South Carolina enters its first Southeastern Conference basketball tournament under the guidance of Lamont Paris with an 11-20 record that contains a 27-point loss to Colorado State, a 24-point loss to George Washington, a 41-point loss to Texas A&M, and two losses to Tennessee by a combined 83 points.
It’s been a long season for the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach but not the longest. Paris, after all, did endure a 10-23 maiden voyage with the Mocs in 2017-18.
“They’re similar in a lot of ways,” Paris said. “I think I had more personnel with what I had here, and there were more challenges with some of the personnel I had when I first got the Chatt job just in terms of consistency and schoolwork and some other areas. There have been less of those challenges here, but they’re very similar seasons at the end of the day.”
Paris will look to extend his first season as an SEC coach when his 12th-seeded Gamecocks take on 13th-seeded Ole Miss in Wednesday night’s league tournament opener (7 on SEC Network) inside Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena. The winner of that matchup will take on fifth-seeded Tennessee on Thursday afternoon (3:30 on SEC Network).