Freshman guards Weston Coggeshall and Lance Piper both landed spots on the South Carolina men's basketball 2024-2025 roster after walking on the team over the summer.
Both players got just a taste of playing time during South Carolina's exhibition game against Wooster on Oct. 30. Coggeshall and Piper clocked in a minute and 40 seconds, with Piper also scoring a 3-pointer.
But even though the two freshmen aren't seeing much time on the court, they're finding ways to do their part behind the scenes and are hoping carve out roles for themselves and contribute wherever they can.
For Coggeshall, joining the Gamecocks is something that has always been on his mind. His parents both attended South Carolina, and it quickly became his dream school, he said. Growing up, he watched his older brother play basketball, and he quickly rose to varsity on his high school basketball team.
When the opportunity for Coggeshall to join the the team arose, he took it and never looked back, he said.
“I got recruited a little bit by them. I took the opportunity, and I didn't know what I really wanted to do, but I thought this was a good opportunity to do,” Coggeshall said. “I just went with it, because I've always wanted to come here, to my dream school. It's always been in mind.”
Piper's connection to head coach Lamont Paris helped bring him to South Carolina. Piper's father, Leon Piper, played under Lamont at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and then later professionally overseas.
Piper's father was a major influence early on in his basketball career, Piper said.
“My dad played in France for a while when I was younger, so I lived out there with him for a few years,” Piper said. "He really inspired me to play."
For him, his relationship with Paris is what made him want to join the Gamecocks.
"I had a great connection with (Lamont). I liked him a lot.I just like talking to him." Piper said. "I just really saw eye-to-eye with him and agree with a lot of stuff that he was saying."
The moment Coggeshall found out he would be given the opportunity to join the Gamecocks as a walk-on was an emotional one, he said. Coggeshall said he received the text that he was officially on the team during the last weeks of his senior year in high school.
"(I) almost started crying. Super, super happy, couldn't think,” Coggeshall said. “I was at my school getting therapy on my ankle. That's when that happened. I got the text. I came home. We all celebrated.”
Soon after that, Coggeshall joined the team for the summer workouts, and he has since been training with his new teammates ever since. The transition from high school basketball to college is physically more demanding and set at a faster pace, Coggeshall said.
But Coggeshall said he feels that he has adjusted well to the team and his newfound opportunity.
“They accepted me really well. They all — no matter who I was — they loved me,” Coggeshall said.
Depending on the school, becoming a walk-on is a very different process. Coaches will get tips from other coaches, hold tryouts or players approach the team themselves, assistant coach David McKinley said.
But Coggeshall and Pipers process was mostly because of connections they had to the school already and the kind of players they were in high school, McKinley said.
“(Lance) played against good competition growing up in AAU and high school,” McKinley said. “Weston — obviously a kid from South Carolina — it's always good to have local kids on the team ... his high school would come to our team camps, and we knew his coach.”
As a former walk-on himself, McKinley said both Coggeshall and Piper have acclimated to the team during the summer workouts and as the season begins to start.
“Your freshmen year, that fall, it's a lot coming at you, new stuff, even just the conditioning and lifting its different than high school," McKinley said. "Those guys have done a great job ... of getting used to everything.”
McKinley said he has noticed both Coggeshall's and Piper's work ethic through workouts and practices during their brief time with the team. It's valuable for them to know and understand what is happening in practice, McKinley said. And he feels that they've both been able to do so.
“That's the role (as a walk-on) ... to just work as hard as you possibly can and be an example for those other guys just because you don't know how much you're going to play,” McKinley said.
Coggeshall said he hopes he can continue that positive trajectory in the years to come. With the new opportunity given to him he wants to live in the moment and continue to help his teammates, he said.
"I'm hoping to build my role on the team ... (and) continue to help everybody out, build them as players (and) people," Coggeshall said.