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Huge news out of Columbia, as Frank Martin has suspended his team’s best player:
Sindarius Thornwell was suspended indefinitely today, about an hour before the team’s game against FIU https://t.co/SUi8WDQ2MH
— GABAttack (@GABAttack) December 4, 2016
South Carolina is off to a 7-0 start and currently ranked in the Top 25, and Sindarius Thornwell is the team’s leading scorer and the fifth-leading scorer in the SEC. Thornwell is averaging 18.7 ppg with marks of 6.7 rpg and 4.1 apg this season and has been a major reason for the Gamecocks’ hot start to the season.
That said — South Carolina plays FIU today, who’s currently 1-5 this season against Division 1 competition, and Thornwell was with the team on the court during warmups, suggesting that the suspension isn’t for a serious violation.
Recently suspended guard Sindarius Thornwell out watching the #Gamecocks warm up. pic.twitter.com/uaqo4JD24d
— Collyn Taylor (@collynptaylor) December 4, 2016
South Carolina’s next game after today’s game against FIU is against Seton Hall at Madison Square Garden on December 12. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, Frank Martin is suspending him for one game that the Gamecocks will probably win anyway and he’ll be back for the Seton Hall game. Nobody knows anything for sure at this point; but it’s easy to speculate that if it were a serious violation for which he’d be serving a long-term suspension, he wouldn’t be with the team right now.