Everything Lamont Paris said ahead of South Carolina-Southern Miss

South Carolina men’s basketball head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media on Friday ahead of the Gamecocks’ matchup against Southern Miss on Sunday.

Here’s everything he had to say:

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Is there one thing that came out of the game the other night that you’d pick out to improve on?

“Transition defense, I would say. If I had to pick one thing, (it would be) transition defense. And to be honest, we hadn’t spent a ton of time on it, but I think most of the errors we made in transition defense had to do with effort, most of it, and communication. So that was something that we spent a lot of time on the next day in practice. Two days later, we had the next day off.”

When you say effort, what does that translate to in practice?

“Just making a priority, just making it a priority, and then letting them know that here’s a priority. Okay, here’s what we did. We left you to your own devices in terms of transition defenses, and we saw what that looked like. It was not good.”

“So here we are now. Here’s the coach saying, ‘This is important. I’m gonna be watching it today,’ see what that looks like, operate as you will, based on what I just told you. And so, you know, based on that, there was more urgency on the transition. So I didn’t overreact to it because, like I said, we hadn’t spent a ton of time on it, just based on some other stuff that we did want. We had, we had 23 assists, or whatever. We spent a lot of time on passing, cutting, and delivering the ball to guys that are open, so. I think you saw that we’ll clean up a lot of that.”

You were impressed with the way they shared the ball on Tuesday. Was there any conversation this week amongst all the guys about what their approach was on Tuesday?

“They were. I mean, I told them I’d never been around in a game, either that I coached the team that did it or the opposing team, that I heard every single player that went in the game had an assist. So, you know, they took some pride in that. They were happy about that. And so I think they think that that’s a real, a real weapon for us. And it means two things. It means you have a lot of guys who are willing to pass, and then it means that the recipient of those passes is capable of making shots. And there’s a lot of guys. If you only had one guy that could make shots, everyone would have to throw to that guy to get an assist. So, there’s a lot of ways to get an assist with this group, and a lot of guys that are willing to make those plays.”

Jordan Butler was really aggressive, attacking the rim and in the lanes. Was that something you’ve seen more and more from him to go along with that three-point shot?

“Yeah, he’s continued to grow. We’ve challenged him. I think that’s really been the area that he’s needed to grow the most. And the hard part with it, there’s no button that you can push to say, ‘Hey, be more aggressive.’ You can’t. You can’t lock a guy in a room with, you know, a pack of wolves, and say, If you come out of there all of a sudden, you’re going to be more aggressive. It’s hard to make a guy be more aggressive.”

“Some of that is just growing as an individual. He’s done that. I’ve seen more of his personality come out this year. He’s just growing. I’ve said this a multitude of times. Guys grow at their own, at their own pace, and you try to challenge them in ways that will normally incite growth. Hopefully, the growth happens because of those challenges, but they grow at their own pace. And he’s growing and he’s getting more aggressive offensively, you’ve seen that. And then, you know, we need to have to continue to happen defensively and then on the boards as well.”

94 points in the opener, but similar pace and number of possessions compared to your other seasons here. What’s different with this group than previous years, outside of the three-point shooting offensively?

“Yeah, I think our, I think our overall ball movement has been, has been good. Pace, by your definition, you probably are calling the number of possessions pace. To me, pace is, how quickly do you get from one action to another action. Our pace is, I would say, significantly better than last year. But efficiency reigns supreme when it comes to what your offense ultimately looks like. And I think we’ve been pretty efficient.”

“Our points per possession was good in that game. It’s been good in some of the other exhibition games and scrimmages that we’ve had, too. So I’ve been really happy with that. Of course, there’s a component of making shots that goes into that, but I’ve always believed your propensity to make shots is directly related to the quality of shot you create by way of moving, by way of screening, by way of recognition.”

“So I thought we did a really good job in terms of creating high-quality shots that we can make. Being honest with you, this is going to sound crazy, because it’ll be a game maybe that we don’t make any threes, but based on the quality of shots that we generated in that game, I thought we should have made 20 threes. So we got some really, really good looks from good shooters.”

Grant Polk and Hayden Assemian got some minutes the other night and were productive from a stat standpoint. What have you seen from those guys? What allowed them to get minutes?

“Yeah, those are two young guys that have really picked up on what it looks like on both sides of the ball for us in terms of our concepts and what we’re trying to get done. Hayden plays so hard. I’m amazed by it on a daily basis, how hard Hayden Assemian plays.”

“But when you play that hard, oftentimes you’re going 100 miles an hour, and it’s hard to grasp concepts. He’s done a good job, particularly offensively, of finding where his bread is buttered and then sticking to those, and it’s a very valuable component that he brings. He’s a really good screener. He had some really good passes, even out of the post, a couple one-handed, left-handed passes to guys for shots.”

“So I’ve been really impressed with that aspect of his game, as well as how hard he plays. Grant’s one of the best shooters that I’ve ever been around, and I think in terms of getting him in a gym shooting open shots, I’m shocked when he doesn’t make it. I mean, flabbergasted, but translating that into the game will be part of and a lot of that will be just getting your feet wet in games, so you feel what the environment is like, and that you have fans, and there’s a little more pressure on you, and someone’s flying at you.”

“I’m confident that once he gets acclimated to that and those things, that he’ll get right back to the guy that makes most of the shots that he shoots. That’s a good trait to have.”

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