What Lamont Paris said after South Carolina's 20-point loss to Alabama on Wednesday

Following an 88-68 loss to No. 5 Alabama on Wednesday, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media after the game. Below is a summary of what he had to say.

— Alabama has a good team, which South Carolina knew and anticipated. They were aggressive and that showed itself at times. Part of growing is adapting to that. Thought his team played hard.

— If they competed hard, he’d feel good about what they were going to do tonight. Thought that was the area that was the most important one.

— It’s a hard schedule obviously. Auburn won’t care too much about how things went tonight. His only source of disappointment was that he felt they could’ve competed better in some more physical situations. They have to clean up a little bit on defense. Still violating some of their own rules.

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— Some of it has been doubling Collin Murray-Boyles. Feels he’s also been sped up a little bit more. There was more traffic in the Mississippi State game that he was facing. If you look at the last two games with who was guarding him, you have two guys that are really strong along with being mobile. That’s also what CMB does and what makes him hard to guard at times. Those guys guarding him are agile enough to stay in front of him. Have to do a better job of getting him in space and letting him attack. It’s a little more difficult to do that with him and Pringle on the floor at the same time.

— The primary reason behind Arden Conyers playing more was due to Myles Stute being out. You have to fill in those minutes that Stute plays as a starter. The candidates that had identified themselves the most were Jordan Butler and Conyers of guys who hadn’t been playing. Felt good about Conyers defensively on the ball. Once action starts happening, as a younger guy, there’s some struggles. He did a good job guarding the ball.

— At this time of the year, Conyers is mainly playing his reps on the scout team. He hasn’t stood out offensively as many times in practice because he may be playing a guy who doesn’t fit his skill set. Defensively and competevely, he’s made some improvements. This game comes down to competing at the end of the day. Doesn’t think there’s near as much separation in sheer talent. But those that compete really compete and fight and attack the rim and dive on a loose ball, etc. There’s so many unpredictable plays in a game that come down to who wins those battles. When you don’t win those, it makes your margin of error smaller.

— Murray-Boyles needs to clean up his turnovers. All his turnovers are when he attacks and a guy strips him. The passes need to be whatever the most straight forward pass is.

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— Thought they did have a couple of spurts. Thought they were on the verge of some real spurts in this game. Sometimes, you’ve got to slow grind your way into a run. It has to start with the defense. You can’t give up 88 points and feel you’re going to win. That’s not going to work. If you look at last year’s team, the mindset was you’re not scoring 80, probably won’t even score 70. That gives yourself a chance to win when you do that. This year’s team has to learn what that looks like when you do that.

— They played with a lot of energy early and were good. They were pressuring the ball well. Just in the first half in general, they were pretty active defensively. Some of it comes down to subbing, some of it comes down to not subbing. It’s a game of runs. Alabama had some of those. South Carolina couldn’t get enough stops.

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