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Lamont Paris wants to make South Carolina another SEC contender and NCAA tournament team | Sports

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The best thing about South Carolina men's basketball coach Lamont Paris' rise from SEC obscurity to the school's first NCAA berth in seven years was the close bond that developed between players who had little to no connections.

Paris hopes to assemble a similarly tight-knit team, as his Gamecocks, one of last season's biggest positive surprises, will be completely different from the one that beat Kentucky and Tennessee and set a school-record 26 wins.

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