What Lamont Paris wants to see improve before season opener

South Carolina knew Wednesday’s exhibition wasn’t going to be perfect. There were things the GAmecocks were going to do well and fail on breaking in essentially an entirely new roster.

They did their part, though, cruising to a 39-point win. But there is still a lot to clean up on the defensive end, Lamont Paris said. 

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“But defensively I would say for us some of the things that are important are making defensive reads on the fly and trying to create indecision in the offense by making these decisions. There’s a little gray area in some of these decisions. If you do it properly, it leads to more indecision by the offense and uncertainty,” he said after the game.

“Constantly we go rep after rep to simulate these situations over and over again and try to make the right decisions as many times as we can. It never fails when there’s some gray area. You’re going to do the wrong thing. But you can get to the point where rarely you’re doing that.”

The Gamecocks allowed just 41 points and held Mars Hill to 28 percent shooting from the field and just 1-for-16 from three. 

Despite some of those stats, Paris said Mars Hill did beat the Gamecocks in a few one-on-one situations and had some breakdowns. Of Mars Hill’s 41 points, 32 came in the paint. 

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“But there were some times we had some breakdowns in individual defense. That shouldn’t happen in some of those. I really challenged Daniel (Hankins-Sanford) in one situation. The dust had all settled. They ran a play and the dust had all settled,” Paris said.

“They were back to a man on a man and they beat us off the dribble, they beat us baseline a couple of times, which we try to limit as many times as we can. Some if it was coming out. Again, we have so many guys where this is the first real actual game-type situation for them.”

Take the performance top to bottom with a grain of salt, too, given the fact the Gamecocks are also breaking a roster made up of half newcomers. No player has ever played under Paris before. There will still be a learning curve as the season kicks off. 

Paris prides himself on defense, and the Gamecocks are still adjusting to his system and how they defend some screens. 

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“When I talk about making some of those switches, it’s not clear cut that when he screens its definitely a switch. It’s not the way we do some of it. There is some decision involved, which leads to communication that has to happen. You have to recognize some things really early. I thought we did a good job of that,” he said. 

“But we’re going to have to keep on continuing to improve in that. As the talent gets better, the speed and size of guys and the pace at which they’re making those decisions shortens. We have to continue to get better at that. That’s probably the biggest thing.”

Paris says he’d like to see his players, as he said, perform better as well while also executing what is being asked of them.

“There’s playing well and there’s performing well. Playing well oftentimes involves what you decide to do: I shared it, I brought the ball here, I executed the play as we were supposed to, i did the things we practiced. That’s playing well regardless of if the ball goes in or not. You look at Tiger Woods and hear him talk about him playing well today. He managed the course. He took in all the factors he needed to, he hit the right shots, he went for it when he needed to and played up when he needed to,” Paris said.

“But he didn’t make putts so he didn’t perform well that day but he did play well. That’s what we’re after: to play well. If you’re focused on playing well, circumstances and surroundings and crowd don’t affect you. If you’re focused on performing well, all those things are magnified the first time you don’t make the first shot you shoot. I thought we played well today, performed OK overall. That’s kind of where we’re at.” 

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