South Carolina Baseball is expected to hire Kevin Schnall

The South Carolina Baseball coaching search is coming to a close as the Gamecocks are expected to hire Coastal Carolina head baseball coach Kevin Schnall as their next head coach.

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Schnall led the Chanticleers to the College World Series finals in his first season as head coach and led his alma mater back to a regional this past season.

An announcement should come in the next 24 hours from the University of South Carolina once the deal is finalized.

Schnall met with USC leadership both in person and via Zoom during the past five days. That communication continued this week.

The Gamecocks are expected to give Schnall a significant financial package, including as much as a doubling of the current NIL/Revenue Share budget for roster building, money for expanded staff, including analytics and more.

Founders Park is also remodeling its locker room.

Schnall is 93-36 in two seasons as the head coach in Conway. Prior to that, he was a longtime assistant under Gary Gilmore, who won the 2016 National Championship at the school.

South Carolina fired former head coach Paul Mainieri after a 40-40 record through 80 games during the season. The Gamecocks have been one of the worst teams in the SEC the last two years. The once proud program, which won back-to-back National Championships in 2010-11 is looking to return to glory.

Carolina has played for the National Championship six times in its history (1975, 1977, 2002, 2010, 2011, 2012), has been to Omaha 11 times and is tied for third nationally in the number of Super Regional berths with 14.

At present, 14 other Southeastern Conference programs have made the College World Series since South Carolina last did in 2012. The other program is Missouri.

Schnall will attempt to reverse that the moment it becomes official.

The Gamecocks currently have 20 players in the transfer portal and are expected to be active participants once the new head coach is in place.

Jamie Bradford of TheBigSpur.com contributed to this report.