The road ahead for new University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball coach Lamont Paris shouldn't be a straight uphill climb.
But that doesn't mean it's going to be easy, either.
The Mocs' top two players in the 2017 signing class - point guard Jalen Crutcher and shooting guard Terry Nolan Jr. - have asked to be released from their national letters of intent to play for UTC. Because of the personal nature of recruiting, it's not an uncommon occurrence when a new coach arrives.
UTC has not granted those releases yet, though, most likely to allow Paris a chance to meet with the new players, which he planned to do this week. According to a tweet from Commercial Appeal reporter Mark Giannatto, Paris will meet today with Crutcher, a Memphis native who played at Ridgeway High School.
In the case of Nolan, it wasn't even former head coach Matt McCall's departure for the University of Massachusetts that was the fatal blow. It's the likely exit of assistant Kevin Easley, whom Nolan reportedly had a close relationship with.
Although Paris hasn't announced any staff decisions, it's expected that the former Wisconsin associate head coach will bring in his own staff. That means Easley - for whom this past season was his first as an assistant with the program after three years as the director of basketball operations at UNC-Wilmington - most likely won't be retained.
At least that's what Nolan believes.
"It had somewhat to do with Coach McCall, but really it had to do with assistant coach Kevin Easley," Nolan told PrepHoops.com. "That's the decision to turn me to go another way."
Paris planned individual meetings with a few UTC players Wednesday before flying back to Wisconsin, then traveling to talk with the incoming recruits.
Should Crutcher and Nolan - highly regarded prospects likely to garner interest from major programs - receive their releases, the Mocs' signing class would be cut in half, with 6-foot-7 junior college forward Joan Duran and 6-foot-8 Demarcus Mitchell the remaining signees. They would join seven returning scholarship players, as well as senior Chuck Ester, who would have to apply for a sixth season with the NCAA after a nonmedical redshirt season at East Mississippi Junior College and a second redshirt last year due to a torn ACL suffered in the preseason.
Only five of those players played last season, with one - sophomore point guard Rodney Chatman - playing in every game. Juniors Nat Dixon and Makinde London each missed one game, while sophomore Makale Foreman played in 28 of 31. Sophomore Andrew Fleming and freshman David Jean-Baptiste redshirted, the former after transferring from Iowa.
On Tuesday, Paris said he had an opportunity to watch video on the returning players as well as the incoming signees with help from a video coordinator at Wisconsin. Paris, whose hiring was announced Sunday, watched some of that footage on his flight from Madison to Chattanooga.
"I'm looking forward to getting to know those guys and develop a relationship with them," he said. "That won't happen in 24 hours, that's for sure, but throughout the course of time you spend time with them, and that's what it's all about, learning their strengths and weaknesses."
His first impression of the team?
Little experience, which comes as no surprise to anyone. The Mocs lost five senior starters who accounted for 75 percent of the team's offense last season, and that will have to be replaced.
"We'll have to try to speed up that process of experience between guys coming in that haven't played at all and even some of the guys here that have played sporadically," Paris said.
"That's the beauty of a situation like this. Everybody has a clean slate, a new set of eyes that's evaluating them, and from the time we first start doing that, they'll have every opportunity to prove to me what they can do from a basketball standpoint."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenleytfp.