Where Lamont Paris has seen the most growth, what's next for South Carolina

College basketball is one of the few sports to get a month-long stretch like the one coming to an end for South Carolina. 

The Gamecocks got a month after exams ended and before the spring semester starts Monday to focus on basketball nearly all the time. That month for most teams is when there seems to be the most in-season growth.

And while South Carolina is nowhere near a finished product, Lamont Paris has seen some improvement offensively heading into SEC play. 

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“Offensively has probably been our biggest improvement in terms of the quality of shot we’re generating and the kind of movement we’re getting on offense,” Paris said after South Carolina’s practice Thursday. “I think we’ve made drastic improvements in that. That’s been good to see.”

And the Gamecocks (7-7, 0-1 SEC) still need the offense to be a lot better. 

As it stands right now, they’re No. 244 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency averaging 99.1 points per 100 possessions. That’s a full three points per 100 less than the Division I average. 

The good news for South Carolina is it’s coming off one of its best offensive nights against Eastern Michigan where the Gamecocks averaged 116.2 points per 100. 

Tuesday’s loss at Vanderbilt was the sixth-highest output offensively where South Carolina averaged 104.7 points per 100.

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“Just be more efficient. Honestly, me personally, just hitting shots. That’s my thing. At Vanderbilt, I feel like we got a lot of good looks from a lot of people…We just have to hit shots, man. Certain shots have to fall. It’s hard sometimes and you can’t control it. But I feel like we’re growing a lot,” Meechie Johnson said. 

“We showed some things in that Vanderbilt game. I feel like going forward, man, if we can hit some shots and maybe get some better shots here and there we can put ourselves in better shots of winning games.”

Things aren’t great, though, and South Carolina still needs to improve a lot offensively with 17 league games left. 

The Gamecocks rank No. 297 nationally in effective field goal percentage (47), No. 322 in free throw rate (25), 231st in three-point percentage (32.4) and 300th in two-point percentage (300). 

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South Carolina had a 47.9 percent effective field goal percentage against Vanderbilt. The Gamecocks shot 31 percent from three and 48.8 percent from two in an overtime loss. 

So how do the Gamecocks get more efficient? A lot comes down to taking advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves. 

As I looked, particularly to open the second half, you can’t get five better opportunities in a row. You can’t do it. And we didn’t perform. I think a lot comes down to that. We ran a play for Hayden. It was a duck-in play. They go around late, he has a layup and misses it. There were plenty of those we left on the floor. Some of it is performance,” Paris said.

“The first step is generating quality shots by way of running a play or good offense. I think good offense is always a better way to do it. But once you get yourself in a good situation you have to perform in terms of putting the ball in the basket.” 

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Things also don’t get easier for South Carolina trying to notch its first league win. The Gamecocks open up home conference play against No. 8 Tennessee, which boasts the best defense in the country while allowing just 80.9 points per 100 possessions. 

“We started to really get the ball moving how we wanted to in that Vanderbilt game. I think we got a taste of what it looks like. for a conference game, this is what ball movement looks like and this is what we need to get,” Hayden Brown said.

“We got a lot of good stuff but there’s some stuff we need to finish…The execution of it was there. I talked about execution on the offensive end and how we’ve grown there. But I think finding our offensive identity and remaining consistent in that.” 

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