Todd Golden and Lamont Paris: A Tale of Two Cities
The SEC had the largest coaching carousel of any conference in the Power 5. A whopping 6 teams exchanged coaches, and Georgia, Missouri, Mississippi State, and LSU all received new coaches that will hope to create the new era of college basketball at their respective programs. However, the 2 most notable head coaching changes come in the rising star of Florida’s Todd Golden, and the SEC’s new most clutch coach in South Carolina’s Lamont Paris. These 2 coaches parallel each other in very different ways, and are both set up for considerable success at their new programs. However, only time will tell if they can live up to the lofty expectations placed on them by the Gators and Gamecocks respectively.
Todd Golden inherited a storied program in San Francisco, but in recent memory, the Dons were tremendously unsuccessful. They had evaded the NCAA tournament in the 21st century. In just 3 years, Todd Golden led the program to a 10th seed in the NCAA tournament. Against their first round opponent in Murray State - funnily enough, LSU’s Matt McMahon coached that Murray State team, meaning a potential rivalry between these young coaches could brew - Jamari Bouyea ensconced the court with his incredible gameplay. The Don scored 36 points in an incredible effort against the Racers, including sinking 4 consecutive, incredible shots in overtime. Despite this, San Francisco experienced an unfortunate ending in one of the best games of the tournament.
Todd Golden was snatched from San Francisco, and is now looking to help a Florida program regain the former glory of the late 2000s. Billy Donavan is an all time great coach, but the Gators encountered a bit of trouble when replacing him. Mike White, granted, is a strong coach in his own right, but he did not meet Florida’s lofty expectations, and was ultimately shipped across the border to Georgia. Golden is the proverbial “cool kid” - he is young, hip, offensively minded, and coaches an exciting style of basketball. Gators fans should be incredibly excited to see Golden in the coming seasons.
As for Lamont Paris, he also helmed the meteoric rise of a formerly stagnant Chattanooga program. While their drought was not nearly as long as San Francisco, fans of the Mocs were itching for a return to the postseason. However, Chattanooga was encountering difficulty in recruiting players to rival other top Socon programs Furman, Wofford, and UNC Greensboro. Paris responded by leading Chattanooga to the SoCon regular season championship anyway and coaching one of the all time greatest games in Southern Conference history in his overtime thriller against Furman to make the NCAA tournament. The game included an incredible buzzer beater to send Bob Richey’s Furman Paladins packing.
Paris followed up his success with a close loss against Illinois in the tournament. Chattanooga led the Illini with 12 seconds left in the game, but a monstrous block sent the Mocs packing before making the big upset. South Carolina as a program is in need of revitalization. Despite Frank Martin coaching the program to its only Final Four in school history, the Gamecocks fired him after a subpar season in 2022. Paris is a far more balanced coach than Golden, as his Mocs were ranked similarly in offense and defense at KenPom last year. He will hope to be the next step towards South Carolina becoming a consistently relevant basketball program.
Both Paris and Golden have their fair share of struggles in year 1. South Carolina is currently ranked 84th in KenPom, and seems to have no chance at making the postseason. Meanwhile, Golden lost a close game against FAU on Monday, meaning the Gators already suffered an avoidable loss that could come back to bite the bubble team in the future. However, Golden and Paris should have time to develop their mettle as a coach at the Power 5 level. Of course, the SEC is incredibly dangerous - and should only become more dangerous with the inclusion of Chris Beard’s Texas and Porter Moser’s Oklahoma in the distant future - but From Downtown has confidence that South Carolina and Florida will soon sit at the Mount Olympus of the SEC due to their strong coaching hires. Hopefully, the success of these 2 programs will form a rivalry between the feisty, exciting styles of the coaches, and people will talk about Lamont Paris and Todd Golden for years to come.
Stay tuned for the next article coming Sunday, November 20th!
