Paris Named Finalist for Two National Coach of the Year Awards

BOSTON, Mass. – Head coach Lamont Paris was named a finalist for a pair of prestigious national coach of the year awards on Tuesday. He was named one of 20 finalists for 2023-24 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year award and one of 25 finalists for the 2023-24 Ben Jobe National Coach of the Year award.

The Jim Phelan Award is named in honor of a legendary bow-tied coach who spent his entire head coaching career at Mount Saint Mary’s University. He led the Mountaineers to 16 Division II NCAA tournaments. Five times they advanced to the Final Four and he led them to the DII National Championship in 1962. When he retired in 2003, after coaching for 49 years, he had amassed 830 wins (overall record of 830-524) in all divisions. In those 49 years, 19 of his teams amassed 20 or more wins in a season. In 2008 he was inducted into National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

Phelan passed away on June 15, 2021 at the age of 92 at his home in Emmitsburg, MD.

The recipient of the annual award is determined by a 10-member voting committee, which consists of current and former head coaches, as well as two senior staff members of collegeinsider.com.

The Ben Jobe award is named in honor of one the most iconic coaches in the history of basketball at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He is best known as the head coach of Southern University, a position he held for 12 seasons. He was also head coach at Alabama A&M, Alabama State, Talladega, Tuskegee, and South Carolina State. His record at Southern was 209-141 and included four NCAA Tournament appearances. He also coached the Jaguars to one NIT appearance, five SIAC championships, 11 SWAC titles and two NAIA Tournament Championships

Coach Jobe passed away on March 10, 2017.

The recipient of the annual award is determined by a 10-member voting committee, which consists of current and former head coaches, as well as two senior staff members of collegeinsider.com.

Both winners will be announced at the Final Four in Phoenix the first week of April.

Paris, who was named the SEC’s Coach of the Year by the league’s coaches and the AP, has helped lead the team back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017 this season. He and has staff have helped engineer the greatest single-season turnaround in program history, improving the team’s win total by 15 games from last season to this season.

South Carolina’s 25 regular season wins are a new program record and the team’s 26 overall wins are tied with the 2016-17 Final Four team for the most single-season wins in program history. Paris becomes just the sixth coach in program history to lead his team to the NCAA Tournament (Frank McGuire, Bill Foster, Eddie Fogler, Dave Odom and Frank Martin).

Ahead of its round of 64 matchup with 11^th-seeded Oregon on Thursday, the Gamecocks enter the matchup with a 26-7 overall record and a 13-5 record in SEC games as the team T-2^nd in one of the best, deepest leagues in the country. The 13th SEC wins are the second most in program history behind only the 1996-97 SEC Champion squad (went 15-1 to win first and only league crown in Gamecock history). The Gamecocks also won a game in the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2018 with an 80-66 victory over Arkansas in round two back on March 14.

The SEC and Big 12 tied for the most NCAA Tournament bids in the country by a single conference with eight schools each selected for March Madness.

The Gamecocks won seven SEC games on the road this season, tying the 1996-97 team for the most SEC victories away from home in a single season. Carolina boasts an impressive 12-4 record in true road and neutral site games this season. That’s the best mark in the SEC and the T-2^nd best mark in the nation amongst the Power Six with No.2/2 Houston and No. 3/3 Purdue.

The Gamecocks are one of just 18 teams in the country with multiple top-10 wins and one of five teams in the nation with a top-five true road win. Carolina beat No. 6/6 Kentucky 79-62 at home on Jan. 23 and No. 5/5 Tennessee, 63-59, in Knoxville on Jan. 30. Per Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time the Gamecocks had defeated a pair of top-10 teams in a three-game stretch since 1968. Carolina’s win over the Vols was the team’s first AP Top-Five road victory since defeating No. 3 Kentucky, 72-66, on March 2, 1997.

The Gamecocks returned to the top-25 for the first time since 2017 back in Week 14 on Feb. 5 and have remained there the past seven weeks and will likely finish the regular season ranked in the AP Top-25 Poll for the first time since being ranked No. 14 in the final AP Poll of 1998. The Gamecocks have been ranked as high as No. 11 in both major polls this season, the highest top-25 mark for the program since being slotted 11th in Week 7 (Dec. 29) of the 1997-98 season.

Carolina and Oregon square off at 4 p.m. (ET) on Thursday at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh part of the NCAA Midwest Regional. Andrew Catalon (pxp), Steve Lappas (analyst) and Evan Washburn (reporter) will be on the call for the TNT broadcast. Paris will attempt to join Frank McGuire and Frank Martin as the only coaches in program history to lead the Gamecocks to victory in the NCAA Tournament.

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