What Lamont Paris said after South Carolina’s loss in SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament
South Carolina’s men’s basketball team lost to Arkansas, 72-68, in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Wednesday.
The Gamecocks trailed by as many as 20 points and made it a game in the second half. USC dropped to 12-20 on the season.
USC coach Lamont Paris talked with reporters after the loss. Here are highlights from what he had to say:
On the second-half comeback
“I told the guys at halftime if 23 was the number of points that they ended up scoring in the second half, then I really, really liked where we were going to be if that was the number and that that wasn’t a hope for me, that I hoped we would hold them to 23, I believed that we could have held them to 23 in the second half.
That was a real challenge. Your mind as you go out there should be focused on that type of effort and commitment that was happening on the defense end. And they did.
That was part of it. Also, because of some of those turnovers, we got good looks in transition. We did stuff in the halfcourt, too. We had a lot of plays we could have made right around the basket and some other things. I don’t think from a performance standpoint we broke any sort of records.
The guys really stuck with it. They stuck with it. Just continued to get a stop. I don’t know how many stops we had in a row. It seemed like a bunch. We needed a bunch. I think it started with the defensive side with us to really sink into what was happening, what was going on in ball screens, how quickly we had to make some of our decisions and rotations.
Unfortunately we didn’t do that in the first half a little earlier. It changes the landscape of what you’re doing in the second half.”
On coach Calipari saying your record doesn’t equate to how good you guys are
“Yeah, I mean, these guys are competitors. It’s funny you hear him say that, right? They don’t want to be in another league. You guys would have been good in another … What does that even mean? We’re in this league. This is the best league in the history of college basketball they’re saying by any metric you would like to choose, including your eyeballs.
They wanted to be in this league. This is the league they’re in. There’s another world. There’s not another world where we need to play in a league in order to win games. There’s a world in which we play in this league and those games go our way. Last year we were 8-2 in similar games. This year we weren’t.
There were some things that we didn’t pick up quickly enough in order to win those close games. There can be reasons why some teams win a lot more of those games. Some teams don’t. Experience in certain positions might be part of it.
I don’t think I would do the disservice to these guys of sort of … I don’t know if we played — no disrespect for the So Con, I was in it for five years — if we played in the So Con, we would have a better record. We’re in the SEC. We play SEC teams. We played a lot of SEC teams in a way where at one point in the game they thought the game was over. They thought they were going to lose the game. We weren’t able to get to the finish line.”
On Collin Murray-Boyles future, NBA decision
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what he’s thinking, first. Second of all, we just got done with a difficult season that our guys should get a lot of credit. I mean, I don’t know if people know anybody — it used to be 18 to 22. Now you say it’s 17 to 26 is the window of the age of these guys.
I don’t know if you know many young people in that group. Generally speaking, they’re pretty quick to pivot if there’s adversity in front of them. This team had a lot of adversity, and they refused to pivot anywhere.
I give them a lot of credit for that.
Like, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about any of that stuff. There will be a lot of people that will be making a decision on whether they’re going to go to the draft or stay. Certainly there are more incentives to stay in college these days than there have been.
I’ve always believed, this is about these young men, trying to help them. When their opportunity is the right opportunity, they should do exactly what’s the best that they believe is the best for them.
If I can provide a little advice for him, it won’t be slanted in any direction. That’s just not who I am. I’m not that selfish. If I can provide any intel or advice that will help him ultimately when it comes time to make a decision, I will do that.”
On end-of-season meetings, what’s next for the program
“Yeah, it’s completely different than it was way back 365 days ago. Obviously, when you look back two, three years ago, things are completely different.
Decisions on both sides are being made and are based on different things than they have been.
The one thing that’s a little bit unfortunate is a lot of these decisions might end up being … There probably are some business decisions that are going to be made across the country. Does it make it feel a little more transactional? Absolutely.
In some circumstances it will make those meetings easier. So we’ll start those. I don’t even know when. It will be soon. They’re starting sooner and sooner. We’ll start those meetings soon and we’ll, like with anything we do, lead with honesty. People will come to conclusions and decisions.”
This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 6:15 PM.
