Lamont Paris shares what's been key to South Carolina's success this season
At 17-3, South Carolina men’s basketball is off to their best start since the 2015-16 season.
With nine new players from a year ago, including four from the transfer portal, the biggest difference from last year’s team is experience. And with experience with this group of guys has brought another level of maturity.
“The maturity is a huge part of it,” said Paris. “Your leadership typically is gonna come from older guys and in most things that you do. Typically. We rely on that (and) they’ve done a tremendous job at everything — making sure guys are where they’re supposed to be. That we’re all doing what we need to do. But I think just being older has allowed us to get from one situation to the next situation. You must recover.”
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Whether that be quickly flushing a gut punching loss against Georgia before taking care of business on the road against Arkansas or not getting caught up in the press clippings following a massive upset of No.6 ranked Kentucky earlier in the week, South Carolina has been able to stay level-headed.
“I think we all know you have to recover when something bad happens (but) you need to recover when something really good happens too because it’s probably going to put you in a place that’s not your normal level. So you need to recover mentally to get yourself back to where you’re ready to go out there and play again. Certainly I attribute (maturity) to that.”
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The additions of BJ Mack, Ta’Lon Cooper, Stephen Clark and Myles Stute not only brought multi-year college starters to Columbia but also 11,373 combined minutes played before this season. Combined that with the growth of Meechie Johnson, Josh Gray, and the players who were already on South Carolina’s roster after last season and that maturity has also led to Paris having more trust with his players.
“The biggest part with our maturity where I see it the most is when I hear things from guys. Their input is another part of it. They have real input. You’ll see them sometimes come over to tell me something that they see. I’ve been around a long time (and) I’ve seen a lot of things but they’re in the trenches so they see some things. There’s nothing like having your opinion valued when you’re a player. So they’ll come over and tell me what they see. Sometimes it’ll result in me making a play call or a change in what we’re doing immediately. Sometimes it doesn’t. I just let them know that it’s duly noted. I think with a mature group you can trust what they say when they see things out there and that’s been a big part of it too.”
