COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Gamecocks men's basketball team has learned their seeding in the NCAA March Madness Tournament, as they look to extend one of the greatest seasons in program history.
The Gamecocks will play Oregon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday to start the tournament. USC is in the Midwest Regional and is a 6-seed in the tournament, while Oregon is the 11. Times have not yet been announced.
Head Coach Lamont Paris is in his second season with the team has has led a remarkable turnaround in his sophomore campaign. The team has already tied the all-time program record for wins with 26, and still has chances to add to that total in the in the March Madness Tournament.
For his work, Paris was rewarded with a six-year contract extension and pay raise on Friday. The deal will $26.5 million over that time span. His name had been circulated as a possible candidate for other jobs because of his success this season.
The Gamecocks went 25-6 overall and 13-5 in SEC play during the regular season. They finished second in the SEC and their 25 wins are the most in program history. The 13 league wins are the second most in USC men's history, behind only the 1996-97 team that won the SEC title that year.
USC was picked to finish last before the season began and was coming off a losing season, but the team has already won 15 more games this year. South Carolina also returned to the national rankings this season for the first time since 2017 and has stayed there for most of the last month.
South Carolina was 3-3 against AP Top-25 opponents this season. The Gamecocks are one of 18 teams in the country with multiple top-10 wins and one of five teams in the nation with a top-five true road win. USC beat Kentucky 79-62 at home on Jan. 23 and Tennessee, 63-59, in Knoxville on January 30. Per Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time the Gamecocks had defeated a pair of top-10 teams in a three-game stretch since 1968.