Lamont Paris discusses how to keep team mentally engaged amid frustration

If it weren’t for the existence of Louisville and that Bizarre night in Rupp Arena last month, South Carolina hoops would comfortably be the worst power-five basketball team in the country this season. The Gamecocks are 1-8 in SEC play and just 8-14 on the season, with losses to GWU, Davidson, Furman, Colorado State, ECU and UAB all in the non-conference. Just a disaster of a first season for head coach Lamont Paris.

But it’s hard to call this a rebuilding year for Paris given his roster. He plucked the No. 1 player from the 2023 class, GG Jackson, last fall and got him to reclassify and join this year’s Gamecock roster. Paris also nabbed a a sixth-year senior from local mid-major The Citadel, Hayden Brown, who averaged exactly 18.8 points per game the previous two seasons. He also landed Ohio State import Meechie Johnson along with several more transfers. All this to say: this roster has talent, but they just haven’t been able to come together and win much of anything.

So it’s been an extremely frustrating year for Coach Paris. After the team’s latest loss to Mississippi State, Paris took some time in the postgame to reflect on the team and his efforts to get them engaged on a regular basis. You can read those comments in full right here:

Lamont Paris reflects on frustrations from year one

“Yeah it’s hard. It’s very difficult. I think it’s probably more difficult now than ever, just because, you know, it’s a it’s an emotional group. These these kids that are of college age and any of you that are around them on a consistent basis or or are the parent of them or uncle or aunt or whatever it is, you know that. And so, it’s difficult. It’s always been difficult when you go through a stretch, but I think it’s even more difficult now.

“So I think our spirits have been pretty good overall relative to that. Because you have to move forward, you have to get ready for the next game, you have to try to improve. And the only way you’re going to do it is if you have a positive attitude. If you’re going to go into something and accept the work and and try to get better, otherwise you’re just the same guy. And you hope you play better and you hope you just play better in one game. But it’s a challenge.

“We’re constantly talking about it, constantly trying to put things into perspective in a way that it makes sense to them and talk about the next move and the next step in the horizon and what the future is. The future is short. It’s tomorrow, it’s in a couple days, it’s the next game. But we’re constantly trying to focus on that in a way that we can inspire guys to continue to work hard and come out and have a lot of energy and a lot of juice when they play the basketball game. Every day is a new day. Like every hole’s a new hole.

“And the other golf analogy — so, if you’re hanging your head because you had a triple bogey or three bogeys in a row, the chances of your birdie in the next are relied on that, if you’re not in the right head space. But if you take all the factors into account, you make a good, solid decision. You plan on hitting a good shot, you concentrate the way that you’re capable of — your chances go up of of having a par or a birdie on that next hole. Don’t get too many birdies, but yeah, that’s the mentality that I think you have to have in order to to persevere through some pretty trying times.”