Reports: South Carolina In Contact With Two New Portal Additions

Lamont Paris and South Carolina's Basketball program have begun conversations with two transfers in Wofford's BJ Mack and The Citadel's Stephen Clark.
Reports: South Carolina In Contact With Two New Portal Additions
Reports: South Carolina In Contact With Two New Portal Additions /

South Carolina's Men's Basketball program will have to hit this coming transfer cycle hard after missing on some closing targets in the previous cycle, as Lamont Paris and the staff seem to be done with high school recruiting in this class after getting small forward Collin Murray-Boyles and shooting guard Arden Conyers. Another reason why South Carolina will have to use the transfer portal is to try fill in the void of production this team is about to endure by losing a couple players.

Hayden Brown has been a versatile forward for South Carolina in his final year of college basketball, as he played anywhere from small forward to center for the Gamecocks, averaging double figures in scoring while shooting 43.4% from the floor throughout this season. Forward Gregory "GG" Jackson II hasn’t officially made a decision yet, but while talks of him staying have happened, I believe that we will see the former 5-star out of Columbia declare for the upcoming NBA Draft, as he's currently projected by some as a potential lottery pick.

Pending any thoughts about transferring elsewhere, South Carolina could get senior guard Chico Carter Jr. and preferred walk-on guard Ford Cooper Jr. back into the fold for next season should they decide to take advantage of their extra year of eligibility stemming from the Covid-19 season. Still in need of some firepower, however, it's been reported by two different national reporters that South Carolina has made contact with two transfer targets who hail from smaller basketball programs in the state of South Carolina.

BJ Mack

A 6'8" forward from Charlotte, N.C., who played high school ball for the renowned Oak Hill Warriors. This season at Wofford, B.J. averaged 16.6 points 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game, all while shooting 49.2 percent from the floor.

According to 247sports National Basketball Analyst Travis Branham, South Carolina, Arkansas, Butler, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas A&M, Xavier, UCLA, and Georgia Tech are just a couple of schools that have reached out to BJ.

Stephen Clark

The 6'8" forward from Charlotte, N.C., is a transfer from the Citadel, who averaged 16.3 points, 6.5 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game this season. According to On3 National Recruiting Analyst Jamie Shaw, Clark has been in contact with South Carolina, along with Richmond, Liberty and Loyola Chicago.

BJ and Stephen are the first of many players that South Carolina will look to add this off-season to try to continue to build this program.

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Fisher Brewer
FISHER BREWER

Fisher has been covering the Gamecocks for 5 years as a freelancer under the name of USCTalk, a popular page in the Carolina community that led to his first reporting job for Rivals.com. He left to go back to being a freelancer and then, a year later, joined the Sports Illustrated family in January 2023.