Under construction: Gamecocks have pieces in place, but Lamont Paris is still building

The house isn’t quite finished yet — even though Lamont Paris has lived in Columbia for close to a year now.

The South Carolina men’s basketball coach will stop by his property every once in a while to see how the building process is coming along. Every time he shows up, it still looks like the empty skeleton of a home. But there have been subtle changes over the last few months. The HVAC system is up and running, plumbing installed, electricity flowing.

“There’s a lot of foundation that was built in that house, even though I wasn’t in it every day, so I didn’t see it,” Paris said Wednesday after USC ended its season on Day 1 of the SEC tournament.

The 48-year-old coach likened his unfinished home to what he’s building with the Gamecocks.

“I think that’s a fair analogy for what has happened this year,” Paris continued. “We get judged on wins and losses, certainly, but I’m evaluating it differently. I evaluate it on a day-to-day basis.”

The team’s final record does not inspire awe, with the Gamecocks (11-21, 4-14 SEC) earning the No. 12 seed in the conference tournament and losing to a No. 13-seed Ole Miss team that had fired its head coach just weeks before.

But the on-court expectations were low from the get-go, with the 2021-22 team’s entire starting group and top reserves — many vocal supporters of fired coach Frank Martin — entering the transfer portal. By the time Paris showed up to Columbia last April, he was playing catch-up on the recruiting trail, trying to cobble together a roster with what was left in the portal.

Some incoming transfers worked out better than others. But to extend Paris’ new house analogy, the coach has found some furniture for his program — even if several rooms remain empty.

Point guard Meechie Johnson, an Ohio State transfer, thrilled fans with his deep 3-point shooting and established himself as a team leader. He said after Wednesday’s loss that he “100%” planned to return next season and that he trusted Paris’ vision. Fellow starters Josh Gray and Jacobi Wright indicated they plan to return, as well.

The USC administration seemingly made a conscious decision in hiring a coach who is largely the opposite of the old-school, tough-love coach Martin was. Certainly, there’s been less yelling from the sideline. Paris is a cooler customer who tends to carry himself in the same even-keeled way during the team’s wins and losses.

“(Paris) had a very unique and new energy that I received from him,” said Gray, one of the few holdovers from last year’s team. “I didn’t know how to feel about it at first. But it kind of grew on me, and now I really appreciate his energy day in and day out.”

No one expected these Gamecocks to make the NCAA tournament, but with any new coach, there is an expectation for some level of forward progress. The Gamecocks flashed growth near the end of the year — most notably by forcing overtime against then-No. 2 Alabama in Columbia.

But the team developed in other behind-the-scenes ways, too. Multiple players said in the locker room after Wednesday’s loss that the key area of growth for the team was in its “maturity.”

Outside of the 24-year-old Citadel transfer Hayden Brown and Johnson, the Gamecocks roster leaned heavily on underclassmen. GG Jackson, of course, was the biggest and brightest name. His commitment to South Carolina was viewed as a massive coup for Paris before the season. And though the 18-year-old led the Gamecocks in scoring (15.4 ppg), his immature moments proved to be a liability for the Gamecocks at times.

But Jackson finished his season on a strong note in Nashville. Though it’s very possible Jackson declares for the NBA Draft this offseason, it says something about Paris’ coaching ability that he was able to navigate Jackson’s infamous Instagram video rant and occasional poor body language and coax the best out of him on the SEC tournament stage.

Other players took leaps, like Gray’s evolution as a top-10 rebounder in the SEC, Wright’s growth as a scorer and freshman Zachary Davis’ emergence as a tenacious defender in the team’s 1-3-1 zone scheme. But there’s no question Paris and his staff need to add more pieces. Many more. The Gamecocks are especially thin in the post, with their big men struggling to impact games for much of the season — Gray excluded.

In contrast to last year’s rushed atmosphere, Paris will be able to attack the transfer portal much earlier and with a more solid footing this spring. His eyes light up when he talks about the recruiting trail being the one arena where he can truly compete. Paris established a reputation as an adept recruiter under Bo Ryan, before coaching the Chattanooga Mocs for five years.

Now, Paris will have the opportunity to show what he’s capable of in that arena, although it’s not likely this fan base will have much patience for another 12th-place finish in the SEC next season.

Despite this season’s results, several Gamecocks raved about Paris as a coach and his plan for building the program. The “super” senior Brown essentially served as an on-court extension of the coaching staff this season. And though he’s exhausted his college eligibility, he said Wednesday that he doesn’t regret taking part in that process.

“I am so excited, honestly, to see where Coach Paris takes this program,” Brown said. “They’re going to win. They’re going to compete, and they’re going to be a team that people don’t like to see on their schedule. That’s going to happen pretty quickly.

“We saw signs of that this year.”

The house is far from finished. No doubt. But get the right materials in place, and, as Michael Jordan once said, the ceiling could be the roof.