned that Woods told Reggie Rankin (a former ESPN high school basketball recruiting analyst) that he elected to commit to UNC over South Carolina because “Coach Roy Williams and his coaching staff believed in me from day one and UNC has always been my dream school growing up.” At the time, I was certainly surprised by Woods’ decision to head to Chapel Hill in the fall of 2016, but because he was such a high-level prospect I believed that he would find his way at UNC eventually.
As the 2016-17 season progressed, however, there was one thing that became perfectly clear to me about Woods. For whatever reason, it took me a while to realize that Woods had chosen the wrong school to begin his collegiate career. You see, South Carolina and UNC are two entirely different programs with two different styles of coaching.
When you think of UNC, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a program that is used to winning consistently at the highest level of college basketball. In 111 total seasons the Tar Heels have accumulated 2293 wins in 3122 total contests (73.4 W-L%), racked up 39 regular-season conference titles and 26 conference tournament titles, reached the NCAA Tournament 51 times, made 20 Final Four appearances, and taken home the big trophy 6 times (with their most recent NCAA Championship victory coming in 2017).
South Carolina is a program that many individuals would consider slightly above average, but I don’t think anyone would argue with me if I said that the Gamecocks’ resume isn’t on the same level as the Tar Heels’. In 113 total seasons, the Gamecocks have accumulated 1450 wins in 2734 total games (53.0 W-L %), won seven regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament titles, reached the NCAA Tournament nine times, and advanced to the Final Four once (in 2017).
When it comes to the two coaches, well, let’s just say that one coach enjoyed success throughout his entire career, while the other coach has struggled to repeat the success he experienced in the past at his current school.
In April, Roy Williams announced that he would be retiring after an exceptional coaching career that includes 903 wins in 1167 total games (77.4 W-L%),18 regular season conference tournament titles and seven conference tournament titles, 30 NCAA Tournament appearances, nine Final Fours, and three NCAA Championships (Williams coached at Kansas and UNC).
Frank Martin guided Kansas State to four NCAA Tournament appearances in five seasons early in his coaching career, but has taken the Gamecocks to the big dance just once in eight seasons at South Carolina (excluding the 2019-20 season). And while the Gamecocks took down four opponents to advance to the Final Four in 2017, Martin is still working to try and take the Gamecocks’ program to the next level.
So, what does all of this mean? Well, it means that Martin would have been the perfect coach/mentor for Woods from day 1, but Woods did not comprehend that until he was already an upperclassman. Sure, Martin certainly is no stranger to success at the power 5 level, but he is a coach that understands that South Carolina is in no way a powerhouse, which is the main reason why he must devote more time to developing players who aren’t ready to take on a meaningful role right away.
Williams is known for being a “win now” type of a coach, so if you were a 4 or 5-star prospect that demonstrated that you didn’t have what it took to make an impact right away (like Woods), you probably weren’t going to see the floor as much as you were hoping to.
To simplify things even more for you, Williams wanted players that he could depend on to contribute as soon as they were thrown into action. No, they didn’t necessarily need to come in and put up 20 points, dish out 5 assists, and pull down 4 rebounds per game, but they needed to show that they could offer some sort of assistance instantly.
Joel Berry II’s and Marcus Paige’s numbers/contributions during their freshman seasons will not wow you in any way, shape, or form, but it was obvious that they were ready to help Williams win the second they stepped foot on campus (which is exactly why Williams stuck with them throughout their careers).
In Berry’s first season in Chapel Hill, he averaged 4.2 points, 1.5 assists, and showed that he was deserving of double-digit minutes per game (13.2). It may not have been much, but it was enough to show Williams that Berry could handle a much larger role in the future. His improved numbers the following three seasons and various accolades (including being the 2016 ACC Tournament MVP, the 2017 Final Four Most Outstanding Player, and a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award in 2017 and 2018) explain why Williams continued to trust Berry as time went on.
The same thing could be said about Marcus Paige, who averaged 8.2 points and 4.6 assists as a freshman while playing 29.2 minutes per game. His role from the jump was definitely larger than Berry’s, but both players were able to let the man in charge know that they wouldn’t need as much development time as others would (and similar to Berry, Paige enjoyed a few accolades of his own and was a double-figure scorer for the rest of his career).
Unfortunately for Woods, he was a player that needed a significant amount of time to get acclimated to the speed, physicality, and athleticism of the college game, and Williams was simply unwilling to be very patient with Woods at UNC. I think that reality began to set in for Woods when Williams brought in former 5-star guard, Coby White, and saw instant production from him.
At that point, Woods’ development process was in a rough stage, and he understood that it was only a matter of time before Williams brought in another 5-star guard to take his spot (which led to him leaving UNC after the 2018-19 season).
South Carolina is not a program that is expected to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament every year, and because the Gamecocks’ program is and has been a work in progress, I am fairly confident that Woods would have benefited from playing for a coach that is big on player development for 3-4 years. Yes, there is a pretty good chance that Woods wouldn’t have been able to compete in 3 straight NCAA tournaments as he did at UNC, but I think that he would’ve learned valuable information about the college game (such as the difference between a good shot and a bad shot, and how to be an effective point guard) while getting an opportunity to play through a good portion of his mistakes (which would have helped him move forward as a player).
Who knows, he may not have had a major impact for Frank Martin and the Gamecocks in his first two seasons, but Martin’s commitment to continuing to give Woods the playing time he needed in order to work out all of the kinks could have resulted in a breakout junior season for Woods.
Make no mistake about it, Martin is an “in your face” type of coach that will not hesitate to let you know when you are performing below expectations, but that does not stop him from helping you blossom into the player he knows you can be (as long as you put in the work on your own of course).
I do understand that Woods wouldn’t have been guaranteed individual success if he had taken his talents to South Carolina in 2016, but he surely would have been able to say that he gave himself a legitimate chance to triumph from the get-go.