South Carolina 247 writer releases brutal article on Paul Mainieri

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POST KENTUCKY FALLOUT

-- South Carolina lost the series to Kentucky in what was one of the more competitive ones in SEC play. There was a victory in the middle game, and the two losses were within two runs in the eighth inning. The only more competitive SEC series loss was the first, which came against Oklahoma. Following the final game of the series, Mainieri was so displeased with the players he didn't allow them to go to the locker room to shower and change before they traveled home. After a game that lasted longer than three and a half hours, the players were made to change in the outfield parking lot before boarding the bus to catch the plane back to Columbia, which was the second time that was done, along with the Texas A&M series. --

When the team arrived back in Columbia, Mainieri met with them in the locker room. Speaking with multiple people who were in that meeting, Mainieri expressed to the players how bad they were and they were going to go get a whole bunch of new players from the transfer portal in the offseason. While stopping short of telling individual players that they needed to leave, he was telling the team in not so many more words that they needed to start making other arrangements for next season. It should come as little surprise that after that meeting, South Carolina played its least competitive games of the season, getting boat-raced in series against Florida and Auburn.

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MISTREATMENT AND DEFAMATION OF EDDIE COPPER

(Promising young pitcher Eddie Copper injured his UCL in April 2024 but doctors said the injury was as such that he could have the full Tommy John surgery, or opt for the Tommy John "brace" surgery, which would bring a shorter recovery time and allow him to pitch in 2025. In his rehab and recovery process, Copper was scheduled to throw a 15-pitch bullpen in January. Instead, Copper was pushed to ignore the rehab schedule and throw more, and ended up throwing 50 pitches in that session. Because of that bullpen, Copper suffered an oblique strain that set him back in his recovery.

Copper's surgeon passed along a new rehab program that detailed when to throw and how much in order to factor in the recovery from the oblique. He was also to face live hitters before taking the mound in a competitive game. Even though he had not faced live hitters but once in practice (less than doctor's suggestion), Copper was told to get warm in the bullpen against College of Charleston. He did, and ultimately was not used in the game, but Mainieri was alerted after that game that Copper, who had only faced live hitters once in 11 months, wasn't ready to face outside competition. Mainieri erroneously stated in a press conference that Copper asked not to go to Mississippi State. Copper asked not to go to Arkansas, which was the second week of the season and immediately after the CofC game, because he had live at-bats set up against that weekend so he could get himself ready to see game action. Copper was told when he was invited to go to Arkansas that he would not be on the active roster.

If it wasn't bad enough that the school didn't properly follow doctor's protocols on multiple occasions, with one leading to a more than one month setback in his recovery, Mainieri denigrated Copper publicly saying to the media, "You want guys that want the ball and go out there and obviously he didn't. … (Copper has) been out of sight, out of mind, just doing it with the guys that we have that really want to be out there."

Copper was never out of sight as he diligently showed up to practice and do his rehab work in an effort to pitch this season. Mainieri told Copper there was nothing the pitcher could do to get back into his good graces. Copper elected to have a surgery that wasn't as fool-proof with the hopes of pitching this season for the Gamecocks. South Carolina failed him in the rehab process, then the head coach made him out to be a bad teammate, publicly questioning his character. Original and additional reporting can be found here. It should also be noted that TrackMan is a very useful tool in tracking progress for injured players doing rehab work, and it was oftentimes not used.

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OTHER NUGGETS

-- Scouting reports are important, and coaches spend a lot of time learning their opponents. They put it on paper for in-game reference, and it's very commonplace for coaches to go over it with players, or for players to look at it for themselves during games. But in the midst of the game against North Carolina, Mainieri ripped the scouting report out of Ethan Petry's hands in the dugout and showed him up in front of his teammates. Mainieri threw that scouting report, which was Monte Lee's to use as reference, into the trash can. --

For all intents and purposes, the season was over but Mainieri showed through his actions that he seemed finished with the year with a few weeks remaining. The team practiced on Wednesday before heading to Auburn for the series that began on Thursday, but Mainieri didn't leave the dugout during that practice. He stayed sitting on the bench with little interaction with any players. After the team was pummeled in the series-opener, he did not address the team prior to the next day's doubleheader. --

If the players didn't feel disrespected enough, those in the dugout were incensed the first game of the LSU series. Scobey was injured at second base and a replay review was ongoing when Mainieri walked out onto the field. After briefly checking on his prone freshman, he spent more time hugging on LSU shortstop Steven Milam and interacting with other Tigers before making his way back to the first base dugout than he did checking on his injured player.

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MIND-NUMBING MISTAKE

On April 12, South Carolina was up 12-2 going to the bottom of the sixth inning against Texas A&M and had what seemed to be a well-stocked bullpen, especially for a series finale. The Gamecocks, however, proceeded to give up 13 runs over the final four innings, including a pair of grand slams in the ninth inning to lose that game 15-12. One of the best arms on the team, Brandon Stone, didn't throw a pitch that weekend. Mainieri said after blowing the 12-run lead that there were "better guys to use." Maybe that's true (remember, we're not evaluating in-game coaching decisions in this piece), but as it turns out, he couldn't use Stone even if he wanted to. Mainieri inadvertently left Stone off of the active roster for the weekend so he was ineligible to pitch. When South Carolina turns in its active roster at the start of a series, only last names are listed. The architect of the sheet doesn't write down numbers or first names to go with the last name. "Stone" was only written down one time, and Evan Stone had already played. Maybe it was Evan who was forgotten but regardless, Mainieri turned in a roster that had two players who were needed to play.

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