Lamont Paris talks recruiting, transfer portal since arriving at South Carolina

On3 imageby:Collyn Taylor05/20/22

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Lamont Paris jokes right now is really the first time since the taking the South Carolina job he’s gotten a chance to come up for air.

The first few months were hectically spent trying to get situated, build a staff and infrastructure while, most importantly, trying to assemble a roster capable of competing in year one.

Speaking with The Field of 68 in a recent interview, Paris went into detail about the portal and how the Gamecocks are using it this year and in the future.

“Some of the guys we’re bringing in have multiple years. They’re going to be here for more than one year,” Paris said in the interview. “Then we had two young men committed and signed to South Carolina that honored their commitments after meeting me. I’m really excited about them, as they are about us about the university and this program here.”

The newly-assembled Gamecocks staff had to build largely a new roster. They had six available scholarships and two freshmen coming in this summer.

Transfer portal players largely make up Paris’s inaugural class.

South Carolina’s brought in guards Ebrima Dibba (Coastal Carolina) and Meechie Johnson (Ohio State) along with big man Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk (Illinois) and forward Hayden Brown (The Citadel).

They have two spots available left for this class as of this writing. Paris will likely round the roster out with transfer portal players this year. But he wants to have a good “infrastructure” of young and old to build stability.

“It’s good to have some young guys, but I don’t think you can have 13 guys that honestly, deep in their gut, feel like they should be playing 20 minutes. You’re setting yourself up for failure if you have that,” he said.

“It’s nice to have some young guys who are learning and who are getting better and pushing guys. Then as their time comes, whoever those guys are, you have some infrastructure.”

Paris adapted to the transfer portal well at Chattanooga.

He’ll want to have similar successes with the Gamecocks. He does reiterate recruiting will first and foremost start at the high school level. That way they don’t have to lean as heavily on the portal.

“I’d like to mirror that kind of experience but do it in a little bit quicker fashion,” Paris said. “I want to try and do it at a quick rate. But at the same time not take any shortcuts here at South Carolina in order to get us to be a consistent player in the game and in the race for SEC regular-season champs.”

Paris’s goal is to always get the Gamecocks into a position where they’re making the NCAA Tournament consistently.

Trying to do that in an insanely competitive SEC is something that ultimately attracted him to the South Carolina job.

“We’re in a league where if you are in contention for that you’re going to expect to do great things in the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “That’s what I really like about this conference. There are a lot of challenges that go with it but a lot of opportunities and rewards.”

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