Everything Lamont Paris said following South Carolina's win over The Citadel

Following an ugly 71-55 win over The Citadel on Saturday, South Carolina basketball head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media about the game. Here’s everything he had to say.

*Some minor edits were made for clarity*

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Opening statement

“This will be a shorter opening statement tonight. We were not good. The overall feel of the game was not good, by my estimation. But we weren’t good enough at the end of the day. Ultimately, that’s what matters most.

“Just poor on a lot of fronts, just with how we came out to start the game, and it continued throughout the game. You know, the team that should win does not always win. And this was a case of that. This was the closest 16-point win—let’s not have anyone be fooled by the fact that the final margin was 16. I hope there’s nobody looking at it and thinking that maybe it was 25 at one point, and then it ended up at 16. This was the closest 16-point game I think I’ve ever been around.

“And credit to them: they’ve got a really good coach. He had them ready to play. Our guys were not ready to play for whatever reason. We had a multitude of guys that just were not ready. [There’s] all excuses in the book: ‘It’s finals exams’—they got on a bus, drove up here, and then played the game. So, you know, sorry if I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that, but we weren’t ready to play.

“And [The Citadel is] tough. These guys, they live a different life than our guys. They do. They wake up significantly earlier. And they do things that they probably don’t want to do, but they find some real reward in doing it, some real pride in doing it, things our guys could never get them to do. And so when they come out here and compete the way that they did…I tried to warn our guys. I was in that league for five years. I mean, come on. I’ll tell you one thing you’re not going to do: you’re not going to break them. I don’t care if you’re up by 100.

“So, I give them a lot of credit for that. Maybe it’s a good lesson for our guys to see what that really looks like, to see what competing and competition really looks like.

“Remember when I said this would be short? Anyway, that’s where we were. Not good but barely good enough, it seems.”

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You mentioned the guys not being ready to play or whatever. How could they not be ready, and how do you make sure that they are ready to play the next game?

“Yeah, if I could turn myself into them, we would be ready. That would be the one that I could make sure of. If I could be out there playing the game, we would be ready. I would make sure of that. I can’t. It’s hard for me to make sure they’re ready. We had a whole week of practicing.

“You know, we’re doing all the tricks that we can during the week, and we, you know, we play a lot at practices. In general, we played even more in these practices. I just don’t think you can have a whole week and just be doing drill work all day long and then think you’re going to come out on game day. So, we did a lot of simulated games, situated games, and played and mixed the teams up, and all the things that you could do to say, ‘Hey, this is what it is. You know, we’ve got a game coming up.’ and, so, if you’re not ready, this is on guys. This is just, trust me, there’s some things that are not on the guys, but being ready to play, emotionally, mentally is.

“I’m not talking about a scouting report. That’s on the coaches. I’m not talking about that. But being ready to play? Guys have to get themselves ready to play. Whatever their routine is—I’m cognizant of that, and I’m sensitive to that. I give guys time to do whatever their routine is, right? I played with a guy in college who took a hot shower before every game, 30-minute shower. Whatever your routine is, I let guys do their routine. I want them to be consistent in that routine, so that their product is more consistent.

“But I don’t know, I can’t make them be ready to play. We weren’t ready to play. We had a multitude of guys that were not ready to play today. So, you know, it’s a one-off, maybe, hopefully…I don’t know how on game day you could not be ready. I know how on game day you could not play well, I do know that. I don’t know how you could not be ready to play on game day when there’s—this is a limited-time offer, college basketball. So, I got news for you, it’s a limited-time offer. And you ask some of these guys that are in their last year of eligibility, it goes quick, even though guys are getting how many years now? It still goes quickly. So, I’m just not familiar with guys, multiple guys, not being ready to play. I mean, it is a foreign concept to me.”

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Coach, Carter Kingsbury ended with 18, I think, tonight. What kind of issues did he pose for you guys, offensively?

“Every issue. I mean, I hope this is his career-high. I hope it was because it would be a nice venue for him to look back and say that his career-high was against an SEC team. So, I hope it was.

“But he was driving the ball. I mean, the baskets we gave him, I think the first six points that we gave him—I may not be correct with this—but six of the first points he got, two just drove right past us: Jordan Butler, as if he had concrete boots on for a layup, and then he backdoors against Myles for a layup. And that’s just six of his first whatever. So, anyone’s going to feel good at that point, you know? He threw the one deep three in another time, and, at that point, he was in his bag. But good for him, good for him, good for their team. They competed. I was in that league for five years, so I’m not surprised that they competed at all, but yeah. He was doing a little bit of everything.”

I wanted to ask you about Elijah Strong, as he was battling some injuries. Is there an update on him?

“Yeah, he’s had chronic issues with his knee. When I say issues, just nagging pain, a lot of it seems to be how you feel. Can you continue to play? Maybe you need a day or two off. He’s been treating it, but really it’s one of those injuries that’s just up to the player as to if he feels that he can fight back. You know, if you remember, he scored 16 points in 12 minutes, or something like that. In whatever game it was, he wasn’t going to play that game. And I told him, ‘Hey, you gotta be available, just in case.’ A couple of guys we had out, Myles was out…And he said he could be available. So, I said I’d only use him if I really needed, and we needed him. He went out, scored 16 points. So, you know, it was obviously hurting him to where he didn’t feel like he could perform.”

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Lamont, you guys were pretty effective scoring inside today, even with the outside shooting struggles, particularly early on. Was that just the nature of the game or the opponent, or was it a concerted effort to try to get inside to score?

“Yeah, especially after we weren’t making shots. You know, they have a lot of bodies in the paint. And so again, they were there. The way they were guarding us, we were susceptible to getting some looks from three, and we weren’t making them at all. So, then we did start really encouraging driving the ball.

“We got in transition some when we would get stops. That was good for us, and that was part of when we were getting the ball around the basket. But we also attacked off the dribble some. We threw the ball inside a couple times. Mike had a good move in the post. A couple guys got the ball down there. In fact, we even tried to start the second half—here’s a message we were going to send to them—was that we’re going to throw the ball inside with the first possession of the second half. And we turned it over, throwing the ball in on the post feed. Then, we never got back in there quite as much as I wanted to.

“But yeah, we were having some success getting the ball inside and attacking. Meechie did a good job off the dribble, taking the ball in there. We have some other guys attack and get inside and create some other stuff for guys, but it’s good to be able to have the chance to do that, and have some guys that would do that. We gotta get better. Elijah is one of our most accomplished back-to-the-basket guys, probably our most accomplished back-to-the-basket guy, so not having him in there stopped some of the set plays that go directly to a post player. There weren’t as many of those, but we were able to get down there.”

Coach, you got a robbery flash coming up next, heading up the cup center. What’s your message to your guys going into this one?

“You know, I don’t know if it resonates with them as much, the specifics of the rivalry. As you know, we have a lot of new guys. I don’t know that it resonates with as much pop as it genearlly has, so we’ll play that up some. But, you know, you were at the game today. We have so many things that we have to concetrate on [improving].

“I think if you need that to get yourself motivated to play harder or better…I’ve been a part of some really good rivalries. When I was at Wisconsin, it was Wisconsin-Marquette. When I was at Akron, it was Kent State, when they were next door neighbors. Their recruits would stay basically on our campus, in the hotel there. So I’ve been a part of some good ones, and sometimes you have the kind of team that all you gotta do is walk in there and put something up on the board or hit the right button and it’s on. They can’t wait until the game. It can’t get here quick enough. So, I don’t know that there will be that kind of response that will be solicited by what I say, but certainly we’ll mention it.

“More importantly, it’s a great opportunity for us to get a quad one win. You know, we had two teams in West Virginia that both were quad one opportunities at the time, and so those are coveted. So to go on the road at a place like Clemson, they’re coming off of a really tough loss, so they’re going to be full of energy when we play them now, that’s for sure. So, we’ll have to play well. But I think more than more than anything, it’s just a great opportunity to go up there. You know their campus, some of the kids have been talking about it, I’m sure, leading up to it. But, more than anything, I think it’s just a great chance for us to go up and beat a good team.”

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Meechie tonight joined the 1000-point club at South Carolina. Just with your connection to him, how cool was that moment to have?

“Yeah, it’s awesome. In fact, you know, you have to stand back at at 10,000 feet and take a look at things, because you get so caught up in a performance that that, by my estimation, was lackluster in some areas that just shouldn’t be. And so while it’s hard to move on from that, you’ve got some other good things happening. Myles didn’t do his tonight, but we honored Myles’ 1000-point [milestone] tonight before the game. And then Meechie breaks 1000 points as a Gamecock. What a significant achievement for a guy to do that in three seasons, whatever, two and some change.

“It’s cool. It’s great. You know, I’ll hit him later on tonight about it. His family, too. But it’s pretty cool for the guys. You try to keep it in perspective that that’s what you do. I told them the other day that my little goals, whatever they happen to be in this whole thing, all go through them. So when they are achieving things, then it’s easy. My little piece of the goal is already taken care of when they make their own achievements. Here’s another one that is something that he’ll remember forever. And so I’m really happy for him and Myles, too.”

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