What went wrong in South Carolina’s loss to Florida? Lamont Paris reacts

As South Carolina (11-10, 2-6 SEC) men’s basketball trudged through a rocky start to SEC play, it hosted reigning national champions No. 19 Florida in hopes of a statement win to kick off a season turnaround.

Instead, USC fell 95-48 to No. 19 Florida (15-6, 6-2 SEC) Wednesday night at home. It marked the largest margin of defeat in the Lamont Paris era and the largest win margin in any road SEC game in conference history. A night with redemption on the brain ended in one of the most lopsided losses in Paris’ time with the Gamecocks.

Here’s what Paris had to say after the loss:

Opening statement

Paris opened his remarks eerily similar to how he opened the press conference after USC’s 34-point loss to Arkansas Jan. 14. He once again questioned USC’s effort against a more physical team.

“That’s just a poor effort overall on our behalf. And so we have to, again, respond. We find ourselves in a situation where we have to respond to that. I’m more in a camp of an ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure, and I would like to prevent those scenarios from happening as much but, but here we are again, and so we will have to get right back to business and respond. It wouldn’t matter who we’re playing in the next game. We have to worry about ourselves. I was disappointed in our effort, in our competitive spirit, in a lot of ways. That just really surprised me,” Paris said.

Challenging players

Paris was asked how specifically he can motivate his players to come out and respond.

“That’s a good question. We’re trying it all. We did respond well after the Arkansas game, and we went on the road to play an Auburn team that, in that building, is really hard to beat, and we were right there as it got into the winning moments of the game, with a chance to make a couple of plays to come out over the win. So I thought that was significant,” Paris said. “I thought that would be the only time we were faced with that challenge. But I thought that was a significant response on in terms of identifying who this team was going to be moving forward.

“It’s trying to figure out how guys respond and what they respond to. It’s different guys. It’s different things. I think we all know guys don’t respond to things that they responded to seven years ago, right?” Paris said. “Trying to find those ways to challenge those guys, but they have to be challenged. You have to be challenged. I think you have to be challenged. I don’t think you can just put your head on the pillow and say, ‘OK, well, tomorrow we’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll just play better tomorrow.’ I just don’t think that is the path forward, not in this league, or probably any, but certainly not in this league.”

Fans leave early

USC has struggled with men’s basketball attendance this season, but was able to pack out its student section Wednesday night thanks to a “white-out” and free jersey promotion.

By halftime, when the Gamecocks trailed 48-20, most of the fans had left, leaving a “garnet-out” of empty seats in their wake. Paris said the crowd isn’t something he noticed during the game.

“I’m coaching a basketball game, so I really watch and pay attention to the basketball game. So, I don’t know,” Paris said. “Is that what happened? OK, no. I don’t really pay attention to that during the game.”

Outsized

Florida rosters five players standing 6-foot-10 or taller. USC rosters two, and they combined for 10 minutes in Wednesday’s loss. The size difference was apparent as the Gators dominated the Gamecocks physically and controlled the paint with ease.

Paris insisted after the game that these deficiencies are a matter of effort, not size.

“We had said we wanted to play more of our guys and more of our bigger guys in particular in small stretches and be physical with them, but it’s less of a size issue, is my overall point. I think ultimately, it’s less of a size issue, generally speaking, not that there aren’t specific instances where size matters,” Paris said. “Collin Murray-Boyles was taller than none of those guys. ... I think it’s more competitiveness, physicality, getting after it. I think it’s more of that. I think it’s I think it’s way more of that than just size.

“Otherwise, the tallest team would just win, usually, right? I think it’s way more of the other things. And so some guys got to do some soul-searching to see what that really looks like, because our this is an aggressive league. It’s an aggressive league,” Paris added. “Some guys are going to have to make adjustments. And we have at times. We’ve played well, and we have at times but, but then other times we haven’t, and that needs to be one thing that’s consistent, if anything.”

This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 8:27 AM.