Lamont Paris shares message to Meechie Johnson, GG Jackson amid skid

It’s been a rough go of late for South Carolina, which has lost four of its last six games. Two key players to getting the Gamecocks back on track are Meechie Johnson and GG Jackson, and Lamont Paris had a message for them.

Jackson, a true freshman, leads South Carolina with 15.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, and Johnson is right behind him with 12.5 points and 4.1 boards per contest. Johnson also leads the Gamecocks with 3.4 assists per game in his first year after transferring in from Ohio State.

Paris knows how important it is for the duo to play well, and he shared his message for them after South Carolina’s loss to Ole Miss.

“Those guys have to play well for us,” Paris said. “I alluded to it earlier, if those two and Hayden all three have a bad day at the office, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a hard day for us, offensively. You’ll have some games where Chico can get it going and that’ll be one thing. I’d like to generate some more shots for Chico, if you want to get inside my brain and what I look at. I just look at the numbers. I’ll try to generate some more good looks for Chico. That would be a thing, while he’s playing well.

“But those guys have to figure out. As you can see, it’s not necessarily for lack of shot opportunities. It’s not for lack of having the ball in your hands if you’re Meechie in late clock, late half situations. Those guys have to figure out. It’s not for a lack of calling plays by me, that kind of sort of put them in the situation where they’re going to control if they score, or not. If they double team, they find somebody else. So, just trying to find a way for them to be consistent contributors on the offensive end. Because we need them to. We need them to play well. We need them to shoot well. We need them to generate shots for other people. We need GG to rebound, a lot. We gotta just get those guys going.”

Lamont Paris: Confidence is key for GG Jackson, Meechie Johnson

Paris stressed the biggest key for Jackson and Johnson is to be confident. He said that attitude will translate onto the basketball court, and he said they have to play their games.

“I’ve talked to them just about being confident,” Paris said. “Getting in to the laboratory and working on your game and being confident. Being confident. You don’t have to look at me. You don’t have to look at me, you’re on the court, playing. My job is — I’ve got the worse job out of the two. I have to sit on the sideline and watch. You’re in control. I’ll tell you when you’re doing something that’s bad. But until then, you’ve gotta play. You’ve got to play, you’ve got to be aggressive. You must be aggressive, you gotta be confident. You have to be a confident guy to be good in this game, offensively.

“And I can’t sprinkle some sort of dust on you and make you be confident. Only you and your basketball God can sit down and figure out where your belief level is. And what your confidence level really is. And when you do that, you’re going to play better. But we’ve gotta find ways to get those guys to start being more efficient basketball players.”

On3’s Andrew Graham contributed to this report.