Lamont Paris updates Hayden Brown's injury, prognosis
South Carolina was without one of its veteran leaders Saturday against Texas A&M, and after the game, Lamont Paris gave an update to the banged-up forward.
Hayden Brown–who missed the game with what South Carolina called a “deep thigh bruise”–will be evaluated moving forward and the Gamecocks are hopeful he’ll be able to play in the midweek game.
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“He has a thigh bruise on his left thigh. He took a knee to the thigh in practice. I’m hopeful he’ll be back sooner rather than later. I don’t know what it looks like. He’s made tremendous progress from the day it first happened until today,” Paris said. “He went through shootaround and wasn’t able to play, obviously, but made significant strides in terms of his progress. Those things are tricky. Sometimes they take a little while, to be honest with you.”
Brown suffered the thigh bruise Thursday in practice and was held out of Saturday’s game, ultimately an ugly 94-53 loss to the Aggies.
“I mean he’s averaging 41 a game so we would have tied it up had he played, I feel like,” Paris said, jokingly. “It’s not about that. It’s about who we were as a team in his absence in a game like this. Would there have been more fight? Rather than 10 of those 16 offensive rebounds would that number have been six out of 16 because he would have blocked out aggressively and drawn more fouls? Would we have been in the bonus a little earlier? Would we have felt better about ourselves because of it?”
South Carolina will practice Sunday and Monday before a game Tuesday night.
The Citadel transfer, who dealt with a hamstring injury that forced him to miss long stretches of the preseason, has been a mainstay for the Gamecocks this season.
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He’s started every game this season, averaging 30.5 minutes per game. Coming into Saturday’s game he was averaging 11.2 points on 41.4 percent shooting (22.4 percent from three) while adding 5.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists.
With Brown not in the starting lineup, South Carolina opted to give freshman Zachary Davis his second-career start and first in SEC play.
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Davis had a career day, leading the Gamecocks in scoring with a career-best 13 points on 4-for-6 shooting.
“I thought with his length it was a good way to go. He can pass, he’ll attack and can make some plays. I’m happy with his progress. He’s a typical young guy. I thought some of these minutes were valuable for him,” Paris said.
“Even though the score was lopsided, he rebounded and went coast to coast and finished with his left hand. You never know when it’ll happen for a guy and when the light will really come on. So I thought they were valuable minutes even though we didn’t play the way we wanted to. I’ve been happy with his progress overall for a young guy.”
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The Gamecocks have a few days before they take on Ole Miss on Tuesday. The Rebels are on a six-game losing streak and have dropped their first five league games.
Tip-off Tuesday is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on the SEC Network. After that, South Carolina hosts Auburn Jan. 21 at 3:30 p.m. before consecutive road games at Flordia and Georgia.
