Report: South Carolina Targeting Chattanooga’s Lamont Paris as Next Men’s Basketball Coach

The college basketball coaching carousel continues to spin.

South Carolina is reportedly targeting Chattanooga’s Lamont Paris to be its next men’s basketball coach, according to multiple reports on Monday.

Sources: South Carolina has zeroed in on Chattanooga's Lamont Paris to be its next head basketball coach.

— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 21, 2022

Paris is coming off of a remarkable fifth season at Chattanooga, where he led the Mocs (27–8) to the NCAA tournament for the first time since the 2015–16 season. The Southern conference program was eliminated in the first round of the Big Dance with a nail-biting, 54–53 loss to Illinois. 

Throughout his time at Chattanooga, Paris turned the program around in impressive fashion. After going 10–23 during his first season with the Mocs, the 47-year-old coach earned SoCon coach of the year honor for his efforts during the 2021–22 campaign. 

Paris would end his tenure at Chattanooga after posting an overall record of 87–70.

Since graduating from The College of Wooster, Paris has been on a steady trajectory in coaching. He began at his alma mater before moving onto stints as an assistant at DePauw, IUP, Akron and Wisconsin. 

In his second head coaching job at South Carolina, Paris would inherit a program that’s barely cracked the .500 mark since making the Final Four in 2017. The Gamecocks parted ways with Frank Martin, who’d served at the SEC school for the last 10 years, after a 18–13 finish this season.

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