ASHEVILLE, N.C. - Lamont Paris had a mental picture of what he wanted to accomplish after leaving Wisconsin to become the men's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in April of 2017, but the situation he walked into wasn't what he originally thought.
Paris had previously been interviewed for the vacant position two years earlier after the departure of coach Will Wade for Virginia Commonwealth University. He felt good about his interview with previous athletic director David Blackburn, who instead chose to go with Matt McCall. When McCall bolted for Massachusetts after two seasons, Blackburn quickly turned to Paris to take over, but the job wasn't the same as it was two years before.
There were academic issues in the program, and there were roster concerns. Two months later, Blackburn resigned.
So when Mark Wharton was sitting at a table with head coaches, interviewing for the vacant athletic director position, Paris grilled him.
"He wore me out," Wharton recalled Monday afternoon. "He wanted to know who his boss was, and I understand his situation, giving up a great opportunity going to Final Fours and all the things he had in Wisconsin and coming here and he's got APR issues, got recruiting issues. He was weathering the storm and I just was wanting to be there to support him and help him."
Realizing the issues Paris was presented with initially, Wharton gave the head coach - who finished 10-23 that season - a mulligan. There was a massive roster turnover that offseason, which led to only slight improvement the following year, a 12-20 record. Still, Wharton showed his belief in Paris, giving him a two-year contract extension which essentially wiped out those first two seasons.
It's why Monday night was so special. Wharton and chancellor Dr. Steve Angle took a chance that Paris was the person to lead the program, and that was rewarded as the Mocs claimed the Southern Conference championship with a dramatic 64-63 win over Furman, advancing to the program's first NCAA tournament since 2016.
Unbelievable. Does it get any better than this? Seriously.
— Chattanooga Mocs MBB (@GoMocsMBB) March 8, 2022
This. Is. March. cc: @JonRothstein @Nothing_ButNet x #GoMocs pic.twitter.com/60U8pFA2xE
"This doesn't happen if they (Angle and Wharton) don't believe in your vision," Paris said recently. "They had enough belief in my vision that they gave me an extension after the first two years. This is an athletic director that didn't hire me and that's not typically how it goes in this day and age, but they had an extremely high level of belief in me and trust and faith in what I was doing."
Said Wharton: "I knew it was a risk, but a day like today is the moment it pays off. Seeing it evolve, putting trust in the guy and how he does things and the type of kids we have, he earned it."
By no means was it easy. Fifteen players - including 13 in the first two seasons - transferred out of the program, causing Paris to constantly shape his own vision. Three others moved to the professional ranks. This season's roster looked very similar to last season's roster, with the exceptions of forwards Silvio De Sousa and Avery Diggs and guard Tada Stricklen. Paris got it right this year and the end result will be a chance to play on the biggest stage in college basketball.
Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / UTC head coach Lamont Paris shows his frustration with the Mocs. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs hosted the Mercer Bears in Southern Conference basketball, at McKenzie Arena, on February 5, 2022."I thought I'd been lucky enough to be around some things, some accomplishments, but this eclipses everything," Paris said Monday with the SoCon championship trophy next to him, the net he'd just cut off the rim draped around it. "The thing I get the most out of, that makes me excited for two things: I'm with these guys every single day, so to be a part of why they're going to have this experience for the rest of their lives, I can't be any happier. The growth that I've seen at our whole university, in our community. I get text messages from people that have never gone to a game before; our student section continues to multiply to where those last home games were phenomenal.
"I get here and I'm dreaming big. It's a big dream where we need to go and it's a long road to get here. This net is a byproduct of getting all those other things right - the right kids, the right culture, the right everything. The city into it, the community on top of it. If you get all those things, nets can't help but happen at some point."
Mission accomplished.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.
