South Carolina rounds out on-court basketball staff
South Carolina’s first on-court staff under Lamont Paris has officially been finalized.
The Gamecocks are hiring Tim Buckley as their third and final assistant coach. South Carolina’s board of trustees governance committee approved it Thursday afternoon.
Buckley is on a one-year deal through March 2023 and has an annual salary of $350,000.
“Tim and I have had a tremendous mutual respect for one another for a long time,” Paris said in a statement. “We have faced off against each other as foes in the Mid-American Conference, as in-state rivals while he was at Marquette and I was at Wisconsin, and as conference opponents in the Big Ten while he was at Indiana. It will be nice to be on the same sideline for a change. Tim is seasoned, accomplished, and highly regarded in this profession. He will be a tremendous asset to Gamecock Nation.”
Buckley has had plenty of experience coaching at the high-major level, mostly in the Big 10 and midwest.
He’s had stints as an assistant at Wisconsin, Ball State, Marquette twice, Iowa. Buckley served as the associate head coach at Indiana for almost a decade under Tom Crean.
Buckley’s most recently been at UNLV as an assistant coach for the past four years. During his time at Indiana he was part of four NCAA Tournament teams, three of which made the Sweet 16.
Indiana also won the Big 10 regular-season title in 2013 and 2016 during his stint in Bloomington as well.
South Carolina’s newest assistant was part of two different regimes at UNLV starting with the 2020 season with T.J. Otzelberger. Kevin Kruger retained him in the offseason when Otzelberger left for Iowa State.
He completes the Gamecocks’ on-court coaching staff starting with Paris and also including Tanner Bronson and Eddie Shannon. Both of those assistants followed Paris from Chattanooga.
Paris has also brought a few other support staffers with him to South Carolina from Chattanooga as well.
South Carolina announced Wednesday Paris was bringing with him David McKinley as director of player development, Colby Arendale as director of operations and Roman DiPasquale as video coordinator for the Gamecocks.
Paris is also retaining Scott Greenawalt as the strength and conditioning coach along with Mark Rodger as an athletic trainer. Carey Rich is coming on as special assistant to the head coach as well for the Gamecocks.
The Gamecocks are in the midst of recruiting now, trying to fill up a roster with six scholarships currently available. They’ve been in the final groupings for The Citadel transfer Hayden Brown along with Wofford transfer Max Klesmit.
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