Lamont Paris calls Texas A&M win a tremendous help for March

South Carolina is back to its winning ways after the Gamecocks suffered their first back-to-back losses of the season in February.

They’ve since defeated Ole Miss by 13 points on the road, and squeezed out a 70-68 win over Texas A&M on Wednesday. The Aggies were on the bubble heading into Wednesday’s game — which means the win should bode well for Lamont Paris’ group’s come Selection Sunday.

“It’s a tremendous help, but this whole season has been a pretty steady march for our guys,” Paris said postgame. “I know according to most that the wheels fell off in the two-game loss streak we had. That’s the only time this season we lost two games in a row. This whole season has been a pretty steady. I don’t know, like a preparation for us.

“We’ve achieved. We’ve been resilient. We’ve had a bunch of close games. But it’s nice coming down the stretch, we’ve got a couple home games. Seems like every game gets tougher and tougher as we move forward and there’s more on the line each time and you start looking at a conference race and all that stuff. We just focus on the next game in front of us.”

Up next for South Carolina would be a home matchup against No. 24 Florida. Just as the two previous games have been, Saturday’s SEC matchup will feature another opportunity for the Gamecocks to build their resume against an NCAA Tournament opponent.

Still, Paris is confident in his guys abilities, and has been all season. At 23-5 (11-4, SEC), the Gamecocks have all but locked up their spot in the Big Dance — but at the same time, Paris sees a ton of room still available for improvement.

“We don’t say that for any sort of lip service,” Paris continued. “We’re best served to do it that way and the results (have shown that). At one point if we do enough, maybe we’ll look up and say, ‘hey guys, we win one more game and we’re in a tie for first in the league.’ I don’t know if it’ll turn out that way or not. But at that point, it’ll turn into that conversation. We’ve got a team playing extremely well coming into our place (Florida).”

Whether or not the Gamecocks can hold home court against the Gators, South Carolina will move on to welcome No. 4 Tennessee to Colonial Life Arena for senior night. They’ll wrap up the regular season on the road against Mississippi State on March 9.