THE LONG ROAD
First season for Paris with Gamecocks similar to his UTC debut
South Carolina enters its first Southeastern Conference basketball tournament under the guidance of Lamont Paris with an 11-20 record that contains a 27-point loss to Colorado State, a 24-point loss to George Washington, a 41-point loss to Texas A&M, and two losses to Tennessee by a combined 83 points.
It’s been a long season for the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach but not the longest. Paris, after all, did endure a 10-23 maiden voyage with the Mocs in 2017-18.
“They’re similar in a lot of ways,” Paris said. “I think I had more personnel with what I had here, and there were more challenges with some of the personnel I had when
I first got the Chatt job just in terms of consistency and schoolwork and some other areas. There have been less of those challenges here, but they’re very similar seasons at the end of the day.”
Paris will look to extend his first season as an SEC coach when his 12th-seeded Gamecocks take on 13th-seeded Ole Miss in Wednesday night’s league tournament opener (7 on SEC Network) inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The winner of that matchup will take on fifth-seeded Tennessee on Thursday afternoon (3:30 on SEC Network).
At UTC, Paris inherited a program that had gone 48-18 under predecessor Matt McCall, but the Mocs imploded in McCall’s second and final season with five consecutive losses. McCall bolted for the vacancy at UMass, and the senior nucleus of that team — Casey Jones, Tre’ McLean, Greg Pryor and Justin Tuoyo — walked out the door.
That 10-23 first season under Paris included a last-place finish in the Southern Conference, as the Mocs went 3-15 in league games.
“Other than the guys who get drafted, if you bring guys in and they have a good experience and they can contribute, the chances of them being around longer are higher. I hesitate a little to say that just because of the climate we’re in, but we have a couple of good, young, talented kids coming in next year.”
— LAMONT PARIS
South Carolina was picked to finish last in the SEC this season, and those experiences from five years ago proved beneficial during the recently completed 4-14 SEC run.
“There is no question it’s helped me this year having gone through that season, and in a lot of different ways,” said Paris, who was left with 14.9% of the scoring from Frank Martin’s final team. “I’ve been blessed by the good Lord in that most of the teams I’ve coached or been around have won at a high level, and that was the first time I had ever been around anything like that in my whole life.
“You don’t ever want to get used to that, but it is a softer blow when you’ve experienced it before. You also know what the road back looks like, because we went from worst in the league to first in the league in a matter of five seasons, and we were good before that fifth season. It’s nice to know what that process looks like and what buttons to push.”
The first-year rebuilding highs have certainly been more plentiful for Paris with the Gamecocks, who won their rivalry game over Clemson 60-58 on Nov. 11 and pulled the biggest upset of the SEC’s regular season. On Jan. 10, South Carolina entered Kentucky’s Rupp Arena as a 17.5-point underdog and topped the Wildcats 71-68.
Even the ghastliness of that 4-14 league record can be eased by the fact the Gamecocks enter Nashville 3-4 in their last seven contests.
“When you’re trying to build a roster and you’re down players, it’s tough,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said. “We’ve been established longer, and through our injuries we’ve watched Jahmai Mashack get better and B.J. Edwards get better. Lamont doesn’t have that margin of error. We had a stretch of a couple of tough weeks, but they’ve had to scratch and claw from the beginning.
“He’s done a great job. They’ve continued to play hard and improve, and that’s a tremendous compliment to his players, coaching staff and everyone involved.”
Of course, Paris was hired at South Carolina also for his successes off the court. Following his debut season with the Mocs, he signed small forward Kevin Easley out of Indianapolis, who became the Southern Conference freshman of the year in 2018-19 before transferring to TCU, where he redshirted and played one season before transferring again to Duquesne.
Paris went 12-20 in his second year and wasn’t deterred by Easley’s abrupt departure, going 20-13, 18-7 and 27-8 in his final three seasons. Last year’s NCAA tournament roster at UTC was overrun with players he had acquired via the transfer route — Darius Banks, A.J. Caldwell, Silvio De Sousa, KC Hankton and Malachi Smith.
Should Gamecocks five-star freshman forward Gregory “GG” Jackson decide to spend only one year in Columbia before testing his talents in the NBA, Paris would face another similarity to his UTC days, but he is confident there will be more stability as far as roster building now.
“Other than the guys who get drafted, if you bring guys in and they have a good experience and they can contribute, the chances of them being around longer are higher,” Paris said. “I hesitate a little to say that just because of the climate we’re in, but we have a couple of good, young, talented kids coming in next year.
“We anticipate as we move forward that they will be the backbone of us performing consistently at a high level.”
Performing consistently at a high level hasn’t exactly been a staple of South Carolina basketball, as the Gamecocks are a loss away from missing out on the NCAA tournament for the 18th time in 19 years, but Paris does have a track record, and he does have believers.
“He obviously did a great job at Chattanooga,” Barnes said, “and he’ll build a program there that will be exactly what he wants. You have to be impressed with what he’s done with this group.”