Lamont Paris breaks down key to South Carolina's win vs. Kentucky

South Carolina scored a massive upset of No. 6 Kentucky, dominating from start to finish in one of the most impressive games in the early part of the conference slate.

Locking in and staying focused ahead of the matchup was a key test, one the Gamecocks passed with flying colors.

“It’s difficult because these guys, when they were young, they’ve always followed Kentucky as one of the bluebloods,” coach Lamont Paris said on the Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday. “And no matter what corner of the earth that they are from they’ve been familiar with Kentucky.

“So now they’re in there competing with them and we just tried to stay focused on what we’re doing, on the mission that we are on now. We talk a lot about just be who we are. We are who we are and we do what we do. So all of our focus went into that.”

South Carolina leaned on its identity as a strong defensive team, really focusing across the board on sticking to assignments. The Gamecocks quickly frustrated the Wildcats, which showed up in the number of tough looks the Wildcats took.

Credit Paris with doing a nice job getting his group ready.

“We had a couple days to prepare for Kentucky, but we did it in a one-day prep,” he said. “We spent one day completely dedicated to us and the things that we needed to improve upon to be the best version of our team. Then we had one day of full prep for Kentucky.

“Really that was kind of the mindset that we were in was just to focus on us and be who we were and go out there and do what we do. We’ve got a team that really believes in what we do and who we are and they like who we are, they enjoy playing together. So if we can continue to do the things we do defensively, they are a very, very confident group.”

South Carolina used a 6-0 run just before halftime to open up its lead, then it blow the doors open with a strong second half. Steadily the lead climbed, as did the team’s confidence level.

Still, Paris knew how tenuous the lead was.

“It’s difficult. One of the most difficult things to do in college basketball is to play when you have the lead,” Paris said. “You want to continue to be aggressive, that’s what got us the lead. But at the same time you want to be smart, you don’t want to do anything reckless and have six-point play turnarounds, three or four that you didn’t get and then two or three that they did get. So that’s always a delicate situation, but our guys handled it well.”

South Carolina didn’t sit on the lead and try to kill clock. Instead, it just kept running its offense.

And with things clicking, the ride home to seal the upset was pretty smooth.

“I think we continued to stay aggressive. I think what didn’t change was what we were doing defensively,” Paris said. “But you get a team like Kentucky that has that much offensive firepower, you know a run is coming. You expect a run is coming. So honestly at every single timeout, every break in the action, every review of any play that was over there, all we continued to do was to remind the guys to stay the course of what we were doing defensively and having success with the defensive side.

“Then on the offensive end just play free and be smart. But it’s a real challenge when you get in a game like that against a team that’s that talented and has that much firepower to continue to maintain a lead like that.”

A challenge South Carolina successfully tackled and can now add to the resume.