A tournament bid in year two, so what about year three?

Season three of the Lamont Paris era is quickly approaching for South Carolina men’s basketball. The Gamecocks are six practices into their preseason ramp-up and will open the regular season five weeks from today with a home game against North Florida.

Paris went over a few notes for the Gamecocks in a Sept. 30 media availability after practice.

The Gamecocks are in mostly good shape on the injury front right now, but there was a little bit of a question about redshirt freshman Arden Conyers. Paris mentioned on his radio show last week that Conyers suffered an ankle sprain over the summer which held him out of some action, but his latest update was more positive.

“He’s better,” Paris said. “He’s practicing full go now. It’s been good. It was a significant ankle sprain. It happened right at the end of the summer; it was one of our last workouts, actually. He missed probably five or six weeks, so just getting back into basketball condition has been a priority and a focus of his. But now he’s back and going full go.”

Conyers figures to make his collegiate debut at some point this season, and Cam Scott will as well. The true freshman guard was the highest-rated member of the 2024 recruiting class, and projects to make an immediate impact for a team in need of some backcourt help.

Last week Paris made the claim that he could be an all-SEC freshman on his radio show, and added some more context to those comments on Monday afternoon.

“I believe in his ability and I believe in his opportunity,” Paris said. “When those two combine, I just think it sets him up for a great chance to do that. I don’t want to put any pressure on the kid, but it would be the third year in a row that we’ve had a freshman not only from the state of South Carolina, but in reality the city of Columbia on the all-freshman team.

“I say that really more than anything as just a gesture of my confidence in him, for him, for his family and for the fans to know that I do believe he has an opportunity to have a really good year for us.”

Even with Scott ready to jump into the fold, there will still be growing pains for a true freshman. In the meantime South Carolina has to replace both starting guards off last year’s team, Ta’Lon Cooper and Meechie Johnson. Scott will help soften the blows, but returners Zachary Davis and Jacobi Wright will both need to take a jump while transfer point guard Jamarii Thomas projects to step in as the point guard.

"Obviously two of the guys that we lost last year were incredibly experienced not only in college baseball, but in high major basketball,” Paris said. “Ta’Lon played a lot of minutes at Minnesota before he came here and played the most minutes on our team last year. Meechie Johnson was in a similar boat, so it’s a lot of experience that we lose with those guys.”

At least on paper, backcourt depth is the biggest question mark for this team a month out from the start. Where does it go from here? A lot of competition and evaluation for the staff between now and tip-off.

“It’s a great opportunity for some other guys coming in,” Paris said. “Some of which were here and some of which are new faces. It’s just been fun trying to figure out what that looks like as we get closer to games. Certainly nothing is decided yet, but it’s a very competitive group.”

One remaining question surrounding the overall roster construction is about incoming freshman Okku Federiko. The forward from Helsinki, Finland is expected to join the team this year, but still has not arrived with the squad. His status is still up in the air, but Paris had a brief update.

“He hasn’t been cleared by the NCAA all the way yet,” Paris said. “We had some difficulty getting some information to the NCAA. He has not yet been certified completely. We’re just trying to continue to navigate that process."

In each of the past two years, South Carolina has played a home exhibition game the week before the season. Paris welcomed in Division II school Mars Hill to start the 2022-23 campaign, and last season Wofford traveled to Columbia for the exhibition.

While Paris did not reveal the date or the opponent for this year’s exhibition with the contract still unsigned, he did confirm that his team will play a home exhibition prior to the season opener.

“We’re trying to really simulate what a game day environment is like, what that experience is like going against somebody different,” Paris said. “That’s typically how we like to do it.”

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