Lamont Paris praises effort, grit following South Carolina win over Ole Miss

Fresh off the heels of an eight-game losing streak, South Carolina secured their second SEC win of the season on Saturday defeating Ole Miss in a 64-61 slugfest. Saturday’s win was just the fourth in program history on the road at Ole Miss, and one where the Rebels led for 31 minutes of the game. But the Gamecocks came up big when it mattered most, as South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris spoke after the game about his team’s play.

“Didn’t get off to a fantastic start necessarily, but we weathered the storm,” Paris said. “We made our run, they made another run, and then we closed the gap to go into the halftime at a reasonable margin.”

The Gamecocks were down just three points at halftime, but elevated their play on both ends of the floor in the second half. They hit 45.5% of their shots in the second act, and closed out great against the Rebels from behind the arc holding them to 0-9 from three-point range in the second half.

“And then we just stuck with it in the second half, and we stuck with it and we got over some of the things we did. We turned the ball over, it didn’t look pretty all the time but we stuck with it and guys grinded out a win,” Paris said.

Forward Hayden Brown led the Gamecocks in scoring 18 points, his third straight game scoring in double figures. He was one of three Gamecocks to score in double figures, including Meechie Johnson and Jacobi Wright who came up big for South Carolina down the stretch.

Johnson came through on a three-point play with 1:19 left in the game to bring South Carolina within one point of the Rebels’ lead. Then on the following possession, Wright would drill a three pointer with 44 seconds left in the game that would give the a lead that they’d hold on to for the remainder of the contest.

“A good win against a team that was hungry, that has played well recently and just won and wanted to stack a couple together,” Paris said. “So I often times look at your effort versus the effort that you get from the other team, and we got a good effort from those guys and so I was really happy.”

The Gamecocks will be looking to build on their newfound momentum on Valentine’s Day, as they take on Vanderbilt on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. ET airing on SEC Network.