COLUMBIA, S.C. — For South Carolina men's basketball coach Lamont Paris, the best part of the Gamecocks' transformation from forgotten in the Southeastern Conference to the program's first NCAA tournament berth in seven years was watching players with few connections going into the season become closely bonded along the way.
Paris hopes to forge a similarly tight-knit team again because his Gamecocks, whose rise was one of the biggest surprises of last season, will be vastly different than the group that knocked off Kentucky and Tennessee and finished with a program-record 26 wins.
"I don't think there's any secret that I thought it was one of the best qualities that we had," Paris said of the chemistry and good feelings "We played well together. Guys enjoyed playing with each other and played for one another."
The Gamecocks had gone 11-21 in 2022-23, their first season under Paris. He took over at South Carolina after capping a five-year run as coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a sweep of the Southern Conference regular-season and tournament titles and the Mocs' first NCAA berth since 2016.
For the Gamecocks, this offseason could be as challenging as the last after losing four players who combined to make 116 starts last season, including leading scorer Meechie Johnson, who averaged 14.1 points and 29.1 minutes per game. Johnson was the only one in the quartet with eligibility left and surprised many when he returned to Ohio State, where he played before coming to South Carolina two years ago.
Also gone are Ta'Lon Cooper (9.9 points, 33.7 minutes), Stephen Clark (2.2 points, 10.0 minutes) and B.J. Mack (13.6 points, 24.8 minutes), who joined the team last year as graduate transfers.
Paris credited last summer's exhibition trip to the Bahamas for the early cohesion as the Gamecocks, picked to finish last in the SEC, won 13 of their first 14 games, with the lone loss to in-state rival Clemson, an Atlantic Coast Conference program that would go on to reach the NCAA tourney's Elite Eight.
For now, the bonding must come on campus, a process that has already started via informal workouts with a lot of free-flowing offense for first-year Gamecocks such as Alabama transfer Kam Pringle, Missouri transfer Jordan Butler and freshman Cam Scott, who was committed to Texas before switching to South Carolina.
"What might help is that we do have more guys coming back," Paris said. "From a standpoint of terminology and culture and traditions and customs and things that we want to do, we have more of that."
Those returnees are led by Collin Murray-Boyles, who received SEC All-Freshman recognition after averaging 10.4 points and nearly six rebounds a game in 2023-24. He also led the Gamecocks with 28 blocks and was dominant in a 75-60 home win over Vanderbilt in February, scoring 31 points on 14-of-17 shooting.
The 6-foot-7, 231-pound Murray-Boyles is already on the NBA's watch list for next June's draft, although whether he'll leave college after two seasons is yet to be determined.
"I still believe his ceiling is incredibly high, and I still believe he's not close to it," Paris said.
Others returning include Myles Stute, who played his first three college seasons for Vanderbilt before transferring to South Carolina in 2023, and Austin Herro — Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro is his older brother — who redshirted last season to begin his collegiate career.
"Those guys still have heard what we're saying and, hopefully, those help expedite the process of getting comfortable and playing with one another and developing chemistry," Paris said.
One thing that might have lowered outside expectations for the Gamecocks a year ago was losing leading scorer GG Jackson, who turned pro after his freshman season and went on to become a standout rookie for the Memphis Grizzlies after being selected in the second round of the NBA draft.
After the surprise showing last season, Paris knows South Carolina fans are hungry for more. The expectations were upped even more when Paris, 49, turned down other opportunities and signed a six-year contract extension worth $26 million through the 2029-30 season. He will make $3.75 million this season, up from $2.3 million last season.
On Wednesday, Paris brought in assistant Will Bailey from Loyola-Chicago to complete his coaching staff. Bailey worked with the Gamecocks from 2020 to 2022 during their final two seasons under Frank Martin, whose decade in Columbia included just one NCAA tournament berth but also the program's lone Final Four trip.
As for any predictions about this season, Paris has worked to keep those on the outside — for now.
"It's a little bit premature in my plan to do that," Paris said. "We're just trying to get to know each other."