OPINION: Lamont Paris, Gamecock MBB Need To Take The Next Step In Building A Perennial Winner

South Carolina's men's basketball team has learned how to win games under Lamont Paris' watch, now they need to learn how to win and leave no doubt.

Up until this past week, South Carolina men's basketball fans had gotten used to seeing the Gamecocks in the regional and national headlines for all the right reasons, as head coach Lamont Paris had led the team to a No. 11 in the AP Top 25 Poll, and a 21-3 start that saw the team tied for first place in the SEC standings. This unexpected success in year two of this regime saw Carolina being projected as high as a three-seed by notable bracketologists and Lamont's name being thrown around for national coach of the year. None of that should be forgotten.

Since Wednesday night, however, the Gamecock faithful have been living a nightmare that, especially for older generations of fans, feels all too familiar, as South Carolina was bludgeoned in a 40-point loss to Auburn four days ago (they just lost to Kentucky at home), and then blew a 16-point lead yesterday afternoon to a .500 LSU Tigers. Yesterday's loss, in particular, was a disaster, as the Gamecocks had several chances to put LSU away early in the second half, even in the final minute, but due to a combination of the Tigers' will to fight, and some boneheaded mistakes, found themselves watching the opponent celebrate on their home floor.

In hindsight, this is the kind of loss that, maybe, we should've seen coming. Now, before you take this to social media and label me as "a Lamont hater, " this isn't meant as a critique of the body of work we've seen Coach Paris and Carolina put together this season, or to say they're the only team that has flaws, because we know by looking across the sport this season that that's not the case.

However, when we look back at some games against teams that, based on current records, were inferior opponents, teams like DePaul, Georgia, Missouri, and Ole Miss, we see one troubling trend: the Gamecocks have issues putting away lesser teams, and have flirted with doing what they did on Saturday on several occasions. This leads to my current opinion of this team: this is a really good squad, but if they want to become great, we need to see more performances like they had against Arkansas and Kentucky. This team must learn how to close out games they should because now almost everyone is gunning for them, bringing an unfamiliar pressure they must now adjust to.

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