What Lamont Paris said after South Carolina's win over Mercer on Thursday
Following an 84-72 win over Mercer on Thursday, South Carolina head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media about the game. Here’s what he had to say.
— Happy to get the win, that’s for sure. Winning is never lost on him. So you’ve got to find a way to make that happen.
— There’s a lot of teams that think they’re going to win by 20 and end up squeezing one out. Mercer was a tough team tonight. They posed some challenges for the guys that aren’t fully developed physically yet. Some of the fouls were hard fouls to set the tone.
— Felt like they were able to escape out of there with the win.
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— There were a couple times where they were in the huddle and they were going to do something specific and then coming out of the huddle they wouldn’t do it. Last year’s team was really good at early in the season at some of those things. You can’t force your group to grow on some of those. Some of these things are more reproducible with a high level of concentration.
— Late in the game, they changed some stuff. They started switching the ball screens with a bigger lead and a few minutes to go. Threes were certainly the way mercer could try to cut the lead down. They made some shots team don’t normally make.
— They played it soft a couple times when they couldn’t get to the aggressive coverage on a ball screen.
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— Thought Zach Davis and Jamarii Thomas’ shots were a lot more effective tonight. The quality of shots and decision making were a lot better, especially from Davis. There were two jump shots that Paris thought weren’t the best from Davis. Thomas got some good, clean looks. It was good to see those guys make their shots. Hopefully it gets those guys going in the right direction.
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— Calmness is an important trait in basketball because there’s so many possessions and the tide can turn so quickly. You get down to the final minutes and it feels like everything comes down to one possession. They performed well with making the shots but also making the plays. They did a really good job of being the floor and making plays for one another.
— Davis’ growth has been phenomenal to watch and be a part of. He’s changed so much since he got here in all the right ways. His game has grown. The next thing for him is to attack the basket strong and finish. It’ll be nice for him to do that more often. He’s still not all the way there. But he can be a standout at this level as a defender.
— Told CMB he needs to establish to sometimes take the moment over and score. As he establishes himself as the guy who can be the scorer, the moments that happen in the passing game happen naturally.
