Lamont Paris, the South Carolina and Chattanooga coach, has struck a five-year deal to make him the college’s subsequent coach, sources advised ESPN Monday.
The deal nonetheless requires a formality for Board approval later this week.
Paris has been at Chattanooga for 5 seasons, going 87-72 throughout that point. After struggling two seasons in 2018 and 2019, Paris have gone from 65 to 29 over the previous three seasons. This season, the Mocs went 27-8, successful the Southern Convention common season title and the SoCon Convention championship title.
Within the first spherical of the NCAA Championship, Chattanooga led the Illinois 4th seed till the final minute earlier than dropping by one level, 54-53.
Previous to taking up at Chattanooga, Paris labored as an assistant coach at Wisconsin for seven seasons – giving him recruitment expertise at a senior stage. He additionally hung out as an assistant at Akron and three faculties exterior of Division I: IUP, DePauw, and Wooster, the place he performed faculty ball.
Paris replaces Frank Martin, who was sacked final week after 10 seasons at Colombia. Martin solely did one NCAA event throughout his time in South Carolina, however that journey to the championship in 2017 led to the Gamecocks making their Last 4 debut. Martin went 171-147 general in South Carolina, together with 18-13 this season, 9-9 within the SEC.
One of many engaging qualities of South Carolina officers was Paris’ expertise in recruiting, evaluating and growing high gamers in Wisconsin. Throughout Paris’s tenure at Madison beneath Bo Ryan and Greg Gard from 2010 to 2017, Wisconsin reached a pair of Last Fours (2014 and 2015) and performed for the 2015 nationwide title.
Wisconsin received a mean of 27 video games a yr throughout his seven seasons there, and Paris performed a key function in each recruiting and growing a number of the Badger gamers from that period: Frank Kaminsky, Sam Decker, Nigel Hayes, Bronson Koenig and Ethan Haup.
Demonstrating the flexibility to construct a high-caliber roster at Chattanooga, his high switch gamers embody Malachi Smith (Wright State), Silvio De Sousa (Kansas) and Josh Ayeni (South Alabama/St. Bonaventure). Paris recruited fifth-year David Jean-Baptiste, the 30-foot bell-beater who received the Southern Convention Championship and made Chattanooga’s first present for the NCAA event since 2016.
