South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston faced a tall order in his first season with the Gamecocks in 2018 — He was taking over one of the sport’s most storied programs that hadn’t missed back-to-back NCAA tournaments in more than 20 years.
He exceeded just about everyone’s expectations with a Super Regional berth, one win short of the College World Series.
But rather than building off that finish and automatically expecting more in his second go-around, Kingston is, at least in some ways, starting from scratch. The Gamecocks are turning over their entire weekend rotation and the majority of their starting lineup, thanks to a combination of the MLB draft, graduations and transfers.