I don't know what South Carolina is doing, but they're not fixing any problems.
I realize things are complicated in Columbia right now, the most important sport is going through a season where they might have to fire the head football coach. And what the Gamecocks have in Lamont Paris is a good basketball coach, and by most accounts a good person.
But what Paris hasn't done, is win. Last season was the third in four years where the Gamecocks were at or near the bottom of the league. The 2024 season is the lasting hope for what he can do, but outside of that lone season the program is 26-60 overall and 10-44 in conference play. Two years ago the Gamecocks weren't bad, the league was just brutal. But last year they fell 30 spots or so in the analytics, and despite winning a few more games in conference play, it wasn't enough to get them out of the basement.
On top of the losses, there's also a lack of competitiveness. South Carolina lost 10 games in the SEC by 10 points or more, including six by 19 points or more. The worst was a 47 point beatdown by the Gators at home. It's one thing to lose big on the road, another to do it in Colonial Life. 18 losses in the last two years have come by double figures. It's just a hard way to live.
So what does the 2025-26 season hold in store for Gamecocks fans?
Last season: 13 – 19 (4-14 in conference) #96
The Masses Prediction: 16h in conference
SEC Media: coming soon!
Analytics Average: 16th in conference, 92nd overall
You can't say that Paris has done a good job, because he hasn't. You can say it's a difficult job he's in, and he's in a tough place. In normal times he would have likely been fired by now. Maybe after year three went sideways, they give him one more shot because of how good year two was, but three years in four have been awful.
And now it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. Paris has struggled to recruit the kind of talent out of the transfer portal to make a real difference, and despite reportedly having real money to spend this past offseason, he's been the face of a poor program for too long. Because they aren't winning, the home arena is lifeless, making recruiting a much tougher sell. Sometimes change is good for all parties.
There are probably a handful of programs in other leagues where Paris would have success, he's just been tasked with trying to win in a league that's hyper competitive and willing to spend just as much if not more than their neighbor. All the while stuck in a rut of not being able to assemble enough talent to truly break out of the back of the pack.
Paris's contract is good through the 2029-30 season, since he was re-upped following his second season in Columbia. So it'll be interesting to see how the offseason looks if things don't go well again for the Gamecocks. His buyout this past season would have been close to $11 million, and that should drop to around $8 million after this year, for anyone who might need to know. Without knowing Beamer's future, it's hard to imagine South Carolina committing even $8 million to make Paris go away. So I supposed the hope is he can find a way to just not make things miserable for Gamecock fans.
You can see it's been a rocky 10 years. Maybe a rocky 20 years, or 30. Missouri and Texas A&M have more NCAA appearances as a member of the SEC than South Carolina does, and the Gamecocks have a 20 year head start. Some of it can be chalked up to caring. South Carolina cares deeply about baseball and football, and their women's basketball program is as elite as they get. So how much does the school really care, when it has to split up the dollars? Maybe find someone who can make them a little more competitive, and call it a day?
Turns out, Meechie Johnson wasn't the magic bean that made it all work a few years ago. With Johnson as the primary guard, along with Ta'Lon Cooper, BJ Mack, and Collin Murray-Boyles, the Gamecocks won 26 games. But without Cooper, Mack, and Murray-Boyles, Johnson alone wasn't enough. But the Meechie era is over, if the Johnson era isn't (Lamont signed Marcus Johnson and the two are cousins), and gone with him are over 1600 career points and one of the best seasons in Gamecock history.
With Johnson is nearly everyone else, Paris made a bet he could get old and win again and it didn't work out. Virtually the entire roster has been turned over, aside from a few local guys. Maybe for the best?
I wish I could point to some big portal haul as evidence things were turning around, although I like this roster a little better than last years group. For one, not having interior size, or athleticism on the wing, really inhibited what they could do defensively. Having Aleksas Bielauskas, Jakub Necas, Hugo Lopez, and Juan Fernandez should be an improvement over the interior of Nordin Kapic, Elijah Strong, and Jordan Butler.
The biggest win from the portal is inarguably Kory Mincy. An Atlanta area native, Mincy spent his first two seasons at Presbyterian, where he broke out as a sophomore, and then became George Mason's top offensive threat in his lone season in Fairfax County. Mincey is a bit of an undersized 2-guard, but carries a lot in common with Meechie Johnson. He can play on the ball, but is best coming off screens and generating shots for himself. Mincy shot almost 40% on catch and shoot opportunities from 3 point range, and he doesn't foul much at all, nor turn the ball over. Basically some of Paris's favorite things in a guard.
[Kory] Mincy shot almost 40% on catch and shoot opportunities from 3 point range, and he doesn't foul much at all, nor turn the ball over. Basically some of Paris's favorite things in a guard.
Needing to replace Myles Stute, Paris hunted for another bigger wing with questionable footspeed, but one who can knock down three point shots and make sound decisions. Stute's shooting never quite came back around after his inury early in his second senior season (he had three senior years), but Texas transfer Camden Heide hasn't had that issue. He's a careeer 43.1% shooter from the outside, and when I tell you he's low usage, he's shooting the ball off the catch, or on a cut at the rim. Heide played over half the minutes last year for Texas, yet had just a 10% usage. But again, Paris will love him, he's got around a 10% turnover rate for his career.
The freshman recruiting class contains exactly one guy you need to know about and that's the aforementioned Marcus Johnson. Meechie's cousin, and the son of Garfield Heights (Cleveland, Ohio) head coach Sonny Johnson, Marcus is a well regarded 4-star point guard with a storied high school career now behind him. He's a scoring first lefty guard who should slot right into the starting position off the bat.
In need of a talent influx, Carolina took a flyer on Davion Hannah. At Alabama he was a well regarded recruit, but injuries sidelined him for most of his freshman season. Prior to his injuries he wasn't able to find consistent minutes either, so he and his camp are hoping the opportunity to see the floor at lot in Columbia will help steer him back on course after being a top 65 4-star combo guard. His decision making and shot profile could use some reconstruction, but he's a powerful and athletic driver with excellent body control around the rim.
Last years roster problems aren't this years roster problems. A year ago the Gamecocks simply didn't have anyone on the roster accustomed to being high usage. Now with Hannah and Johnson, you've got two younger guys who want to get the ball a lot, and Mincy who is used to getting shots from off the ball.
Now neither Hannah, nor Johnson, have proven they can be higher usage guys at the SEC level. But it's an interesting experiment either way.
It's not entirely clear what the Gamecocks will do in the front court, but Heide provides versatility in his ability to flex between the wing and the forward spot. If either of the two young guards aren't ready, he could move up to the wing, and allow Paris to experiment with any combination of the big men he's got signed up.
Aleskas Bielauska comes over from Wisconsin after a solid freshman campaign, and should be able to push the international big men, Juan Fernandez and Hugo Lopez, for the starting spot. Or Paris could easily match them up in pairs to try to compete better on the glass. Fernandez is an Argentinian who played in the top Spanish league last year, while Lopez (from Spain) played in the second division. Both are pushing the age limit with Lopez being born in July of 2003, and Fernandez being born in November of 2002. And frankly I think the NCAA should move away from international 23 year olds who have been professionals for 4 years coming in and playing college basketball, but your mileage may vary.
This isn't a super deep roster, after Shane Blakeney things thin out a bit. Grant Polk helped at times last year, and can be a shooting threat if you don't pay attention. But Jakob Necas was basically a big body at Duquesne. Nasir Hines is also tall but barely played while at JUCO.
14 non league games, 9 quad 4 games. Yikes. They get Clemson at home in their annual series, which could tilt favor towards the Gamecocks, who beat Clemson in Colonial Life two years ago. The Acrisure series might be interesting as that will be their first high major challenge of the season. The other USC should be pretty good this year under Eric Musselman, and Arizona State has got season one under Randy Bennett. Two very different coaches in their approach and profile, but both are used to winning. Then they get a trip to Raleigh for the ACC-SEC Challenge to take on new NC State coach, and former Tennessee assistant Justin Gainey.
The Gamecocks get a little bit of a break with their home and homes, other than Florida who are going to be awesome again, but Georgia and Mississippi State are two teams with high turnover and could be gettable wins. The home slate is pretty tough though: Arkansas, Texas A&M, Alabama, Texas, Auburn and Ole Miss. I think if you're Paris, you're looking at Auburn and Ole Miss as the most likely, and then hoping you catch A&M napping. Arkansas did show up asleep two years ago, so maybe that happens again. Opening at LSU isn't great but who knows who will be able to play in the game for the Tigers. The rest of the road schedule just isn't friendly at all.
The preseason analytics all expect great things from the SEC again. And in every set I've seen so far, South Carolina is bringing up the rear. They're just inside the top 100 for EvanMiya.com , and 72nd in BartTorvik.com . Last year they were last in the preseason as well, and I guess the good news is they didn't finish last either of the last three years. The last two, they finished second to last.
So if it feels like you can see this coming, it's because we've played the same script before. I respect Lamont Paris quite a bit, but he hasn't been able to get this program moving in the right direction and heading into year five he's again banking on a lot of question marks.
Can you get Marcus Johnson and Davion Hannah ready for action to be able to handle large roles? Is Kory Mincy able to scale up his production for a third season in a row to give the Gamecocks a real perimeter scoring threat?
This roster is more built to compete in the SEC this year than the previous one, simply because they invested in getting bigger.
So you know this team will likely play very conservatively, they'll value the ball, and they might even shoot better than they have. Mincy has been a remarkably consistent shooter as he's gone from Presbyterian up to George Mason, and Paris has shown a knack for getting his shooters good looks. They just haven't been knocking them down the last few years.
Hannah isn't known for his shooting, but Mincy and Heide are shooters, Blakeney and Polk are respectable. Their bigs don't really stretch the floor, so the guards are really on the hook to be the drivers offensively. Is there enough production up and down the roster to feel good about this team exceeding expectations? I just don't know if there's enough to get them out of a Wednesday play in game in the SEC Tournament.
About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in "the Masses" picks. Included in "the Masses" are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections , and national media outlet predictions .
Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we're taking the average of the three main sites ( EvanMiya.com , BartTorvik.com , and KenPom.com ) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.
The projections : In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be, we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an in-depth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com 's BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com 's preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.
GLOSSARY
* – an asterisk denotes a walk-on player
GP – Games Played
%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury
%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.
ORtg – Offensive Rating , similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it's how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.
BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.
PAR – Points Above Replacement, a Rock M+ proprietary rating measuring projected on-off impact adjusted for time on the floor.
PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.
For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com ' s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com 's Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.
