Lamont Paris attacked the transfer portal this offseason. Will it pay off this year?

Lamont Paris was aggressive in the transfer portal in the months following his debut season as a SEC basketball coach. He had a number of transfers on the roster last season, but this year it’s on a larger scale.

South Carolina’s second-year men’s basketball head coach brought in five transfers for this season, including two from other SEC teams. Paris simply cast the net out looking for experience, and having players with previous SEC experience was an added bonus.

“We had a couple of things we wanted to address with this roster,” Paris said. “One was just getting older and more experienced. That was probably priority number one, and we addressed that need.”

Thanks to the portal, this season should be a true look at what Paris’ recruiting abilities look like. Paris had an opportunity to look for exactly what he wants, players who could adapt to his offensive scheme, players who can rebound, score, be a big man in the paint and provide depth.

And that resulted in a newly mature Gamecock roster.

Last season, USC’s roster had a combined 122 career starts. This year, that number has jumped to 480.

“Because of the portal, you can get older, quicker, right?” Paris said. “And you can also recruit to play your style of basketball quicker.”

Myles Stute joined the Gamecocks after three seasons and 59 career starts at Vanderbilt, a team that finished sixth in the conference last season. He’s known for being a 3-point shooter, having one of the top shooting percentages in the country, with 78 makes in 183 attempts last season.

Paris said Stute’s ability to shoot behind the arc could be a big boost for this year’s offense. The head coach likes 3s, and Stute has the skillset Paris said he wants for the offense.

Stute is also a consistent rebounder, averaging 4.6 rebounds in 34 games last season. That’s another area the Gamecocks struggled in, and Paris said having a player who can rebound could provide second-chance opportunities South Carolina didn’t have last year, particularly late in the game. The Gamecocks were second to last in rebounding last season, averaging 34.1 rebounds per game, where only 11.8 were offensive rebounds.

“There won’t be shock from seeing and playing on the road or seeing a specific venue, or a crowd,” Paris said. “None of it will be new to the vast majority of our team.”

Having gone through the SEC himself already, Paris had the chance to learn how basketball is played in this conference compared to the SoCon at Chattanooga. So logically, he scoured the transfer portal for players who fit the SEC style.

But also, Paris said he feels more comfortable heading into this season because he’s now experienced the SEC. Last season, he was learning more about coaching in this conference in real time.

“Not only is it just experience in college basketball, experience at this level of college basketball, and it’s experience with me,” Paris explained. “I also have more guys that I have coached, significantly more guys that I have coached and coaching again this year, from terminology, all that. Last year we had none.”

Those players include Meechie Johnson, Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk and Jacobi Wright, all three who held significant roles last season.

While not an SEC transfer, Paris said he expects BJ Mack to aid in rebounding efforts very quickly this season. The Wofford College big has the ability to shoot 3-pointers and rebound effectively. In 69 starts at Wofford, Mack averaged 14.1 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.

Paris said Mack will easily adjust to the speed of SEC play, and expressed similar sentiments to Minnesota transfer Ta’Lon Cooper.

Mack’s size alone makes him stand out on the court — literally. The graduate student is 6 feet, 8 inches tall and 270 pounds — as a forward. He’s one of four players on South Carolina’s roster over 6-7.

Cooper said he chose South Carolina because of Paris’ recruiting efforts after he entered the transfer portal. He said the way Paris recruited him and the opportunity presented to him made it easy to join the Gamecocks.

“They did a really good job recruiting me to come here and broke down film, and watched a lot of film throughout the recruiting process,” Cooper said. “And they showed me how I can be in his system.”

Cooper, another guard, played every game last season at Minnesota and finished the season ranked No. 21 in NCAA career assists with 603. Similarly to Stute, Cooper is another 3-point shooter, and similar to Johnson, Cooper isn’t afraid to drive to the basket if given the chance.

Paris’ tactic of recruiting mature players like Stute, Mack and Cooper and the others still landed the Gamecocks last in the preseason SEC poll. But the head coach doesn’t believe this group will end the season in that bottom spot.

Instead, Paris said he’s looking forward to these mature players proving everyone who voted them last wrong.

“It’s a cool pick. I guess it’s convenient. Maybe you like this coach better. This coach is smarter. This coach has more experience,” Paris said at SEC media day. “This player that we picked up, you don’t think he’s very good. I don’t know. We’re much more significantly skilled, significantly more experienced, and we did not finish last last year.”