Here are the details BY MICHAEL LANANNA APRIL 06, 2022 12:10 PM
The South Carolina men’s soccer team is no longer in limbo. Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill announced Wednesday that the conference will sponsor men’s soccer and the Gamecocks will be one of nine teams competing in the league. The nine teams will include: James Madison, Marshall, Old Dominion, Coastal Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Georgia Southern, Georgia State and South Carolina.
Because the Southeastern Conference doesn’t sponsor men’s soccer, the Gamecocks have competed in C-USA since 2005. But a wave of conference realignment last fall sapped C-USA of the majority of its members, with six schools defecting to the American Athletic Conference and three joining the Sun Belt. The Gamecocks will follow Marshall — the 2020 men’s soccer national champions — Old Dominion and Southern Miss to the Sun Belt.
The move represents yet another significant change for the Gamecock’s soccer team. After founding the program in 1978, head coach Mark Berson retired before the 2021 season, and USC hired Tony Annan, as its second head coach in program history. Annan, who spent six years with Major League Soccer club Atlanta United before coming to Columbia, led the Gamecocks to a 5-9-2 record in Year 1. Now he’ll need to prepare the Gamecocks to face brand new conference opponents in the Sun Belt. The Gamecocks have spent most the program’s existence competing as an independent. USC. Other than a brief stint in the Metro Conference in 1993-94, the Gamecocks maintained their independence up until joining C-USA in 2005.
