Mars’ Sfanos pledges to join fledgling hoops program at South Carolina-Beaufort
ADAMS TWP — Tasso Sfanos will be able to kick off his basketball shoes and have his feet in the sand a reasonable drive later.
The Mars senior recently committed to continue his hoops career at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, a school less than an hour outside Hilton Head. The Sand Sharks stood out for a myriad of reasons — among them the chance to ring in a brand-new basketball program.
At Mars, Sfanos has been the latest in a long line of marquee names — John Castello, Robby and Michael Carmody, Zach Schlegel, among others. At USC Beaufort, he’ll get a crack at being the first in the record books.
“Them starting their program, him getting down there, I think it’s just a unique chance for him to kind of establish himself,” Mars coach Rob Carmody said. “Everything that happens there is going to be the first time and that’s kind of a cool thing to do.”
“The whole experience of the new program is just an exciting thing to me,” Sfanos said. “Not many people get to do it, obviously, because there aren’t that many new programs out there every year. It’s just a cool opportunity.”
A number of nearby programs had passed through the Planets’ gym this season to take notes on Sfanos, who’s averaged 25.8 points per game this go-round.
“He had some great local options,” Coach Carmody said. “We’ve got some really good Division III basketball teams around here and they’re stacked with local players. In a lot of those cases, Tasso fit really well in those spots, as well.
“He really wanted the opportunity to play at the highest level he possibly could.”
Sfanos’ strongest suitors for most of this season were LaRoche, Geneva, Allegheny, Westminster, and Penn State-Behrend. USC Beaufort started courting him later in the process.
Carnegie Mellon graduate and former Indiana (Pa.) assistant coach Ron Fudala is at the helm for the Sand Sharks.
“He basically said he wants to come in and no brakes, just win, obviously, right away,” Sfanos said. “He said he’s going to push me really hard. As a coach, that’s who he is.
“I knew IUP’s a very good, winning program, so him coming from that, I know what he’s going to bring.”
“He wouldn’t have left there (IUP) and gone to USC Beaufort without a real clear plan on what he wants to do there,” Coach Carmody said of Fudala. “Coming from IUP, competitive means competing for a national championship. That’s what he wants to build there.”
For their first two years of play, the Sand Sharks will go through a Peach Belt Conference schedule and have dual membership with the NAIA’s Continental Athletic Conference. They’ll be eligible to play in the NAIA tournament in that time and, starting in the 2025-26 campaign, USC Beaufort will become fully associated with NCAA Division II.
It won’t be treated like a transitional period, though.
“(Fudala’s) not expecting next year to be some kind of, ‘Okay, here’s our introduction to Division II basketball,’” Coach Carmody said. “Tasso’s not going to walk into a situation where they’re going to the cafeteria two days before the game and trying to find enough guys to play. There’s going to be players there.”
But also no incumbents — at any position. That could work in the high-scoring, well-rounded Sfanos’ favor.
“From the minute he started playing for us, he has been a basketball player,” Coach Carmody said. “He will guard you, he can handle the ball, he can obviously score and shoot it, he’s a factor on the glass.
“It’ll boil down to, can he show the coaching staff that he is a guy that will help them win. If he does that, they’ll worry about what position he is and what he does well or doesn’t do well later.”
“I’m a guy that’s going to compete every day to get a spot and I think I have a good chance of doing that,” Sfanos said.
