Everything Lamont Paris said following South Carolina's win over NC A&T

South Carolina basketball defeated NC A&T 91-72 on Tuesday night at Colonial Life Arena in both teams’ season debuts. Afterwards, head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media.

Here’s what he had to say.

Opening Statement

“I was happy with what the guys did; they seemed to have fun. They shared the ball a lot; the numbers would tell you that. I didn’t know the number until I got in after the game, but I knew it was a lot of sharing that was going on out there.

“I give the guys a lot of credit for that, honestly, because you can encourage sharing the ball, you can practice sharing the ball, and then when the game happens, I’m standing on the sidelines and they’re out there deciding whether or not they’re going to share the ball. And they shared the ball.

“They deserve a ton of credit for that, and so I was really happy with how it went. These early-season games, we fell victim to it last year in our opener.”

Responses to Reporters

Five different players rolled into a post-up tonight, with Eli being one of them. How does that become a source of the offense, and what’s the role of a post-up in today’s game?

“You know… the style of the NBA kind of flows through college, and so the value of a post-up in the NBA probably is at an all-time low right now. That’s finding its way into college, and so what I find is that people aren’t great post defenders. So if you’re comfortable down there, and you can maneuver around a little bit, I think there’s real value.

“The other thing I think people do when the ball goes down there, they watch the ball. It’s human nature. So I’m all for…everybody talks about positionless basketball and what that means, but I’ve been on that for a long time. Guards posting up and that kind of thing. Those were designed post-ups for Mike (Sharavjamts) and for Eli (Ellis). Those were designed post-ups to throw the ball in there to Eli and let him do his thing. And we also have bigs that can shoot, so it’s an inversion, basically, of what you would typically think of that scenario, right?

“You’re big on your block with a shooting perimeter guy, we inverted that with a smaller guy on the block and bigs that can shoot as we space the floor and get guys time to maneuver down there. It’s changed; there isn’t as much of it. I value the ball getting to the rim, however it does, by way of post-up, by way of drives, a lot of people do it that way. But I just have always believed in the pressure that is put on a defense if you have a guy that can catch the ball at the basket and go … it’s the most reliable one-on-one. It’s the most reliable source of one-on-one, it’s in the post.

Cam (Scott), EJ (Walker), both out of uniform. Is the plan for those guys to redshirt this season?

“Yeah, that’s the plan. I’ve had conversations with both of them, and they have talked with their families, their inner circles, and they’ve conveyed that to me. Certainly, at any point, if someone wants to pull the redshirt off, that’s a thing that we can do. Honestly, I think it’s a demonstration to commitment to what you believe about the future of those players. If I didn’t believe that those guys would be good players, I wouldn’t let them redshirt. I think those guys are going to be good players.

“Cam, at least, anyway, EJ wasn’t here last year, but EJ’s one of the most improved players from the day that we got here to right now. As you can see in the frontcourt, we’ve got a lot of guys that have performed well. Cam has also made tremendous improvements from last year to this year. I think the whole fleet of ships has risen as well. And so, he’s got some things that he wants to attack during this season that are easier done while you’re in a redshirt situation.

“On the scout team, I told him, I said, ‘You’ve got to take that team over,’ there’s going to be some times you’re going to be a guy that assists like crazy. Other days, you’ll be a guy that drives to the basket. Other days, you’ll be a guy that’s just a catch-and-shoot guy. So all those things help a guy develop his game. I think it could be really good for him.”

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You had Meechie Johnson two years ago. You didn’t have him last year. You have him now again. How helpful is he on the court for you guys?

“I’ll tell you the thing that’s one of the best things: I really like our team. This is the third year I’ve been around Meechie, and I’ve known their family for a long time, his uncle and whatnot. But I love being around him, he’s got a great energy and a vibe to him. But the real value of him and Myles (Stute) also is instantaneously having a couple of guys that just speak your language. And you forget about that. Right away, he understands what you say, he can finish some of your sentences. He gets your jokes, you’ve told him before, so I don’t know if he really thinks they’re funny, but anyway, his presence is very important and refreshing.

“He’s a natural leader. He’s also a hard worker; it’s nice when leaders are also hard workers. And so, I thought it was critical to have him back into the fold for us this year. And it was a very important step in assembling this group.”

12 guys played tonight, and nine played 10 minutes or more. Did this depth meet your expectations tonight, and how sustainable is that in closer games?

“It met my expectations. My expectations really, I’ve been around these guys for a long time. I just wanted to get the ball tossed up into the air and let the guys go out there and play. So I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations other than the fact that we would compete really hard, that we would cheer one another on and support one another, and that we would hopefully play an unselfish brand of basketball when we got out there. So by those standards, we exceeded any expectation I had to that end.

“If you look back to two years ago, we had ten players that double-figure minutes and also played in 70 percent of games or more. It’s one thing to have a guy who plays five games and average ten minutes in those games, then never plays again in the regular season. We had ten guys who averaged 10 minutes or more and played in 70 percent of the games or more.

“If you look back to my last year at Chattanooga, we had ten guys that played double figures. I just have always liked a lot of guys. We can play harder when you have more guys that can go in. I think sustain injury better, I think you can sustain foul trouble. I think you can sustain more play, I think you have better camaraderie when a lot of guys are going to go in a game. Eli Sparkman came in there and went out and played.

“Here’s what I want to dispel. Everybody is like, ‘Oh, there’s Eli Sparkman.’ He’s back here for a reason. This is not some sort of charitable action from me to have him back here. I put him in the game, and he did the things I thought he would do. He’s one of the more predictable guys we have on the team. I’m being 100% forthright with you. He’s one of the predictable guys we have on the entire team. I don’t get surprised by too many things that he does. And generally, when it comes to basketball players, that’s a good thing.”

Where do you think the team is defensively right now, and what did you see from the exhibition into this game?

“I thought we made some progress, from a sense of urgency standpoint, right? When we came out in the game, I didn’t like how we started defensively. And they made a couple of tough shots, but still, I just didn’t like our overall grit and intention. I didn’t think we had the right intention that we needed to have to try and make some of these plays go our way defensively. We’ve grown. I thought we did a pretty good job against really aggressive drivers of staying in front of the ball-ish.

“Providing help when we needed it, and still being able to rebound. I thought our defensive rebounding was good, which is a part of defense. You can’t have a good defensive team that doesn’t defensive rebound. So I thought that was progress. We gave up 20 second-chance points in the NC State game, and so I thought that was real growth and progress.

“I think that’s the way, the path for some of these guys to get significant minutes. It’s to show that when they go into the game, there’s not a dip. Stuff doesn’t go haywire. The wheels don’t start to come undone because on the defensive side, you just can’t get stops or fulfill the roles that needed to be fulfilled. So we’re still a ways away from who we’re going to be as a defensive unit.

“I’m optimistic about where we can get. I think we have a few really good individuals that can do a really good job, and we have some other guys that probably have to be just ok defenders that really know how to play defense in our system. I think if that’s what your five guys look like out there at any particular time, and three of them are pretty good defenders, I think you’ve got a chance. You can fight on the class to be a pretty good, solid defensive unit.”

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