Lamont Paris honest about biggest challenges amid South Carolina's SEC losing streak

It’s been a difficult opening month of SEC play for the South Carolina Gamecocks, going 0-8 to open up SEC play and putting them in last place in the conference. For head coach Lamont Paris, there’s plenty to be frustrated about.

Following South Carolina’s most recent loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, Paris explained that the biggest challenge goes back to how difficult the SEC is, which means that small mistakes are costing the Gamecocks some games.

“The most challenging part to me is that you play the number five team in Florida,” Paris said. “You lead the entire game. So, it’s funny. Someone will say — someone said this today, ‘You guys had a chance.’ I wouldn’t say in that particular game we had a chance to win the game. I don’t think anyone would say that. Someone did to me today, but we did the entire game. We failed to close the deal. You’re at Vandy in an overtime game, they score on a tip-in in the last second. You’ve got the number two team in the country in your building and you lead the majority of the game.”

South Carolina is now 10-11 overall with an 0-8 record in conference play after going 10-3 in the non-conference slate. Still, Paris knows his team is just a couple of plays away from a much more respectable record in the conference.

“That’s what’s frustrating to me. It’s that I know. I’ve been around a lot of really, really good teams — elite teams, to be honest, relative to the entire whole country — elite teams, and I’ve also been around some bad teams. So, I know what a bad team is. If this was a bad team, you can’t accidentally do those things in the way we had done those things. You just can’t. This league is too good. It’s the best the league has ever been,” Paris said.

“So, that’s what’s frustrating. There’s another whole timeline in which we make three plays and we have three wins vs. zero wins. We’re in a different conversation at that point because there are a lot of really talented teams with a little number next to them that have three wins in our conference. It’s what the league is, so that’s the reality of it. When it boils right down to it, I think if you look at it, that’s really what it comes down to.”

South Carolina will be back in action on February 1st against Texas A&M. The next four games for South Carolina come against AP Top 25 ranked teams.