Chico Carter Jr. shares first impressions of Lamont Paris

New South Carolina men’s basketball coach Lamont Paris has been on the job for just over one week.

And while he’s probably got a to-do list longer than an Aliyah Boston double-double streak, one of the early priorities for the Gamecocks’ newest coach is to start to get to know the players he inherited.

South Carolina junior Chico Carter Jr., a Columbia native who transferred into the program from Murray State last offseason, spoke in an exclusive Garnet Trust interview this week about his first impressions of Paris, pointing out that he appears to be “a man with a plan.”

“We all met him (first) through a team setting,” Carter said in the Garnet Trust interview. “He came in, addressed us, told us who he was. A great introduction. He gave us a laundry list of his accomplishments that he has done so far in his career. Then a couple of days later, we set up some one-on-one meetings with him.”

Paris takes over the South Carolina men’s basketball program after a five-year stint at UT-Chattanooga where he led the Mocs to a regular season and tournament championship in the Southern Conference this season.

The 47-year-old was 87-72 at UT-Chattanooga and 43-45 in the SoCon during his tenure. After two rough years to start, Paris was 65-29 in his last three seasons and 33-19 in the league.

He led the Mocs to their first tournament berth since 2016 and just the fifth one since 1997. They were a No. 13 seed and took No. 4 seed Illinois to the wire in a 54-53 loss.

At some point in the last week, Carter and Paris met one-on-one and talked about the future of the program.

“From my guess, he’s really a man with a plan,” Carter continued. “He’s coming in with a plan for sure, trying to show what he can show with his coaching career at the SEC level. He has some energy to him, he has some pop to him, but at the end of the day, I feel like he’s about his guys. He’s about winning and he’s about building a relationship with his players and then letting the players show what they can do on the court for the fans of course.”

That style of play is music to Carter’s ears. A scorer all of his life, he may be a better fit for Paris’ plan than the defense-first mindset that Frank Martin instilled in his teams.

A Cardinal Newman graduate, Carter is the high school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,868 points. As a senior, he averaged 24.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game on the way to a state title.

In his two seasons at Murray State, he averaged 9.7 points in 21.3 minutes per game in 48 games played, but saw his numbers dip this past season at South Carolina, scoring 4.2 points per game in 24 games played.

Carter says Paris has already been evaluating the Gamecocks’ returning players.

“He said he watched film on a lot of guys from last year,” Carter said. “And the message to us was really, or what I got out of the message that was relayed to me was, if you put in the work, if you get extra shots, if you’re just all in, he’s going to let his players go. And with that being said, with me being able to shoot the ball at a high percentage, that’s something I like to hear, because putting in work outside of practice, outside of mandatory workouts, that’s what I like to hear, when it comes to play style and coaching style.”

Carter knows, especially with the number of guys who have exited the team from this past season, that it’s going to be a process. But it all starts with he and his teammates coming together via Paris’ plan.

“First, we’ve got a lot of guys leaving now, so the new guys that come in, we’ve got to gel, we’ve got to gel quick to be able to get some wins under our belt and make a run in the SEC,” Carter said. “I feel like everybody has to buy in; buy-in is No. 1 for sure to Coach Paris’ plan to help us get through the SEC. The SEC is, I would say in my eyes the No. 1 conference in the country, because all of the big-time recruits, all of the big-time facilities, all of the big-time schools in the SEC is here. Me and my teammates, me and my new teammates that I’m going to get this year, we’ve got to gel and we’ve got to become a team and we’ve got to put in work and we’ve got to believe in Coach Paris’ plan to get us through the SEC.”

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