What Lamont Paris said after USC basketball’s late loss to No. 18 Georgia

South Carolina men’s basketball fell to No. 18 Georgia, 75-70, in a fashion that looked to be playing out similarly to its 78-68 win against LSU.

The Gamecocks played a complete first half, bolstered by a 48.1% shooting percentage, before collapsing in the second half and going cold on offense late. USC is now 10-6 on the year, 1-2 in the Southeastern Conference and seemed to have already used up all the momentum from its win in Baton Rouge.

Here’s what Gamecock coach Lamont Paris had to say about the loss:

Opening statement

Paris opened up his postgame press conference by crediting Georgia and running through his usual pros and cons from the game. Ultimately, he admitted the loss was frustrating given USC’s chances late.

“Tough loss there against a really good team, athletic team. They’re well-coached. They’ve got a really, good coach. I respect what Mike White does in this league as much or more than anybody. He’s a veteran,” Paris said. “I thought our effort was really good. I thought our defensive effort, in particular, was really good. There’s a lot of things that have to happen in order to win a game, particularly against a really talented team. And one of those happened: We defended at a high enough level.

“And there were some mistakes and some fat you can trim off of that for sure, but this is not a game of perfection. I thought we did a pretty good job defensively overall. You’re holding a team like that 23 points under what they were averaging when they came into the game. They’ve been over 100 so many times, that’s just what they do. So I thought execution of our strategy defensively was good.

“We had a bunch of looks down the stretch and throughout the game. We could have played better offensively, performed better, I should say. The way we played, I thought was pretty good overall. Offensively, we just had a couple guys who didn’t perform the way that we needed to. And then there’s this equation that’s off with this thing’s bad this day, this thing’s got to be good this day. And today was probably, we needed to make all our free throws. This has been a good free throw shooting team. It just wasn’t that day for that,” he added.

“I like some of the things that I saw with our team, particularly on the defensive end. This is frustrating, when you put yourself in position to win, to not win,” Paris said.

Tough whistle

After drawing only eight fouls in the first half, USC was dinged for 11 in the second. Including back-to-back technical and common fouls which brought a momentum-killing, four-point swing for the Bulldogs.

It wasn’t a lopsided game in terms of officiating, as UGA was called for 17 fouls itself, but the referee whistle certainly asserted itself in the game.

“As you look at the game and how the game turned out, that’s a significant thing that happens. It’s a tricky situation because, there’s doing something intentionally, and then there’s accidental, and then there’s incidental. There’s a chasm between accidental and incidental, and as far as those plays are concerned, I’m not sure how I always can separate those two, right?” Paris said.

Paris went on to draw comparison between Kobe Knox’s foul and a later foul by USC guard Eli Ellis that wasn’t escalated past a common violation.

“Kobe’s was explained that it was excessive contact to the neck and face area, and then the one with Eli was described as completely incidental, right? If Kobe does not know that the screener is there, and he’s making a normal basketball move to get through the screen, and then the screener is there, and with no intent whatsoever, no knowledge even that the guy’s actually there. What’s the difference between that? That’s accidental, certainly that’s accidental. What makes that not incidental? … Both of them are completely accidental to me, both of them completely incidental. I’m not that sure of the difference in those two things. Just being completely honest with you,” Paris said.

Hustle points

USC had a solid day in terms of hustle, particularly in the first half. The Gamecocks attacked loose balls, preventing at least two turnovers and coughing up only five in the first half, allowing just nine UGA points off turnovers. The Gamecocks also kept up in the battle for rebounds (18-17), paint scoring (18-18), steals (3-3) and blocks.

The Gamecocks lost the ball just four times in the second half, and they lost the rebound battle just 38-35 to the Bulldogs.

USC also did well defensively, holding a Georgia team that leads the country with 97.9 points per game to well below its season average.

Paris credited his team for its care of the basketball on offense during the game.

“I don’t want to say we strategized our way, but we had a pretty basic idea of what we wanted to do. For example, we got one 10- second call. The goal was to have zero, because they get a lot of 10-second calls. We had a couple of triggers that we knew made us say you have to step on the gas to get the ball to half court at this point. … A lot of it’s on the offensive end, just taking care of the ball, not taking shots that are unexpected. You can take a quick shot that people assume is going to be shot. We did that some, but the unexpected shot just turns into a run out for a team like them. And so I thought we did a pretty good job overall.”

Cold stretch late

Trailing by three points with just five minutes remaining, the Gamecocks finished the game 1-for-9 from the floor, with the only make coming a late deep 3-pointer.

Paris rattled the string of misses off the top of his head postgame and concluded the cold stretch is the biggest single incident he can point to as to why USC dropped the ball against the Bulldogs.

“All those plays I just said, all happened in the last whatever the amount of time was. I don’t want to make something up, but I remember they happened in succession, and that led to a stretch where we weren’t scoring,” Paris said. “ … You need that one [made shot], the guys need that one to say, okay, eight turns to six, six turns to four, whatever that is, let’s play this for this one possession. Versus, six stays at six, and then they score. Six goes to eight. Well, now we’ve got to have something down here. So you get a little tighter when you get the wide open three. I think that was probably the thing that, right off the top of my head, stands out as to what potentially caused a differential towards the end of the game.”

This story was originally published January 10, 2026 at 6:02 PM.