Lamont Paris shares South Carolina's mindset regarding SEC race

With seven games remaining, South Carolina finds itself tied for first in the SEC with Alabama. Nobody expected Lamot Paris to have his team in this position right now, with the Gamecocks predicted to finish last in the conference. But big win after big win has stacked up and conference championship could be on the program’s mind.

Paris was not a fan of checking the standings but Saturday’s win against Vanderbilt changed things in his eyes. Getting past the Commodores is a must in order to win the SEC regular season title and South Carolina passed the test.

Now, a conversation might occur about what’s at stake moving forward.

“To be honest with you, in my mind, that last game was the domino that we needed to fall before we could have the audacity to look at what the standings are,” Paris said. “I think we are to that point. So, we’ll talk about it a little bit.”

The conversation will only roar on if South Carolina is able to go into Neville Arena and beat Auburn on Wednesday night. A huge matchup of two teams competing at the top, Paris wants to make sure the focus is still on the game ahead of them. After all, there is still room for improvement.

“We had a great practice today,” Paris said. “Focused on this energy at practice today. So, hopefully we’ll have a good one tomorrow before we hit the road. I think we’re really committed to still trying to prove our product.”

Paris believes this is the time of year when teams need to start playing their best basketball. Not necessarily peak because reaching the top before reaching the postseason means a letdown is coming in March.

But if South Carolina can start to play as the best version of itself and find a way to sustain it, there will be a serious push to win the program’s first SEC regular season since 2009.

“I think there is still some room for growth in our product,” Paris said. “At some point, that won’t be the case. We’ll be playing the best that we can possibly play. And then you try to do that for as long as you can… I don’t think you can do it for two months. If you can start finding your way into that mode for the next week or two, I think you do that for the rest of the season and ride it off.”