Lamont Paris lists weaknesses he saw while scouting Kentucky

South Carolina pulled off an upset of Kentucky, beating the Wildcats 71-68 after jumping out to an early lead. Despite a second-half push by Kentucky, Lamont Paris and his Gamecocks were able to win on the road in Lexington.

After the game, Paris explained weaknesses that he saw in Kentucky while scouting them that South Carolina tried to take advantage of during the game.

“Yeah, the ball screens. I wanted to try to get into ball screens and just, you know, it appeared in the last game that there was some, maybe a little indecision in what they wanted to do on the ball screens,” Lamont Paris said.

“That’s outsider looking in, of course. So, I wanted to get into some ball screens. We probably ran more than we normally do, but I also wanted to have them move. I wanted to have [Oscar] Tshiebwe move and make decisions, if they were gonna switch this or if they were gonna go under this or what they were going to do. So, I thought the ball screens and attacking the rim was a big part of what we wanted to do.”

Paris explained that Kentucky is a great team in terms of raw athleticism. Because of this, it can be difficult at the rim. In those instances, you have to play smart and often kick the ball out.

“They have such tremendous length and athleticism that when we did on our board before we went out in the game was be aggressive. We have to be aggressive. But, then you have to be intelligent when you get around the basket, and, you know, can I challenge this guy at the rim? Do I have an angle? Am I the first jumper or the second jumper? Or, because these athletes come in there and they crowd the paint, are there going to be some guys open that we can find,” Paris said.

“So, those were a couple of the things. One was getting into the ball screen and attacking, and then we wanted to spray it out if we did get around the basket and couldn’t finish ourselves. We wanted to try and find some other guys that had 10 toes pointing toward the rim. I thought early especially we found some of those.”

With the win, South Carolina moved to 8-8 on the season and 1-2 in SEC play, while Kentucky fell to 10-6 and just 1-3 in SEC play.

Lamont Paris had fun against Kentucky

After the win, Lamont Paris explained that college basketball is a lot of hard work. However, on nights like the one that South Carolina had, it’s a good reminder that it can be a lot of fun too.

“Sometimes, in this whole process, buried way beneath the hard work and sweat and yelling at and all that stuff, we talk to our guys all the time that there’s fun in disguise buried somewhere in there. It showed its head today, that’s for sure. I don’t think it was in disguise,” Paris said.

“But, a lot of credit to their guys. Both teams are coming off of a tough loss, and so both teams I knew and expected to get everything that they had and their best effort, and they did…It’s fun to have a front-row seat for all that stuff. I thought it was a great college basketball game with just two teams that really, inside, felt they really had to have the win and it looked like that as we played.”