South Carolina Basketball: Podcast makes ridiculous suggestion that Lamont Paris should leave for Clemson

South Carolina basketball coach Lamont Paris has become one of the clear favorites for the National Coach of the Year award this season. Paris has led his Gamecocks to a 19-3 record, a 7-2 mark in SEC play, and a 15th spot in the AP poll. The turnaround from last year (11-21, tying a program record for losses) is one of the best in the country, especially when one considers that the SEC media picked USC to finish last in the league this season.

On the Chase Thomas Podcast, Will Warren, a social media "stats guy" and Tennessee Volunteers fan, suggested that Paris should leave the South Carolina basketball program for another job "while the iron is hot." The conversation came at the prompting of Thomas as he mentioned that Coach Paris should leave because "the job isn't easy" in Columbia.

Warren listed several schools as good landing points for Paris. He started by mentioned Ohio State and DePaul and went on to include schools like Iowa State, Texas, West Virginia, Memphis, and Louisville. However, mixed in with his imagination-fueled musings, Warren said Paris should look into the Clemson job if Brad Brownell is fired.

To Warren's credit, he spoke highly of Lamont Paris as a coach and leader, but suggesting that he should leave for the rival Clemson Tigers is ridiculous. His only reasoning behind the hypothetic move was that "Clemson has more resources," a claim that isn't even accurate. South Carolina basketball makes and spends more money on the sport than Clemson, and the Gamecocks are in the midst of planning large-scale upgrades and renovations across the athletics department.

Warren argued that fan support for basketball isn't good at Carolina and that Lamont Paris has "kinda gotta jump" at the chance to leave the school. What Warren clearly doesn't know (or is ignoring) is that the University of South Carolina is the only team in the nation to finish in the top-50 in the country in attendance across football, men's basketball, women's basketball (#1 nationally), men's soccer (#1 nationally), women's soccer (#1 nationally), baseball, softball, and volleyball.

Fan support is not an issue for South Carolina basketball. If the product is good, the fan support is elite, and even when it is bad (like last year), the Gamecocks still draw people to the arena.

Maybe Warren is just upset that the Gamecocks beat his beloved Tennessee Volunteers last week.

Athletics Director Ray Tanner will have to pull out the checkbook this offseason to keep Lamont Paris in Columbia long-term, and there will be teams looking to poach him from the Gamecocks. However, he will not be the next coach of the Clemson Tigers, no matter what Will Warren says.

Besides, an orange quarter zip wouldn't look great anyway.

You can watch the full clip below.