Lamont Paris ‘excited’ to only trail by 20 at halftime vs. Vanderbilt

The bar is on the floor for Lamont Paris’ South Carolina Gamecocks.

On Tuesday, Paris’ team fell to the Vanderbilt Commodores by a score of 75-64, largely because of a first-half deficit of 20 points. As South Carolina trailed 38-18 at halftime, Paris started his post-game press conference stating he was “excited” to only trail by 20 at that time, which isn’t something you hear every day.

“Got off to a rough start, needless to say,” started Paris. “I think a lot of things contributed to it. Honestly, they didn’t shoot the ball great in the first half as well. The problem is they got a lot more shots than us because they were on the offensive glass. If you do what we did in this game and give up 22 second chance opportunities, this is still basketball. It’s just not a recipe to winning the game. We got off to a rough start. Played a poor first half. But honestly, we were fortunate for it to be 20 points at halftime.

“To me, I’m excited about that. I mentioned that to the team. After all the things that we did, there were some frustration on guys not playing well. We didn’t attack the basket in the first half. After all that and all the dust settles, we look up and it’s 20. It’s only 20. This is basketball. Things happen quickly.”

While Paris’ assessment may be surprising, he was right to an extent, as the Gamecocks made it semi-interesting in the second half. The South Carolina leader was also happy with his team’s effort over the back-half of the game.

“They did in the second half. We come right out and it goes from 20 to 14 quickly. Goes back up to 22, we work our way back down to nine. It’s basketball,” added Paris. “Guys have a hard time remembering how quickly things change in basketball. So I did think we fought well in the second half.

“I was happy with what we did in the second half. It just was such an uphill battle, it was going to take an even better effort in the second half to win the game.”

Alas, South Carolina now sits at 9-17 on the season, with a conference record of 2-11. It’s been a rough season for the Gamecocks, and the goal post has certainly been moved, but perhaps Lamont Paris’ team can finish strong over the next month.