Lamont Paris On His Team After Defeating No. 5 Tennessee: "They're Fighters"

South Carolina men's basketball coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media about his team's performance against Tennessee and their overall makeup.

At this point in the season, Lamont Paris has to be grinning from ear to ear behind closed doors because of what his team has accomplished. Coming to Columbia looking to build a program that prided itself on defense and openly acknowledging it would take time to build the program up in his image, no one, not even the head man himself, could've expected South Carolina to end the month of January sitting at 18-3 with wins over Kentucky and Tennessee.

Tonight, the Volunteers matched up well against the Gamecocks in terms of what they tried to accomplish, and in a game that plays in out in this fashion, effort plays are magnified on both ends. Paris thought his team made enough of those plays on both ends of the floor, leading to their upset win.

"Thought our guys just battled. There's some coach speak for you, but both teams played so hard. I mean, we 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. [Tennessee's] man-to-man pressure is elite. Thought we did a good job of handling that which allowed us to operate in the half court," Lamont recalled. "And then even when we did get out of sorts, we just made a play here and there. And that's ultimately what it came down to. Thought we did a good job defensively trying to stay within the principles that we've been preaching since July, and so I thought we did a good job of that for the most part, [and] blocked out and rebounded when we needed to."

BJ Mack looking for an opening underneath the basket against Tennessee's frontcourt (30th Jan., 2024) / Randy Sartin | USA Today Network

When you have players come together and play for the good of the name on the front of their jersey, it can lead to something special, and Lamont Paris feels he has that.

"They got a lot of heart. It's a passionate group. They want the spoils of whatever happens when you do what we've done, what 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 where everybody wants to win and they do whatever they can. But it's a resilient group - They're a confident group."

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