Lamont Paris will be heading to Columbia as he plans to take over for Frank Martin as the head coach for the South Carolina Gamecocks.
Paris spent five seasons as the Mocs head coach, going 87-72 during that tenure. In his final season, the Mocs were 27-8 and won the Southern Conference tournament before loosing in the first round of the NCAA tournament in heartbreaking fashion to Illinois. This was the Mocs first tournament appearance since 2016.
He will be succeeding Frank Martin, who spent 10 years with the Gamecocks. Across his ten seasons as head coach, Miller went 171-147 and made only one tournament appearance.
Sources at ESPN.com are reporting major reasons the program was attracted to Paris is his cunning recruiting skills, smart use of the transfer portal (as seen recently with Malachi Smith and Silvio De Sousa) and his ability to develop high level talent during his time at Wisconsin under Bo Ryan.
According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, South Carolina and Paris have agreed to a five year deal–financial figures are not yet known at this time.
The deal still requires board approval from the University of South Carolina, which is fully expected to go through.
Paris is now the SEC’s sixth newest head coach behind Mike White (UGA), Chris Jans (MSU), Dennis Gates (MO), Matt McMahon (LSU) and Todd Golden (FL).
Paris quickly became an important part of both the UTC and Chattanooga community, making regular appearances across the city and always making time to receive thanks from Mocs fans.
No direct candidates to replace Paris as the Mocs head coach have emerged.
This is a developing story.