What South Carolina coach Lamont Paris said after the Gamecocks beat No. 5 Tennessee

Everything South Carolina basketball coach Lamont Paris said after the Gamecocks beat No. 5 Tennessee 63-59 on Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville:

Opening Statement

“Man, what a good game.I’m exhausted, as you can tell. But what a good game. Our guys just battled. There’s some coach speak for you. Both teams played so hard. I mean, just played so hard. And we made some plays when we needed to. Got to the free-throw line and made some big free throws down the stretch. Secured the ball against really good pressure. The man-to-man pressure was elite. Thought we did a good job of handling that, which allowed us to operate in the half court. And then even when we did get out of sorts, we just made a play here and there. And that’s all, really what it came down to. It felt did a good job defensively trying to stay within the principles that we’ve been preaching since July. So I thought we did a good job of that, for the most part. Blocked out and rebounded when we needed to. And we’re lucky to get out of here with a win. A tough place, crazy environment, against a really, really, really, really good, well-coached experienced team.”

What South Carolina was able to do to slow down Tennessee point guard Zakai Zeigler and center Jonas Aidoo

“We just were, I don’t want to keep saying this, we tried real hard. I think guys tried really hard to be in two places at once. Sometimes you got to help over here and then get back to your guy. We tried to. Zeigler’s so fast and quick and a good scorer and player. We tried to have two bodies at the initial point of attack and their break, where they set that little rub screen at the top of the key, I thought that’s the area. If we could slow it down right there for him, maybe we had a chance. We tried really hard to stay in front of him and make most of his shots be over the top. And just what they do, we were just, we blocked out. He didn’t have many, if any second-chance situations that we’re that he’s normally used to doing. He got loose in the ball screen a couple times. That was kind of part of our plan based on how we, regarding the ball screen, we were going to concede a couple of those. And we just played some good one-on-one defense against him, and then we played some good one-on-one defense. So guys tried really hard to play good man to man 1-on-1 defense. That’s a good team.”

What it says about this South Carolina team to beat a top-five team on the road for the first time since 1997

“I think what it says the most is that their commitment to try to look at a really big challenge like winning on the road at a top-five team and break it down into smaller pieces. How do you do that? You have to block out and rebound. You have to take care of the ball. Pass it to the guys with the same colored jerseys on. And I think we’ve had been really successful at breaking it down into small action plans. And if you do enough of those things, you look up at the scoreboard and it’ll be in a situation oftentimes where you have a chance to win. And I think the more we dive into that with that mentality, the less we’re concerned with anything else, with where we’re playing, who we’re playing against, what the crowd is, what the records are. I think we dive into all our own playing.”

Meechie Johnson finding ways to contribute without scoring much

“Yeah, he’s a player. This is how basketball works. Sometimes you go out there and everything you shoot goes in. Other times you go out there and nothing that you shoot goes in, right? And so if those are the only thing that a person brings to the table when then they’re only out on the floor when it goes in and they’re not on the floor when it doesn’t go in. But Meechie can do so many things for us defensively as a creator. And he can get in the paint and the decision making has been really good and really consistently, he was the catalyst to the 3-pointer in the corner as he got both feet in the paint and kicked. That was a big play for us. I think it went from three to six right there, which optically to these guys matters at that point in the game. So he’s got a lot of ways that he could impact the game. We try to get everybody to do that, to think that, right? You got to find ways that you can impact the game. And if it’s only making a shot, then your net worth is gonna be lower more times than it’s higher.” 

South Carolina beating No. 6 Kentucky last week and No. 5 Tennessee this week 

“Yeah, (this team has) a lot of heart. It’s a passionate group. They want the, the spoils of whatever happens when you do what we’ve done, that we’ve done already. They want the spoils of that. But they’re fighters. They’re tough. They want to win badly as a group. And I say that as if that’s the assumption that everyone should make with every team. That’s not in 2024. That’s not the assumption. We got a team full of guys that everybody wants to win and they do whatever that they can, but it’s a resilient group. They have a lot of respect, our guys, they have a lot of believers, our guys do. And so they know who matters the most, as opinions are formed. And so they feel good about (it). They’re a confident group. They work hard to play well. They’re a confident group.”

Miles Stute coming back from injury, scoring 13 points and going 4-for-4 at the foul line

“Well, I hope they went in like they did anytime somebody goes up there, right? We try to simulate situations at the three-throw line in practice. They don’t come close to simulating that right there, to meeting that scenario. But he went up there, he was confident. He was not overconfident. That’s when real doubt starts to creep in. The guy that is overconfident as he steps up there as if it’s no sweat. I think he respected the moment. I think he went up there and went through his process and he made the shots. That was good … It’s never easy to come back when you’ve been out due to an injury. It’s hard. And I’ll tell you, the hardest thing is to stay in a lane. You’re going come back and show the whole world, right? They’ve been missing me. Watch, 20 shots up, see why they’ve been missing me. It’s so hard to stay in your lane when you come back like that. You’re trying to prove stuff. Come on, when you’re 20, 21, however old Miles this, you’re trying to prove something. And so he did it in the right way. He really let the game come to him. He had some opportunities that presented himself to him, and he took advantage of them. He did. A lot of credit for that.” 

South Carolina settling into the game early

“I think it’s important always to get off to a good start. Good starts are better than a bad start, right? But yeah, maybe in an environment like this, sure. Maybe in an environment like this, if you go down 11-2, maybe it’s hard to come back. Maybe you don’t make a comeback, right? So maybe. But having said that, what’s just as difficult as that is to get a lead, right? And then to lose that lead, that’s possibly more difficult. And so I just think it’s, I think you got to grind. It’s a possession-by-possession situation. Guys have to know that, they have to believe that there’s no 24-point shot out there. Like they have to manage the game on a possession-by-possession basis. And they did a really good job of staying in the moment. The words that they say in the timeout are meaningful. Meaningful messages that they are saying in the timeouts and on the court. And that’s really important. It just tells you they know where they’re at and how to manage the situation. You might play well, you might not play well, but they know how to manage the situation.”