Lamont Paris considers when he knew South Carolina would overachieve this season

To this point in his second season at South Carolina, head coach Lamont Paris has raised plenty of eyebrows. That’s largely on the back of a surprisingly good 17-3 record through this point in the season.

Following the Gamecocks’ recent win over the Missouri Tigers, Paris shared when he knew that this team had a chance to do something special.

“I don’t ever try to put any sort of ceiling on what’s gonna happen or go through the schedule, ‘We’ll win that one, we lose that one, this one’s home.’ I don’t do that,” Lamont Paris said. “But I’ll tell you this, after the Summer, after we had the group here, I knew once the ink dried on the NLIs — I don’t even know if you say that too much, it’s always the other three letters — but once the ink dried I knew we were better. We were older. We were skilled in a way that I like to play more.”

While Paris knew that there was a lot of talent coming to the program, he learned even more once those players made it to South Carolina. That, importantly has given him and the team as a whole confidence moving forward.

“So much other stuff I didn’t know until they got here. How they would play together, how unselfish they would be when you got some older guys with only one year of eligibility left, how tough we could be defensively, which has turned out to be pretty tough. So, once I did that, I knew we would be confident when we play. There’s nothing like going into a game and feeling confident that your players know where all the outs are, they know how to function, they know if a speed bump comes in front of them how to make a detour and get back,” Paris said.

“They know that already, and so once you do that, you just go into every game feeling confident, and we’re confident in every game. Surely, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna win them all. That’s for sure, but they’re a confident bunch and I’m confident in them as well. So, I’m happy. I’m really happy with where we are, with where the program is, with who the makeup of the guys that we have on this roster as human beings, incredible people, and it’s turned into wins also.”

Next up for South Carolina is a tough road test against the Tennessee Volunteers.

Lamont Paris on confidence in Meechie Johnson

Over the course of the season, one of the players who Lamont Paris has found the most confidence is Meechie Johnson.

“I mean the best thing I can do is continue to believe in him,” Paris said. “My belief is as high as it can possibly be. It can’t be any higher. He knows that.”