Lamont Paris: 5 things to know about potential South Carolina basketball coach
With the Frank Martin era officially over in Columbia, South Carolina has “zeroed in on” and “targeted” Chattanooga’s Lamont Paris to be the Gamecocks’ next men’s basketball head coach, national writers Jon Rothstein and Jeff Goodman reported Monday evening.
Here are five things to know about Paris:
Hot name this season
South Carolina isn’t the first opening that Paris had his name mentioned for this year. He was also thought of a possible replacement at Georgia, which hired Mike White to replace Tom Crean.
The Sporting News listed Paris as one of the seven mid-major coaches who could have their stock rise this coaching cycle.
Midwest roots
Paris was born in Findlay, Ohio and was a standout at Division III Wooster College in Ohio.
He was a team MVP at Wooster his junior and senior year and was part of three trips to the Division III tournament.
Paris was an assistant at Wooster and also was on the coaching staffs at Division II Depauw and Indiana University of Pennsylvania and at Division I Akron.
Final Four experience
After Akron, Paris joined the Wisconsin coaching staff from 2010-17. The Badgers made the tournament all seven seasons and two Final Fours during that time, including the 2015 championship game against Duke.
At Wisconsin, Paris was the lead recruiter for Nigel Hayes, who was an All-Big Ten performer for the Badgers and went on to play in the NBA.
“He’s stuck to his core principles, and I think that’s very reflective of what we try to do things here, too. You don’t want to take shortcuts,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard told reporters this week of Paris. “Shortcuts at the end of the day aren’t going to pay off in the long run. They’re going to come back and hurt you more than they’ll help you. He’s done a good job of getting the culture right. When you get the culture right, and with the right people, that’s a byproduct of doing things consistently over the long game the right way.”
No instant success
Paris didn’t have success right away at Chattanooga. He interviewed for the job when Will Wade left for VCU but didn’t get it.
Paris got it the second time around but went 22-45 in his first two seasons, with 13 players leaving the program.
But the next three seasons, the Mocs have two 20-win seasons and just made their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 2016 when they defeated Furman on a last-second shot.
Chattanooga lost to Illinois in the tournament’s first round on Friday 54-53.
Using the transfer portal
Paris isn’t afraid to bring in transfers, especially with this year’s Chattanooga squad that won the Southern Conference tournament.
Seven of the Mocs’ players are transfers, including Malachi Smith and former Kansas player Silvio de Sousa.
“My first year we had the youngest team in the entire country,” Paris told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this week. “Out of 358 teams, we were the youngest. I won’t ever do that again if I have any say so in that.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2022 at 3:40 PM.
