Off-season talk centered on the possibility that the South Carolina State men's basketball program might be abandoned in the face of deep budget cuts at the financially troubled school. Then came an early season gauntlet of eight "guarantee" games against major-college programs that included a humiliating 62-point thrashing. Finally, the Bulldogs had to close their collective ears to recent scuttlebutt at the State House that the school should close its doors.

Standing tall in the face of it all has been 41-year-old Murray Garvin. S.C. State's third-year coach believed that the turmoil that seems to constantly swirl around his program will strengthen the resolve of his players and his team.

"We're not going anywhere," said Garvin by way of concluding a recent telephone conversation with a sense of triumph in his voice. "We're not going anywhere."

Through all the darkness that has descended on a university that has been promised $18 million in loans from the state of South Carolina to clear debts, the men's basketball team has proved to be a shining light. By posting a winning record in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference – the first for S.C. State in five seasons – and chugging toward a possible third-place finish in the regular season, the team has been waving the flag for a university in desperate need of good news.

Placards adorn the walls of the S.C. State locker room, each with a message about perseverance, and most conveying the idea that the players and the team can control only their actions in the classroom and on the basketball court. In both arenas, Garvin tells the players often, they retain control over the energy, effort and enthusiasm they put into it.

Garvin's group text messages to the team always end with "We>Me." He also introduced the team to a poem, "See It Through," by Edgar Albert Guest. Every player is required to memorize the poem's three stanzas. Each practice concludes with the entire team reciting it in the team huddle. It is repeated in its entirety whenever S.C. State encounters adversity, whether during practices or games.

The opportunities certainly have been aplenty.

The roller-coaster ride for Garvin began last spring when he was offered a four-year contract extension. Garvin had taken over the program on an interim basis when Tim Carter was fired in February of the 2012-13 season. Garvin coached a season ago under a one-year contract.

One month after getting the extension, Garvin began to hear talk that his program was on the school's chopping block.

"So you go from personal highs to personal lows when you take all of that into account," Garvin said. "You receive something that you've really worked hard for, and then you have it maybe taken away before you actually get to start."

Elimination of men's basketball would have placed the entire athletics department on NCAA probation and S.C. State would have been forced to pay the governing body of college athletics $730,000 in penalty fees. Finally, at the end of June, the school's board of trustees voted to save the program.

Through the uneasy summer, Garvin managed to keep most of his players on campus and in school. He met with them on occasion and kept them abreast of the situation. Mostly, he emphasized the importance of getting their academics in order. The reward, he said, was having 10 players with a 3.0 grade-point average or better this past semester.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2015/02/17/3994455/morris-basketball-team-an-inspiration.html

Ron Morris is a columnist and writer for the The State Newspaper.