South Carolina slowly gaining confidence back after week of self-reflection

If there was anyone dying to get back to basketball games again, it was Lamont Paris. He so badly wanted to move on from his team’s nightmarish week not long ago.

Just last week, South Carolina suffered two of the worst losses of the season. The Gamecocks went to Auburn last Tuesday and lost by 40 points. A few days later, they held a 16-point lead in the second half and blew it. They’d lose to an underwhelming LSU squad by one point.

“I mean, it was miserable for me, I’m not going to lie to you,” Paris said. “That was one of the hardest games for me to move forward from. I think it was just all the things that we did that contributed to how it ended, and then the dramatic fashion in which it ended. It personally was difficult to have a full week before you get to play and get that taste out of your mouth.”

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While it was a rough week, it was some much-needed adversity in what had otherwise been a phenomenal season. Coming into this week, the Gamecocks were 21-5 and still very much within reach of all their long-term goals.

But it also allowed for Paris and his players to go back through what went wrong in those two games and try to course correct it.

“We had a long film session. There was a lot of truth telling that was going on in that film session,” Paris said. “We try to provide an environment where that’s the main thing that we can do, we can tell guys the truth. And it’s not abrasive. And it’s not critical. It’s factual stuff.”

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While having this week off from game action was good for getting the mind right, South Carolina still had to figure out how it was going to get back on track with a big game coming up at Ole Miss.

Right out of the gate on Saturday, it seemed things were back to normal. The Gamecocks only trailed for just under two minutes against the Rebels. They’d go on to win 72-59 and snap the two-game skid.

South Carolina got much better shooting performances all around, with four players finishing with double-digit points. As a team, it shot 44.1 percent overall and 47.1 percent from three-point range.

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However, it wasn’t even solely about shooting better or playing more sound defensively. It was getting the confidence that has been so critical to their success all year back in their corner.

“Confidence has always been very important in the minds of, anyone in general, but certainly of any college-aged person that’s competing in a sport of any type. You get the yips, and you’re not going to make four foot putts all of a sudden, even though you’ve made four foot putts since you’ve been nine years old. Confidence, I think confidence is such an important thing. So I thought it was important from that standpoint,” Paris said.

“You can say it all you want and pretend that there’s no shaking your confidence. There’s a crack in your confidence if you’re a 19, 20 21-year old college athlete. And so I thought it was really important to be able to come in here against a good team. You don’t trip and fall and accidentally ended up with the wins that (Ole Miss) has had.”

And with March around the corner, Paris knows the postseason talk will soon start heating up. So it was essential to get this type of win on Saturday from that standpoint.

“We’re getting towards the very end of everybody talking about NCAA Tournament, who needs to do this to bolster their resume and all these things,” he said. “To come in here and play well and win like that, I thought it was tremendously important for the confidence of these guys.”

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