South Carolina Basketball: Major Gamecock transfer portal target names top-3

South Carolina basketball coach Lamont Paris seems to have zeroed in on his two top targets in the transfer portal.

After the Gamecocks added 7-foot sophomore Jordan Butler (a South Carolina native), USC had two more scholarships available, and most who follow the team believed that Paris and his coaching staff would look to add another big and a point guard. Based on the transfer portal targets who visited in recent days, those beliefs seemed accurate.

Former Alabama Crimson Tide starting center Nick Pringle (another South Carolina native) is one campus this weekend, and he appears to be a perfect fit in the post with the Gamecocks. Along with star sophomore Collin Murray-Boyles at power forward, Carolina has two high-upside young players in Butler and freshman Okku Federiko and reserve veteran Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk. Bringing in a strong and athletic true center is exactly the piece the roster needs for fans to feel good about the team's forwards and centers.

The other top target seems to be point guard Jhamir Brickus. A four-year starter at La Salle, Brickus can score (nearly 14 points per game last season on 43%/40%/86% shooting) and distribute the basketball (averaged better than a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio with 4.8 assists per game and 2.1 turnovers per game). Though not as tall, Brickus could play a very similar role to last year's starting point guard Ta'Lon Cooper.

After his visit to Columbia ended, Brickus announced his top-3 schools on Friday morning. In a post on Instagram captioned "Just having fun [with] this," Brickus revealed that the South Carolina Gamecocks, VCU Rams, and Villanova Wildcats are the three teams he is considering.

South Carolina basketball has been viewed by some in the college basketball world as the favorite to land Brickus, but he is taking a final visit to Villanova, where he will see his former head coach Ashley Howard who is now an assistant coach at 'Nova. Brickus previously visited VCU, as well.

Predicting Brickus' landing spot is difficult as he seemed to really enjoy his visits to VCU and South Carolina, and the connection with Howard could be a major factor.

Though Brickus has seemed like the top point guard target recently, Lamont Paris has recruited other players in the transfer portal, so fans should not panic if the Gamecocks don't earn his commitment. Coach Paris has done a great job in the portal each cycle since arriving in Columbia, and that will continue this offseason.

You can watch some of his film here.