© Denny Medley-Imagn Images
The South Carolina basketball team played its final home game of the 2025-26 season on Tuesday night in Columbia. Empty seats littered Colonial Life Arena as fans completely abandoned the Gamecocks.
Apathy has set in. The fanbase refuses to support an awful product. It’s created a $14 million dilemma concerning Lamont Paris.
The Gamecocks hosted SEC rival Tennessee on Senior Night. An attendance of 10,517 was announced. That number seemed inflated when taking a look around the venue.
Senior Night crowd at CLA.
Final two Gamecocks honored are Myles Stute and Meechie Johnson, who both played huge roles in USC getting to the NCAA Tournament two years ago. pic.twitter.com/i5unNakcyD
— Jack Veltri (@Jacktveltri) March 3, 2026
Colonial Life Arena holds 18,000 people. It didn’t look anywhere near half-full as the attendance report would suggest. Fans have grown tired of losing.
South Carolina has a bad basketball team.
The Gamecocks went to the NCAA Tournament in 2024, Lamont Paris’s second season at the helm. Since, they’ve fallen off a cliff.
Last year, the team posted a 12-20 record with an abysmal 2-16 mark in SEC action. This year hasn’t been much better.
South Carolina is 12-18 with just three wins in league play. They lost by 19 points to Tennessee on Tuesday, the 10th defeat in their last 11 tries.
The blowouts are beginning to pile up.
Nine of the Gamecocks’ conference losses have been by double digits, headlined by an embarrassing 47-point setback at home vs. Florida.
The team cannot win. It is uncompetitive on most nights. Fans are demanding change.
Will Lamont Paris be fired?
The South Carolina basketball coach is on the hot seat. Losing 30 of the last 35 conference games will do that. Still, it is not a guarantee that he will be removed from his post, even as the fanbase calls for his job.
In fact, most national analysts believe he’ll be back on the sidelines in 2026.
There are two main reasons for that anticipated return. They are both related to money.
The Gamecocks do not stack up with their SEC counterparts in terms of NIL. Many of their rivals top $8-$10 million in spending. Recruiting has struggled as a result.
While the program is far from being considered a blue blood, there is some history to lean on. Paris has shown an ability to succeed, evidenced by a 26-win campaign just two years back in which he was named SEC coach of the year.
Still, the recruiting class ranked 68th in the nation this past offseason. That will need to improve moving forward.
Also keeping Paris relatively safe from a firing is his buyout. Following that previously mentioned ’24 season, he was given an extension. His buyout sits at $12 million.
South Carolina probably does not want to drop that kind of money. Lamont Paris will likely get another shot in Year 5.
If results don’t improve in 2026-27, his days will be numbered.