Report: Chattanooga’s Paris to coach South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina has chosen Chattanooga’s Lamont Paris to be its next men’s basketball coach, ESPN reported Monday night.

Paris has agreed to a five-year contract to take over for Frank Martin, who was fired last week after 10 years, according to the report.

The school has not announced Martin’s replacement. Any hire would need approval from the university’s board of trustees to be official.

Paris led Chattanooga to a 27-8 mark and the Southern Conference regular season and tournament championships.

Paris, 47, was 87-71 with the Moccasins over the past five seasons. Before that, he was an assistant coach at Wisconsin, first under Bo Ryan and then Greg Gard.

Paris’ hiring brings a disjointed coaching search to an end. Gamecocks officials had targeted ex-Arizona coach Sean Miller, who returned to a previous position as Xavier’s coach. They had also looked at Murray State’s Matt McMahon, who was hired as LSU’s new coach on Monday, and the program’s all-time leading scorer in Wake Forest assistant coach BJ McKie.

___

More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25