South Carolina cleaning up defense as non-conference schedule ramps up

Lamont Paris and South Carolina have gotten off to a 3-0 start during the 2025-26 season. While the competition is lower, an undefeated start is nothing at which to scoff.

However, the early perfect record doesn’t mean there haven’t been any issues, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.

The Gamecocks rank outside the top 100 in defense by most metrics. That said, it’s a small sample size, being only three games into the season.

Senior guard Myles Stute said on November 7 that it will be the Gamecocks’ identity in 2025-26. That makes its improvement even more vital.

The main area of concern is transition defense in the eyes of the team’s fourth-year head coach.

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South Carolina’s struggles with transition defense have been something Paris has lamented multiple times early in the season.

Stute also pointed it out as the first issue when asked what the team needed to fix the most following its season opener.

“Definitely transition defense. I thought it was one of the things that kind of got us,” Stute said. ” … Just put pressure on us that was unnecessary.”

Stute said they let guys leak out in transition and get behind them down the floor. When opponents get behind them, they are able to create easy rim pressure while also having numbers down the floor.

“That just can’t happen if we want to be a good basketball team like we aspire to be,” Stute said.

Paris put some of the blame on the coaching staff for simply not focusing on it heading into the season. However, he believes a lot of the issues come due to a lack of effort. Because of the issues in the opener, when the Gamecocks returned to practice, he made sure to make it an emphasis.

“We left you to your own devices in terms of transition defenses, and we saw what that looked like. It was not good,” Paris said. “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.”

That said, there are some areas that Paris is impressed with defensively. Following Wednesday’s win over Presbyterian, one of the first things he noted was the on-ball defense. Going into the game, Paris wanted to make that a point of emphasis, and the effort improved on Wednesday night..

With a step in the right direction after Presbyterian, the Gamecocks look to hold onto their undefeated record and maintain a strong defensive identity.

“We were focused on trying to establish whether or not we could stay in front of the ball consistently,” Paris said. “So, I thought to that end, we did a pretty good job, especially for two-thirds of the game.”

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