Lamont Paris shares his message to South Carolina on final play vs. Texas A&M

No. 18 South Carolina secured the 11th conference of their unexpected breakout season on Wednesday in dramatic fashion, defeating Texas A&M 70-68 following a go-ahead layup from Zachary Davis with three seconds remaining in regulation.

Davis’ last-second layup will be the most memorable moment of the Gamecocks’ thrilling win. But following the made basket, South Carolina played some lock down defense. Not even allowing the Aggies to get off a final shot to respond to their game winner.

Following the win, Gamecocks head coach Lamont Paris was asked about the final possession of the game, pulling back the curtain on his message to the team and the X’s and O’s behind their strong finish.

“I wanted to keep the ball in front of us if so, I wanted them to catch it as far in the backcourt as they could. But I wanted to keep the ball in front of us and nothing over top of our head,” Paris explained.

Texas A&M guard Wade Taylor hit the deck while attempting to advance the ball past half court as the clocking was ticking. Losing control of the ball and attempting to pass it to a teammate as time expired, as Paris was asked how helpful it was that the Aggies had to go to plan B on their final play of the game.

“But I don’t know, maybe it did. Maybe the play that they ran would have worked, maybe it wouldn’t have. I don’t know, I don’t think it’s worth second-guessing that,” Paris said. “It’s wasn’t like we called timeout afterwards and made an adjustment based on their alignment or I subbed two guys in based on what their alignment was.”

“He’s got a bunch of different things, he’s got a bunch of different things as you know,” Paris said reffering to Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams. “So he went to his plan B and we were fortunate the ball got fumbled a little bit and we came out on top.”

Gamecocks’ guard Meechie Johnson led all scorers with 22 points in Wednesday’s game on 50% shooting from the field, leading South Carolina in scoring for the 12th game this season while also delivering the game-winning assist to Davis.

Davis recorded a new career-high for his second straight game with 16 points to go along with his clutch bucket to close out the game in College Station. As he and the Gamecocks will look to continue their winning ways against No. 24 Florida this Saturday.