South Carolina falls to No. 4 Tennessee, but it still has milestones to reach
Lamont Paris biggest challenge of the season will come in the next 24 hours.
How will he motivate this South Carolina team?
Wednesday should’ve been the mountaintop. The coming-out party. The yes-we’re-for-real celebration. It would have been buzz on top of hype on top of anticipation, an SEC regular-season crown right in the Gamecocks’ grasp.
Instead, it was a 66-59 loss to No. 4 Tennessee. The Volunteers celebrated winning the SEC outright, walking off the court yelling at the orange-clad fans inside Colonial Life Arena pointing at their ring finger.
And Paris walked into a locker room full of guys hurting. Probably feeling like they fell short. Short of a championship. Short of winning on Senior Night. Short of finally proving the doubters wrong.
“They expected to win today. This is gonna be a hard loss for them,” Paris said. “We’ll do some damage control tomorrow with the guys.”
Before he left the locker room, Paris lightened the mood.
“The SEC just wasn’t quite ready for us to do all that and end up being in first place,” he said.
Paris admitted Wednesday night will be spent in the film dungeon, toiling for hours trying to figure out where his team could’ve been better. He’ll search for the root of Tennessee’s 13 fast-break points. He’ll judge how the Gamecocks came off screens. He’ll watch Volunteers’ guard Dalton Knecht (26 points) take 23 shots and feel pretty good.
And then sometime after that, perhaps in dream, perhaps in the subconscious or maybe the shower, the creativity will get flowing. The spark will flare, he’ll tinker with the wording and Paris will stand in front of his players with a rallying cry.
Last week, new South Carolina wide receivers coach Mike Furrey was talking about making the game of football simple. To Furrey, the key was all about presentation. It’s sort of like politics — there is no buy-in if an idea isn’t articulated well.
Paris has never had trouble articulating ideas. He is a man of analogies, turning complex topics into easily-digestible nuggets. On Wednesday night, he said nabbing the perfect pieces in the transfer portal was a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning in the World Series and “it might have been a full count just for extra drama.” He said he’s building his program like a house you want to live in, not one you want to sell, which means you’re gonna care how thick the insulation is, not just how much it costs.
He is a maestro at turning crappy situations into nice taglines.
Five months ago at SEC Media Days in Birmingham, Paris took the stage stabbing holes in the preseason poll that picked his squad to finish last. In a minute-and-a-half rant, he somehow used the word “stranded deviation” as he poked holes in the historic accuracy of these polls.
“The only thing I can thank them for is that they picked us last,” Paris said then. “Second to last is nothing. Can’t even use that as billboard material.”
Back in January, when the Gamecocks were 18-3 and still not ranked in the AP Top 25 poll, Paris stood on the court after a win over Missouri and told the SEC Network camera: “If they like us, they like us. If they don’t, they’ll pay the price.”
It gets the mind wondering about what Paris will think of next. Does he tape a picture of Knecht pointing at where his SEC Championship ring will go? Does he tell them the last South Carolina team to just earn a double bye in the conference tournament made the Final Four? Does he remind them there are still bigger stages to prove the doubters wrong?
“There’s still so many milestones in building,” Paris said. “All of me is excited is about that. Every last drop.”
It is easy to look at this season as a remarkable turnaround. From 11 wins a season ago to knocking on the door of an SEC crown. From obscurity to sold-out games in March. From folks mad at Athletic Director Ray Tanner for hiring Paris to people mad he hasn’t extended Paris.
The turnaround is remarkable because this group was picked to finish last. In reality, it is more remarkable how they responded to doubt.
“They’ve owned that,” Paris said. “They wore that badge all season.”
No point in taking it off now.
