Get to know Tanner Bronson, aka Lamont Paris' right-hand man and near-decade long assistant

Shortly after accepting the head coaching job at South Carolina, Lamont Paris pondered. As he began thinking about putting together his coaching staff, he wondered how it would feel to build this program without Tanner Bronson.

Where Paris is, Bronson has always been right there. He’s the Robin to Paris’ Batman. He’s Chewbacca to Paris’ Han Solo. OK, pop culture references aside, it’s true.

So when Paris made the rounds to fill out his initial staff, Bronson was a shoo-in to follow him to Columbia.

“That’s not to say that you couldn’t attract a lot of other guys that would want to have this job as an assistant coach,” Paris said. “… But as I thought about it, I said, ‘How would I ever build this into what I wanted to be without Tanner Bronson?'”

Nearly four years later, Paris is still at South Carolina with Bronson remaining by his side as an assistant coach. The two have been going on nine years of coaching together, dating back to when Paris got his first head coaching gig at Chattanooga in 2017. Their connection actually goes back further than that, as the two both have ties to Wisconsin and former Badgers head coach Bo Ryan.

Join GamecockCentral now for $1 your first week and enjoy a complimentary year of The Athletic – included with your membership.

Bronson played for Ryan in Madison from 2004-08, where he helped Wisconsin to an Elite Eight appearance in 2005 and a Sweet Sixteen in 2008. Paris, meanwhile, was an assistant there from 2010-17.

“I think the Wisconsin roots are in there from the type of player we like, the way we see the game, what winning looks like,” Bronson said during an Oct. 31 appearance on 107.5 The Game. “I think it goes in all aspects of a program when you’re trying to win, is the type of player you’re bringing. Does it fit the system? What really translates when you’re watching, scouting, and working in practice and building your team and all those different things. I think that’s probably why we see eye to eye on most things, and we can see things similarly. So I think that helps.”

Bronson is essentially Paris’ right-hand man courtside on the bench. He also works with South Carolina’s big men in the frontcourt. Of course, there’s a lot of time he spends in recruiting, which was a challenging task for him and the rest of the staff this past offseason.

The Gamecocks have an almost entirely new roster this season, with 12 newcomers made up of seven transfers and five freshmen. This year’s high school recruiting class was the first top-25 signing class at South Carolina in Paris’ tenure.

“We feel like if we bring in high character guys that really want to be good and want to win, that the chemistry will find a way to happen,” Bronson said. “I think that’s what this group is. We have a lot of those guys, and honestly, a few of them probably have felt slighted that, hey, you’re not good enough to do it at this level, or your role wasn’t what you wanted it to be. And I think that’s always been something that, you know, you saw two years ago with that group, felt really slighted, and what we were able to get out of them.”

So far, the results have been promising through the first four games of the season. The Gamecocks are off to a 4-0 start and have 85.5 points per game, a significantly higher mark than any of Paris’ three previous teams. Granted, that’s come against lower mid-major competition, but there’s already a good feeling about this team and their potential.

“I think this group is just a really fun group to be around. They get along really well. We have great team chemistry,” Bronson said. “… We know this team has an incredible amount of potential, and just trying to build that as the season goes on, especially as you get into SEC play.”

It’s not an easy job that Bronson does, but it’s one that Paris is grateful for in having him on his staff for almost a full decade to this point. He himself even wonders if he would be a good assistant coach right now with how much the game has evolved in recent years.

“I will say this, they don’t get near the credit that they should get for all this stuff, especially now in 2025,” Paris said. “There are so many other things involved in coaching, all the other things, the recruiting, the scattering for the individual development, all the other things that, going into class and get in touch with guys, academics. Everything you used to have to do, and then 100 other things that I never had to do as an assistant coach.”

The Insiders Forum: Discuss South Carolina basketball!