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Lamont Paris seeing growth heading into year two at South Carolina

On3 imageby: Collyn Taylor10/08/23collyntaylor
South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris coaches against Ole Miss
Lamont Paris (Chris Gillespie/GamecockCentral)

Before arriving at South Carolina, Lamont Paris cut his teeth in the Big 10 and the SoCon. He was part of a perennial NCAA Tournament team in Wisconsin and took Chattanooga to the NCAA Tournament in 2021. 

But when he got to the Gamecocks, it was his first foray into SEC basketball. It was undoubtedly a learning curve, something he’s trying to adjust while entering year two in Columbia. 

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“Learning some of the things teams like to do. I think it’s team by team, so more about what specific coaches like to do. But there are some things that just play well in this league compared to certainly the SoCon or my time in the Big 10,” Paris said. 

“While both of these two conferences tied for having the most teams in the NCAA Tournament, they couldn’t be any further apart in terms of style of play. Just getting accustomed to what it looks like and adjustments you can make along the way.” 

The Gamecocks finished 11-21 and 4-14 in the SEC with three of those four league wins coming over the final month of the season. 

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South Carolina revamped its roster in the offseason, bringing seven new scholarship players to pair with a few pieces returning from last season. 

And it’s a group that fits what Paris wants to do more so than last year. 

“We had a couple of things we wanted to address with this roster. One was just getting older and more experienced. That was probably priority number one. We wanted to be more skilled as a general rule. We addressed that as well,” he said.

“From now until perpetuity we’ll continue to try and upgrade talent year after year. Everyone’s trying to do that. But in terms of what I like to do offensively, we’re much better suited with this group from a skill standpoint to do those things.”

The Gamecocks spent the offseason trying to gel and install the system for a few new pieces. South Carolina went on a foreign tour the Bahamas–which meant 10 extra practices–which helped put the Gamecocks ahead of the curve heading into practice. 

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“It certainly feels like a different camp. First and foremost, it’s an older group. They get things. They pick up on things quicker,” Paris said. “But it’s drastically different from this point to one year ago. We’re older but we were able to go on the foreign tour this summer. That always puts you ahead of the curve in terms of the 10 practices the NCAA affords you during that time.” 

Paris and the rest of South Carolina’s staff will try and build on what was a tough year one. There will certainly be some adjustments with Paris learning from some of the pains in year one. But a lot of it will be focused on trusting the process. 

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“I’m a stay-the-course type of guy for the most part. We made some changes last year. I’m not so hard-headed that I’m going to force a square peg into a round hole. We made some adjustments midstream last year that helped us from an offensive standpoint,” Paris said. 

“We still had some things on both sides of the ball I didn’t compromise on. Those things will still be around this year. We’ll probably expand some things from an offensive standpoint.”

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