Facing adversity for first time, Lamont Paris pushes right buttons for Gamecocks
We’re starting to see what kind of coach Lamont Paris is.
First — the elephant in the room — he’s a lot different from Frank Martin. The South Carolina administration couldn’t have hired someone with more of a polar-opposite temperament than his predecessor. Surely, that’s not a coincidence.
The sounds of Martin’s bellowing voice reverberated through Colonial Life Arena for a decade before he was fired in March. In contrast, Paris is a far cooler customer, arms often folded in his long-sleeve Gamecocks tracksuit as he coaches from the sideline. Very little seems to ruffle him. As Paris’ star freshman GG Jackson once described him: “He’s the smoothest, good-smelling coach ever.”
Still, even the most player-friendly coaches need to be firm sometimes.
For Paris, one of those times came during USC’s first extended road trip of the season last week. Traveling to Washington, D.C., for a two-game road swing, the Gamecocks on Nov. 30 lost the first game of the trip by 24 points at George Washington in what Paris called “a good old-fashioned butt kicking.”
A quiet frustration simmered in his eyes as he told The State after the game that he’s “got some guys that need to learn how to compete.” He didn’t like the utter lack of fight he saw from a group that trailed the Colonials by 20 points at the half.
“We should have been down 40,” an exasperated Paris said. “But we were down 20. If you come out of the half and go on a 5-0 run, it’s 15. What in this world is 15 (points) in the game of college basketball? It’s nothing. It’s so insignificant.
“But it’s a mentality that we have to continue to try to develop in some of these guys. We have some guys where it’s going to be a struggle for them ever to think that way. ... Some guys are going to have a very difficult time doing that in their entire tenure.”
That postgame moment was about as blunt and as critical as Paris has been of his team since he was introduced as USC’s head coach.
And Paris double-downed on the message in the subsequent days in D.C., challenging his players to juice up their competitiveness in practice and take it into their next game. Days later, South Carolina responded in thrilling fashion with a 74-71 overtime win at Georgetown, a game in which the Gamecocks (4-4) played with markedly more zest.
Even still, there were moments in that game last Saturday when the Gamecocks needed a push. Paris saw Jackson, the team’s most talented player, slumping on the bench and holding his head down on the court as he went scoreless in the first half.
“That’s bull----,” Paris told his 17-year-old freshman during halftime, telling him to keep his head up. In the second half, Jackson went on to score 22 points. It tied his single-game career high.
The season is young. The Gamecocks have only played eight games, and they won’t play again until Presbyterian comes to Columbia on Sunday. December is far too early to draw conclusions about a team with a brand new coaching staff, new players and new systems in place.
But adversity can help you learn at least a little bit about a team’s DNA — and about the person leading it.
Dealing with a flurry of injuries, the Gamecocks have just two wins in their last six games, with the loss against the Colonials representing a season low point. That loss humbled the Gamecocks, and Paris needed to relight their competitive fire.
“We lost three of our four last games — and three of them weren’t that close,” starting point guard Meechie Johnson said after the Gamecocks beat Georgetown. “And as a team, we really can’t allow this to keep happening anymore. We have to go out there and compete and give it everything we got.”
He didn’t scream it from the sidelines, but Paris’ message still got through.
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