Lamont Paris challenges South Carolina players on turnover issues

The South Carolina Gamecocks have now lost eight games in a row and are still looking for their first SEC win. That’s left head coach Lamont Paris looking for answers about how to turn things around.

One immediate issue seems to be the amount of turnovers that South Carolina is committing. That’s a difference from last season when Ta’Lon Cooper led the backcourt and seems to be an issue more for the team this season. That prompted Paris to challenge his team following the recent loss to Georgia.

“He [Cooper] was good,” Lamont Paris said. “But it was Ta’Lon Cooper in conjunction and also with Meechie Johnson could alleviate some pressure and then behind those two guys was Jacobi [Wright] and Zach [Davis] did a little of the ball handling. So, certainly, those guys were — Ta’Lon during the season I think had the seventh highest assist rate of all active players. So, that’s a hard one to replace, but what happens is you bring new guys in and guys have an opportunity. Some of it happens through growth and some of it happens through recruiting and a new face, like Jamarii [Thomas].”

Cooper finished his college career last season. Johnson, meanwhile, decided to transfer out of the program. That has left new players to step up in the backcourt. Wright, Davis, and Thomas are leading that group. Both Wright and Davis have been with the program while Thomas is in his first season at South Carolina.

“It’s certainly when we brought these guys in, we told them about the opportunities they would have. Jacobi’s played a lot of minutes in this conference. Jamarii’s played a lot of minutes in his career, but guys have to step up and play better. That’s the bulk of what our turnovers are, but — some of our bigs turn the ball over too, but that’s kind of built into the equation that those guys if they start to make a lot of plays, they turn the ball over,” Paris said.

“Even we’ve had guys like Zach who at one point this was a real stat that through 15 games, 16 games, he had had 15 total turnovers. Then he had 15 in the following three games also. So, why would that happen? It has less to do with your ability and just with what you’re doing while you’re out there on the floor. An emphasis, a commitment to not turning the ball over. Maybe guys feel like they need to do more and that’s what’s yielding some of the turnovers, but obviously, we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”

Paris and South Carolina will need a solution for their turnovers soon. In the loss to Georgia, the Gamecocks coughed the ball up 17 times. That came after they had 19 turnovers the game before against Mississippi State. For the season, meanwhile, South Carolina is averaging 13.1 turnovers per game, which is tied for 282nd in the country in turnovers.

Next, South Carolina will face another SEC test against Texas A&M. In fact, South Carolina’s next four games come against AP Top 25 ranked teams.