Lamont Paris opens up on road win vs. Ole Miss

The South Carolina Gamecocks went into Oxford, Mississippi and handled the Ole Miss Rebels on their own floor on Saturday night. The Gamecocks torched the nets from beyond-the-arc, drilling 47% of their threes. Their defense also held the Rebels to under 60 points.

Lamont Paris interview with SEC Network

Following the big win, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris discussed the things his team did right.

What was his message to his team defensively?

“Honestly, we try to make a commitment to stay in front of the ball,” Paris said. “They made a bunch of two-point jumpers on us the last game. I didn’t want to overreact to that. But at the same time, they’ve got a couple guys in Murrell and Flanigan, that’s what they do.”

The Gamecocks held Ole Miss to their worst shooting performance of the season. The Rebels just shot 33.3% from the field (18-54) and 18.8% from beyond-the-arc (3-16).

“So I thought we had to crowd their space a little bit just to try to make those things a little more contested,” he continued. “So, I thought early on we did that. I thought we held them [in check]. But honestly, it was the stay in front of the ball. And when the shot went up, we had to go rebound it. So, they made a couple of tough jumpers. They didn’t make as many today as they did at our place. So, I thought we did a really good job in terms of our overall discipline. We got loose down the stretch there. Fouled a couple three point shooters and some bone head stuff. But overall, our effort was incredible.”

How much did his team focus on keeping the man in front of them before the game Saturday?

“In the Auburn game. Auburn happened. That’s what happened on that day. And a poor shooting game the next game. So, we didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking about that. I thought our effort was good in Auburn. I don’t think it had anything to do with that. They played. They came and they played,” the South Carolina head coach noted.

“And then in the next game in LSU we were up 16 I think it was. Again, we made some uncharacteristic decisions defensively. My mind was blown. We did a little bit of it again today. I think what’s hard for young people to do is when you get in a scenario. That they do the math on it. They look up. They see the point advantage. They see the number of time on the minutes in the game. They calculate it out. And they say, ‘Oh these next two possessions are freebies.’ You know, I can go under when I’m supposed to chase on this one. I can take this shot if I really want to on this one. And it’s hard for them not to do that,” Paris continued.

“I think we did that. That’s what got the run’s going. And then they were hard to stop. So today, we just wanted to be solid. We just wanted to do what we do. Get back to the basics on what we did. I thought our first half was really, really good defensively. And then we did enough in the second half to pull out a win on the road against a really good team,” Paris finished.

With the win, 20th ranked South Carolina moved to 22-5 overall and 10-4 in the SEC. Ole Miss dropped to 19-8 overall and 6-8 in the SEC.