South Carolina basketball: the road ahead in recruiting
As May ends, South Carolina is in a holding pattern on the men’s basketball side of things, gearing up for what will be a hectic few months this summer.
Schools right now are in a dead period until the end of the week. That means they can’t have any in-person contact with players on or off-campus.
That doesn’t mean things slow down; South Carolina’s coaching staff is still working the portal and trying to round out the roster while looking ahead to the 2023 class and beyond.
The dead period will end on May 28 and slip to a quiet period.
During that time, the Gamecocks—and every other program nationally—can bring players on campus for visits but can’t go out and evaluate prospects off-campus.
Lamont Paris will have his first pair of team camps during that time. Those will be held June 10 and 11 at South Carolina’s facility.
It’ll be a chance for Paris and the Gamecocks’ staff to meet with coaches from around the area while evaluating high school talent.
The entire month of June is a quiet period with three weekends of off-campus evaluation allowed. The first is June 17-19 when prospects are playing with their high school teams at events.
South Carolina’s high school league is hosting an event that weekend for in-state players to compete in. The Gamecocks will almost assuredly be there to evaluate.
There’s another high school evaluation period the following weekend. Coaches can then go out recruiting on June 29 and 30 for the NBA Top 100 camp in Orlando.
July brings over six full days of evaluation period time for South Carolina’s coaching staff, all at the grassroots level.
The second week of the month (July 6-10) coaches can go out recruiting. There will be AAU events in places like Charlotte, the Atlanta area and Louisville among others.
Then, July 20-24 coaches can get out to events as well with the biggest of those the Peach Jam.
There is a dead period smacked in the middle of that, which starts the afternoon of July 10 and runs through the morning of July 20.
South Carolina is in the midst of filling out its roster right. There are two scholarships still available in this upcoming class.
The Gamecocks have a handful of targets they’re recruiting, some of which are still going through the NBA Draft process.
Players have until June 1 to remove themselves from the draft pool and maintain collegiate eligibility. That means decisions for some of South Carolina’s targets in terms of staying in or coming back to school are on the horizon.
South Carolina has a four-man scholarship transfer class at the moment. It includes guards Ebrima Dibba (Coastal Carolina) and Meechie Johnson Jr. (Ohio State), forward Hayden Brown (The Citadel) and big man Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk (Illinois).
Zachary Davis, a top 150 prospect, and Daniel Hankins-Sanford will enroll this summer as freshmen.
South Carolina currently expects to return Jacobi Wright, Chico Carter Jr., Ja’Von Benson, Tre-Vaughn Minott and Josh Gray as scholarship players.
