By this point, we all know the story of the 2023-2024 South Carolina Gamecocks. Picked to finish last in the SEC, the Gamecocks took the entire league by storm and finished 2nd in the conference while going 26-8 overall and 13-5 in SEC play. Lamont Paris won SEC coach of the year and agreed to an extension to remain head coach through the 29/30 season.

With all of the sudden success the question must be asked: Did the Gamecocks just catch lightning in a bottle last season or was their success a sign for things to come under Paris?

Last season was nothing short of a massive success in year 2 of Lamont Paris, and I think there are 3 reasons why the Gamecocks will keep rolling under his leadership. That said, I think there are a couple of concerns to entertain as to why hardship could await the program.

Perhaps the most important thing to possess for any team if they hope to continue building their program into a consistent contender is a player to build around. South Carolina will lose some key pieces such as Meechie Johnson, BJ Mack, and Ta’Lon Cooper, but they return one of their best players in Collin Murray-Boyles. As a freshman, he was 3rd on the team in scoring at 10.4 ppg while also logging 5.7 boards a game.

He flashed his potential several times this past year including a 31 point performance against Vandy. There is little debate that Murray-Boyles will be a big part of what Lamont Paris wants to accomplish in Columbia. The only question now is can they surround him with the necessary pieces, which leads me to my second point.

Lamont Paris has shown that he has a great eye for talent out of the portal. Just last year alone, he brought in BJ Mack, Ta’Lon Cooper, and Myles Stute, all of whom were major contributors for the team. Having the central player is the starting point, but the second most important component of building a program is filling the gaps on your roster around your star player.

This seems obvious, but I don’t just mean filling out the roster from a numbers standpoint- the players must play well together, and Paris showed that he can assemble pieces that do just that. The backcourt took the biggest hit with Cooper graduating and Johnson transferring to Ohio State, and must be addressed to help space the floor around Murray-Boyles. Given his eye for talent, I have no doubt that Paris will find those pieces to put around his star.

Lastly, I think last year’s squad showed exactly what Paris wants out of his players. He values defense, energy, effort, and toughness- most, if not all of these things are a result of one’s will. Players can’t control the talent they possess. Some are great shooters, others are great at passing, while some guys have a knack for collecting rebounds or blocks. The effort given is 100% within a player’s control, and Paris demands that his guys give an all-out effort, especially on the defensive side of the ball. This is something that can be taught to a degree.

To be fair, though, some players are naturally better defenders than others, but having less defensive talent can be offset by playing hard and in sync with your teammates. I think it is this style of play that will allow South Carolina to remain competitive under Paris similar to how a team like Virginia has found success under Tony Bennett. 

All of this said, there are a couple of concerns that must be addressed before assuming South Carolina will continue to climb under Paris.

One concern is that while there is nothing wrong with utilizing the portal, I think most coaches would prefer to develop and retain their own talent. We all know the challenges the portal and NIL have created for coaches attempting to build a program, but this is even more the case for the coaches trying to rebuild  a program.

In most cases, highly sought after high school recruits don’t trust the new coach enough to commit to his program and the recruits that do commit likely need a couple of seasons to develop. So, the new coach has no choice but to utilize the portal to fill in the gaps on the roster in hopes that he can sustain success long enough to get the high school recruiting pipeline established.

As I stated above, I have no doubts that Paris can and will do this until the high school recruiting catches up, but there are a lot more moving pieces- are the right players/positions available in the portal, are they a good fit for the university, are they a good fit for our program, will they play well together, etc. These are all of the same concerns that exist for the high school level, but the pool of players is much smaller which makes getting the right combination of guys more complex. 

Finally, Paris is only entering his 3rd season with the program with one disappointing and one successful season. If he strings together a few subpar seasons moving forward, what we all considered to be a tremendous season would then be viewed as a fortunate outlier. I do not think this will happen, and as stated above I expect South Carolina to take another step forward, but it is still too early in his coaching tenure at USC to assume that what transpired last season will become the norm in Columbia simply because it happened once.

Dan Hurley has earned the right for winning a national championship to be the expectation because he has won 2 in a row. Coach K earned the right for the expectation at Duke during his tenure to be qualifying for the tournament on a yearly basis and competing for championships. As good as Lamont Paris is as a coach and as much as I believe he will turn USC into a consistently competitive program, 1 good season is not enough to assume that the following one will be just as good. 

In the end, I think Paris is a great coach whose program took a massive leap in only year 2 as a result of his great eye for talent in the portal as well as the ability to get everyone on the same page quickly. There will be challenges ahead for the Gamecocks this next season, but with Paris at the helm, they will be in good hands.