Everything Lamont Paris said at Garnet & Black Road Trip stop in Charleston

South Carolina head men’s basketball coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media ahead of the Charleston leg of the Garnet & Black Road Trip on Thursday. Here’s everything he had to say.

In general terms, how is filling out the rest of the roster going?

“It’s going well. I mean, there’s a lag between what we announce and what you know and what’s happening and what’s been happening. So, here in the next couple days — today, even tomorrow, who knows — there’ll be other things that come out. So, it’s an ongoing process trying to get things filled out. But I think we’re in a good spot with that.

“It’s been a hectic few weeks trying to get that figured out and navigate the portal and all that. So, it’s been good. We’re happy with how things have turned out.

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“We’re close to being finished, a couple steps away. Again, just due to the lag between what’s happening in real time, contracts… It used to be: I ask you if you’re going to come here, you say, ‘Yes.’ It’s a very quick window between that transaction and the time that everyone knows that you’re going to come play for us. Now, there’s a lot of things that happen, a lot of moving parts, a lot of people involved in it. And because of that, again, there’s a lag. So, while we’ve had some more work that has already been done, that’ll come out here in the next couple of days to weeks, depending on how some of this goes.

“Still a couple small pieces to fill, but most of the work is done at this point.”

Is there a position that you know you have to go get for next year’s team that’s still out there?

“No. Without divulging too much, we’re very close to just being done with all of it. The vast majority of the pieces that we would predict will be key cogs in what we’re doing, we’re close to done with that. Some pieces will start to emerge and come to light here in the next minutes to a couple of days to, I don’t know. It might be a couple of weeks for one of them.

“This process has changed so much that there’s so many things to take into account. I mean, there are some international guys even that are still competing. Those can’t be announced until after they’re done competing. It’s such a different landscape and so many things.

“I’ll say we’re very close to being done with the vast majority of the players that we anticipate making huge contributions next year. And some of that stuff will come out, again, in the next minutes to weeks.”

When do you anticipate filling out your staff?

“That’s one of the next things in this chain of events. I thought we really spent some good time and energy in identifying Bob Donewald, who has proven to be a really good hire for us just in terms of his connections in the recruiting world. The timing of that was intentional to get that done right before the portal happened.

“Our staff has worked incredibly hard over these last weeks. I’ve never been on the floor at Wall Street during the stock market. I imagine that’s what what one day would look like, but that’s what these last three weeks every day look like. I mean, you look up, and it’s 8:45 p.m. It’s like, ‘Alright, I guess we should probably leave now.’

“But Bob’s been really good, really effective. Now, we’ll move towards finishing the staff.”

A number of guys have tournament experience that you brought in, whether it’s [Camden] Heide in Texas, the young man from Wisconsin [Aleksas Bieliauskas], Duquesne [Jakub Nečas]. Outside of maybe some experience, what was an emphasis in some of the guys that you wanted to bring in from the portal?

“There were a lot of things. I think what you feel like you’re missing most recently is going to be a focal point in the nearest of futures.

“Those that know me, I speak an analogy at times. So, two years ago, or a year ago — I don’t even know, was this this year or is this last year yet? — but Colin Murray-Boyles’ sophomore year, we had the peanut butter of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, if you’re looking at our interior and our frontcourt was the strength of our team. Clearly, this year, we had the jelly of the peanut butter and jelly, if you look at our perimeter group was decidedly our most productive group. While that’s the freshest, you definitely want to make sure your frontcourt is improved, deeper. But at the same time, you want to put peanut butter and jelly together, which is what we had two full seasons ago. So, that’s been a priority.

“Certainly, when you look at some of the guys in the frontcourt, we very intentional about about adding some things to the frontcourt: an overall level of depth, experience, NCAA Tournament experience. Even some of the other teams that that didn’t have NCAA Tournament experience — if you look at Kory Mincy, for example, they played in the NIT. They won 23 games. He was a key cog in what that looked like. So, while he doesn’t have NCAA Tournament experience, he’s been a winner. I think those were the kinds of things that we were looking at trying to bring in with this class, as well.”

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“When did David Duquette start helping out the program, and what can he bring?

“David’s been a great resource. As this whole thing morphs towards professional athletics, and the line between those two things becomes blurrier and blurrier, we thought that adding a guy like David Duquette and his front office experience… I mean, he’s touched every aspect of professional sports, to be honest with you, in NBA basketball. So, I’m just getting his perspective on a lot of things. He’s been working with us for a little while now.

“I think his real added value — there’s been a lot of it already — will be felt the most in the time between now and one year from now in the process of identifying these guys as early as possible, vetting these kids out as early as possible. It’s crazy to say these kids are going to be playing for someone else. We’re going to be watching them the entire season knowing that they may or may not even be in the portal. They may or may not even be a prospect. But trying to identify some of those guys just in the event that they do go into the portal, that you will have them identified; vetted out in terms of fit, what they do well; projecting, if it’s a level change, what that means on this level versus the level that they were at.”

“So, he’s been really good. Tremendous insight. But the vast majority of where he could really impact will be as we move forward and getting a system in place for the following year.”

Do you have a target date for when you want the whole team in Columbia working out as a team?

“Well, I do. I’d like to, but what I want and what I get don’t always align.

“Again, we’ll have an international component to this team. I think we’ve seen that already with some of the kids that we’ve signed. There’ll be more kids that will have the option and the potential to play with their national team. So, those dates happen in a different time than what I would ideally like to have guys here. Way more factors.

“I’d like to say June 3 or 5, whichever it was last year. There’ll be a lot of moving parts. So, when I’m looking at the actual whole team, it’ll probably be later in the summer that we have the entire team doing whole team things. But that’s not to minimize the impact that we can still have with these guys with some individual stuff. We typically like to work out and do some individual improvement stuff early anyway. So, as we ramp that up as we get towards the middle of the summer, I’m looking forward to the time that we have the entire team.”

There’s been a lot of reporting around the country about how inflated the market is right now financially. Have you guys seen that as you’re going to get transfer portal guys? And how well-equipped right now is your program to compete financially?

“I mean, I think you have an idea of what you expect even based on what was happening last year. So, day number one, you could tell the numbers were higher than that. But then, even as you start to hear numbers as you’re in it, and then you start having conversations and making moves, the numbers went to another whole place.

“I think it’s simple supply and demand. When the supply is low, the demand is high. Those that are in demand know that they are in demand, and they have people working on their behalves to make their situation as lucrative as possible. That’s just what happens.

“I will say this — and I’m very thankful about saying this. As you guys know, I really never mentioned anything about what’s happened in the past and who we had and why we had who we had. But I’m extremely grateful to our administration, and it starts with President [Michael] Amiridis and our entire athletic department. Jeremiah [Donati] has been incredibly valuable and supportive in that, too.

“And the commitment that we’ve made… I know we put a statement out that talked about what we wanted to do moving forwards in terms of our ability to attract talent to Colombia and what that means. There’s really only one way to do that. I mean, there’s more than one way, but the number one factor in that is having competitive resources. And I’m really happy with the commitment that we have made. I give a ton of credit, again, to our president and to our board [of trustees] and to our athletic administration for making a commitment that allows us to be competitive.

“It’s part of the reason why these interactions are the way they are. Numbers are changing or going back. It’s like an auction in some ways at certain times, which I don’t love. But in some of these situations we were in, it was nice to have the paddle to be able to be the last guy standing with some of these kids. So, that’s why we’ve been up to some of the guys that we were able to get.”

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