One month after announcing his intention to sign with the University of South Carolina, Harlan County all-state guard Trent Noah made it official on Friday by signing with the Gamecocks in a ceremony at HCHS.
Noah, a five-year starter for the Bears, had narrowed his college choices to South Carolina, Stanford, Seton Hall, Western, Richmond, Saint Louis, Dayton and Butler before picking the Gamecocks.
“It’s been an awesome experience,” said Noah, who added that he considered “fit, style of play and where I was needed” in making his college choice.
Harlan County coach Kyle Jones noted before Noah’s announcement that Noah would be the first player from the county since Harlan’s Charles Thomas in the 1994-95 season to sign with a Division I school when he picked Minnesota. Thomas went on to become the second Harlan County athlete to win Mr. Basketball honors.
The first Harlan Countian to be named Mr. Basketball, Cawood’s Phil Cox, was the last county athlete to sign with a Southeastern Conference school when he picked Vanderbilt in 1981 before going on to be a four-year starter and all-time leading scorer with the Commodores.
Noah is ranked fourth all-time in the county with 2,540 points scored and has a chance to pass Thomas, who scored 3,365 points in his career. Noah will become the third 13th Region player in the SEC with North Laurel’s Reed Sheppard at Kentucky and Corbin’s Andrew Taylor at Mississippi State.
The HCHS guard joins a South Carolina team that finished 11-21 last season and 4-14 in SEC play. Lamont Paris enters his second season as coach. Paris came to Carolina after five seasons as the head coach at University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, coaching the Mocs to an 87-72 overall record (.547), including a 65-29 mark the last three seasons. Paris came to Chattanooga after seven seasons as an assistant coach at Wisconsin (2010-17). The Badgers averaged 27 wins per year during his tenure. Wisconsin won a school-record 36 games in 2014-15 finishing as the national runner-up a year after reaching the Final Four in 2014 and also reached four NCAA Sweet 16s.