Everything Lamont Paris said at Summerville Welcome Home Tour stop

South Carolina men’s basketball coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media in Summerville at the Welcome Home Tour stop on Monday. Here’s everything he had to say.

You guys officially signed Abu Yarmah today. Could you just tell us a little bit about what your excitement is to bring him in?

“I’m excited about this entire class, all the new faces, but Abu is, you know, it’s just an interesting process. We had seen Abu a lot, just because he was teammates with Eli Ellis, and then in his last year, Hayden Assemina were all on the same team. And so Abu was already signed at High Point, and just got a chance to see him play a bunch. You know, obviously not thinking too much about it. But then, when they had a coaching change, and he decided that he was going to open his recruiting back up, and we had some availability and need for a guy who’s got good size and skill. He’s a tremendous young man and incredibly appreciative of the opportunity that he has in front of him. So, just my kind of guy.”

Can you take us through how it came to be that Meechie Johnson’s coming back to Columbia?

“It’s 2025. Things are different. Kids have a lot of, I call them kids, they have a lot of options. They’re trying to figure things out. And I have just had a relationship with his entire family. Meechie probably called me a few times when he first got to Ohio State. It had nothing to do with anything other than he just wanted to check in with me. And so it’s just we’ve had a relationship, a good relationship, and obviously the basketball was good for him here. I keep telling him, I was telling him during the re-recruitment, that he needs our fans, and our fans need him. It was a unique relationship that he had with our fan base, and it was a really good one, and he thrived and fed off of that. And so when he decided that he was going to look at going somewhere else, you know, I don’t know that some of his family members thought he had to look too far at all. But again, it’s 2025, so we had to re-recruit him again. But obviously we had a good relationship, and we’re excited about him coming back and being able to help lead.”

Speaking of new faces, more so in the portal, was there one thing you and your staff were looking for, maybe in particular, scoring, size?

“Skill, feel for the game. Those are two areas that I wanted to concentrate on. Experience. I think if you look at the guys that we brought in, we’re probably a little closer in terms of experience and total games, number of starts on our entire roster, than we were two seasons ago. And so I just thought those were important things for us. And again, skill. We had a very skilled passing team two seasons ago, and that served us really well. We were not as accomplished in that area, and just for me and my DNA, that’s always an important thing for me. And so we wanted to get back to a little more feel and skill, and then also combine that with some good experience.”

What’s your process with the transfer portal in 2025, and how do you feel like you guys navigated filling out your roster?

“I think we did as well as we could. I think we did a really good job with making pivots when you had to make pivots, and that’s just, you have to adapt and did. So I thought we did a really good job in some situations where it looked like one thing was going to happen, something else happened. And that’s happening more now than ever before. It used to be we thought we were going to get a commitment from this kid, and then you lose in the 11th hour to someone else. You kind of sort of thought you were going to get it done, but it didn’t, and then you have to pivot. Now it’s like you get a commitment. I don’t know if that’s a word that we should call it anymore, but this thing happens to where you’re in an agreeance of what’s going to happen, and then that changes three weeks later, and you’ve been counting on something for three full weeks, and then you have to pivot.

“So I think we’ve done a really good job of turning the page, getting on to the next, gathering information, quickly developing relationships with the people that you can as quickly as you can, and then assessing. I think it’s a constant assessment of what you have, what you need, what you might potentially need. Then we did all that again with Collin Murray-Boyles out there too, and it’s like, Okay, here’s a player you can take, but if Collin comes back, that doesn’t really work with those two together, but he’s a really good player. If Collin doesn’t come back, he’s the perfect fit for us to roll the dice on that and hope that Collin doesn’t come back.

“But the end of the day, we also wanted to provide an environment that that when and if Collin Murray Boyles decides he wants to come back here, that we would welcome him with open arms. I’m rooting for him to get everything he wants out of this draft process, the information that he wants. But certainly if he decides that the future involves coming back to Columbia. We would be ecstatic about that. We’ve put the pieces in to surround him in an environment where he could be extremely, extremely successful.”

Is that why there’s still an open roster spot, leaving the door open for a possible return for Collin Murray-Boyles?

“I’m definitely leaving the door open for a possible return. And I know that is unlikely based on the feedback that we’ve gotten. I think he is a viable first-round draft pick, almost any way you slice it. But some guys want to be selected in a certain area. They want to be in the lottery, maybe. So we’re leaving the door open for him to gather all that information. Try to talk with the people that he needs to talk with — get some real feedback, honest feedback — and then make a decision based on that. But if he wants to come back, there was no way I was ever going to try to construct a team where there wasn’t a place for Collin Murray-Boyles to come back. You wanna talk about the DNA of a player and syncing up with the DNA of the coach in terms of just who he is, as an everyday guy, as an everyday defender, as an everyday teammate. There was no chance we were going to build a team in a way that if he decided he wanted to come back, we couldn’t make that happen.”

Since you’re here in Charleston, any thoughts on playing The Citadel, College of Charleston, Charleston Southern?

“We’ll think about it.”

Cam Scott enters the portal, and now he’s back at South Carolina. How did all that kind of happen?

“It’s 2025. Cam is a great young man, and he’s got a really bright future. He does. Everyone grows at a different rate. I’ve tried to tell all the guys that we have on our team, particularly the young guys. And so there was some exploration as to what might be there. Again, it wasn’t like, I think if you have those situations, and then someone goes to the portal, and then you show your true colors, maybe, and it just turns out poorly, that you don’t have the opportunity for something like this to happen, for him to come back. He’s a really good young man. He’s a local guy. I’m looking forward to really trying to help him grow his game to where he can contribute in a way that really helps us win basketball games.”

Do you have a regular line of communication with CMB, or do you kind of just let him do his own thing?

“We communicate with him. I mean, I’m probably due to call him. That was probably on my to-do list today or tomorrow, but I also kind of let him do his thing. I don’t want to be perceived as trying to influence him in his decision. I had to talk with him and with his family, but I had a talk with him at the end of the season, and I just tried to assure him that as long as he does what he really wants to do, what Collin Murray-Boyles really wants to do, it can’t turn out poorly. He can’t make a bad decision.

“So I’m here to just support him. I don’t want to be perceived by him or anyone as trying to discourage him from going to the NBA or encourage him to come back. That’s not my role. I told him there’s a solar system that’s around him, and he’s the sun in that solar system. I am in orbit around him. Not the other way around. It’s the only thing I can do to help him with his decision is what my role is.”

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Could you shed some light on Treysen Eaglestaff and his decision to ultimately decommit? How does that happen? Do people get in his ear?

“Well, here’s what happens in this, I don’t know, atmosphere that’s been created. And not by these young men, but you make a decision on where you want to go, and that decision used to be solely based on factors that involved your relationship with the coaching staff, your basketball opportunity, a host of other factors that didn’t involve something that could be outbid, so to speak. But now money is also a factor, and I don’t begrudge that from any of these guys, but money is a factor. And one thing someone can do, if you decide to go to a school and you say, hey, I feel like I connect with these coaches better than this other school, and so I make my decision based on that. What the other school can’t say is, hey, we’re going to have a better relationship. Now, if you make your decision based on basketball opportunity, and you make a calculated decision, because School A has a better basketball decision for me, School B can’t come back in three weeks and say, I got a better basketball situation. All of a sudden, there are most factors you cannot do that with. One factor you can do that with is money. You can have more money and bolster your offer in that way. And I think that’s happening, unfortunately, in the environment that’s been created.

“And so it’s, it’s making some kids reevaluate decisions that they made under all the right circumstances. They leaned on the people that they trust. They were of sound mind when they visited. They contemplated other offers; they had conversations with other people. They did all the things that you would do to say, I’ve mitigated as much risk as I possibly can. And those are the circumstances under which you make a decision, and then, you know, in a short amount of time, there’s only one thing that changes in that equation. Sometimes it’s money. And so then minds get changed because of that.

“So I don’t love that. That’s what it is. It’s not my role to change that, not in the short term anyway, you have to just adapt. Just have to adapt. No hard feelings. You’ve got to move forward. You can cry over spilled milk, but you just got to move forward and try to make moves that you need to do to put a team together that you like, and I really like this group.”

With so many new players on the roster, in terms of meshing, do you try to get involved in that? Or is that something you try to just have happen organically amongst the players?

“I think if you have an older group, it can happen a little more organically. But when you’re talking about the volume of new faces, I do think you have to be intentional to some degree with trying to set up some situations or circumstances in which they’re going to have to have conversations or do things that are different than just basketball things. And so, over the summer, we’ll do some things to try to expedite that gelling and meshing.

“But having some familiar faces back, and we’re in a unique situation in that you get a Meechie Johnson back, who’s new again, but he’s been here, and he’s familiar with us. We were blessed with the decision from the NCAA and with the doctors to get Myles Stute back for another year. There’s no better example of a decision that was the right decision. And I thought that going into it, but then when I had a conversation with him, and I heard his voice when I told him that he was going to get the year back, it was like, wow, what a right decision that they made. This guy is incredibly appreciative. So there’s another guy, so just another face that is familiar with what we’re doing that can help expedite that process.”

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