Everything Lamont Paris said after SEC-ACC Challenge loss to Virginia Tech

South Carolina men’s basketball head coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media following an 86-83 loss to Virginia Tech in the SEC/ACC challenge.

Here is everything he said.

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Opening Statement

“As a coach, you always make analogies. And you know, like anyone’s parents, you always want your children to grow and learn. And as a coach, it’s very similar. That’s what you’re focused on, is improving and learning and then growing. And so while there has been some of that, I think the pace at which some of the growth in some particular areas is happening, it would benefit us if some of that growth would happen a little quicker. And most of those aren’t physical things, most of those are decisions.”

“I thought, you know, not to take any credit away from from [Virginia Tech]. I thought when I watched the tape, I just feel like the number of self inflicted wounds, the proverbial self inflicted wounds, is going to be a wild number, the amount of things that we practiced, A, and then we went in, and not only sometimes that we forget to do A, we did B. And so you know that ultimately is on me.”

“We have to find ways to push the buttons, to get guys to improve at some decision making type things. And I think that really hurt us in the game. And they were playing physical. They have big guys in the game that were rooting around. Thought we got off to a slow start in the first half, we found our way back to a good spot, and then we just didn’t make plays down the stretch to win.”

You got the ball with a chance to win before overtime, and shot never gets out of anybody’s hand. Just what happened there?

“Well, I was there at the same time you were there. We didn’t get a shot off. I mean, we didn’t get a shot off. What else to say about it? But we didn’t get a shot off.”

“I’ll elaborate. I won’t be that guy. Generally speaking, I like to play when the floor is broken. Generally speaking. Now I was still playing right now, that’s what I would love. I think a lot of things can happen when you call a timeout. And having said that, I was about to go against my better judgment and call a timeout. This time inside me is kind of what I felt, but generally I don’t like to, because they get to change defenders. They get to change defenses, they get to change ball screen coverages. They get to plan, if we get a bucket, what they do right after that. There’s a lot of things that happen at that time we have the ball. We’re in complete control. The people that have on the floor are the people that they will have to have be on the floor. I’ll have some say. So you won’t sub. You will have to defend this with those guys.”

“And I like that. I like that for our players. And so, you know, look like we had a good situation. We were under complete control. And so I let the ball, I let it play out. And, you know, we just, I think we bobbled the ball a little bit as we were trying to get into a shot, bobbled the ball, and then defense recovered, and we were not able to get a shot off.”

In these close losses you guys have had now, the two at Greenbrier tonight. Is it more so not finishing down the stretch, or is it other factors?

well, certainly, you’re not finishing down the stretch, right? If we, if we, if we make any of those shots. We got a shot for Elijah [Strong] two times down the stretch for a three wide open. We got a situation for Meechie [Johnson]. We got free throws. I mean, you’re obviously not finishing you’re obviously not finishing the game with the basketball plays. Sometimes it does come down to that.”

“But more importantly, to me, I think these games are closer than what they should be. Most of them, other than Butler, was the one that, in reality, I try to look at it, not through rose colored glasses. Butler was the one that just based on the way that they physically manhandled us. We had no business with that being a game where we would have had a chance, no business whatsoever. And so I we said that to the team, showed that to the team, but these other games, I just don’t think they should have been in a situation they were. If we can get better at making some decisions that lead up to that, forget the play. I think it’s these decisions. I think we have to learn how to win a basketball game and what that means and and we got some we have to learn that still.”

How would you kind of assess how your defense was able to rotate off ball, specifically on Virginia Tech’s ball screens when they were able to get the pain a

“I mean, again, the ball screen is not going out of style anytime soon, it’s an effective tool that that people use. And so we have a couple of different ways that we generally will guard the ball screen. We had varying success with different ones. You know, some of them involve personnel changes, so we may want to do option C, but the player that performs option C the best isn’t playing well offensively, or is turning the ball over or doesn’t play well with the other guys that we have in the game that are playing well, that need to be in the game for offensive purposes.”

“So these are the decisions that you have to then make, go to the guy that can do option C, and then offense is what it is at that point. You just got to get the bleeding stop defensively. And that’s kind of where you’re at as a coach in terms of decision making that you are on what you’re going to do. We did some stuff. We ended up a couple times. We switched the ball screen and had some success with that. Had pretty good success with that, honestly, and then they went bigger.”

“And then once we switched, they were taking advantage of the switch around the basket. I have to look or it just seemed like there were a couple of guys that were in the paint for long periods of time from my vantage point. And so once that wasn’t being called, then, okay, well, then we have to do something different. We can’t just keep doing that. So that’s the way it goes. And you’re trying to figure out, oftentimes, what’s the best, what’s the best tool that you have on that particular day, with this particular team, with that particular personnel.”

You said after Presbyterian you used the word move a lot on the sideline. How would you assess the player’s off ball motion tonight?

“I thought the movement was decent. Honestly, I don’t have a I don’t have a big problem with what was happening offensively. I mean, we didn’t perform well necessarily. I mean, you’ve probably heard me say, I mean, there’s playing well, which is to do the things that you planned on doing. This is what the scouting report says. We did all those things. We played well.”

“Then there’s performing well, I’m standing there in the corner, I get a wide open shot. I make it. That’s performing well. I miss it. That’s not performing well, right? And so I don’t think we performed particularly well, but we played well enough offensively. I thought we got to some good things offensively. And, you know, at times we had it going and and so we generated some really good shots. We generated some really good shots. So, you know, took overtime, but you’re at 80, whatever it was, two, or whatever you’re at, in a way that you know, certainly there are 10 points out there that you could have had a couple late free throws that we missed, we had a layup, dunk that we got blocked on or fouled rather, I don’t know if we made both those. Maybe we did, but there’s a lot of points that are out there that we that we could have had just with the body of work that we did.”

“So I thought overall, our movement was not bad. I thought, really, by and large, it just it came down to some, some decisions, some defensive decisions, like just so I don’t just keep saying the same thing, one of which, one of which, this is not to lay blame on any one person, but, you know, the guy comes off of a screen, and we foul him for a three at the end, like you’re not gonna block that shot. Now I can only say this because Mike’s an older guy and he can handle me saying that. And also, we’ve talked ad nauseum, quite literally ad nauseum about how we challenge three point shooters. So that’s one decision, and I’m telling you that there are 20, 15 to 20, each of which affected the scoreboard. And so you get a game like this. It’s an overtime game. Any one point changes the outcome, and you got, you got 10 to 20 plays that clearly could have done that.”

There was a point late in the first half we are being able to be done 16 to three. It got a lot better after that, did y’all change anything in what y’all were doing? Or did you have anything to say?

“No, I mean, certainly, I’m sure I had stuff to say. Did I have anything to say, certainly I had stuff to say, but we didn’t change anything. I mean, you have to rebound at the end of the day. You have to rebound. You have to fight for the rebound, you have to, i mean, personnel. that’s the only thing that I can change. There’s not a scheme that allows us to do it more. I mean, so I think we addressed it.”

“We have to decide that we that rebounding is a the way that the possession ends. Here’s how the possession ends, the ball goes through the net. There’s one way the possession ends, the ball is turned over by the other team. There’s one way of possession ends, or you rebound it. It’s only three ways that the possession ends. I mean, it’s only three ways the possession ends. And so I hope it doesn’t go through the net a lot. It’s hard. No matter the best team that turns teams over, you’re going to get 10 steals a game, maybe if you’re the best team to do it, so there’s a lot of shots that end up not going in, and you have to finish them off with a rebound.”

“And so, I mean, I think we have to acknowledge that and then be more proactive in the process of getting that done, particularly with our bigger guys. I think by and large, our guards have done a good job. Our perimeter guys have done a good job rebound. I mean, Mike [Sharavjamts] is our leading rebounder from from the guard spot, but those guys need some help too. And I’m not saying this is easy. It’s not an easy thing, but this is also comes with territory, so we have to, we have to get that figured out at the end of the day.”

“We have to get that figured out, because if you don’t rebound, it’s just hard. You put so much pressure on your offense. 82 is not enough. You got to have 93 right? If you’re not going to rebound the ball, you got to score 93 points. And I’m down for 93 just so that you know, like I I’ll sign up for 93 if we can put out 93 a game, I’ll let some of that stuff slide, I promise you, but I’m still waiting on the team at this level that can do that consistently. It’s just not too many that can do that consistently.

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