What Lamont Paris Said After Blowout Loss To Tennessee

South Carolina's head men's basketball coach Lamont Paris spoke to the media about the Gamecocks' historic loss to Tennessee.

On Saturday afternoon, South Carolina suffered its worst SEC loss in program history and worst loss in the Colonial Life Arena since 2007. For a loss like this to occur, it usually takes a game where not just one facet but most, if not all, facets go sideways for the losing team. 

That happened for the Gamecocks against Tennessee in their SEC home opener based on head coach Lamont Paris's opening comments from his post-game presser.

"You have a team that's still trying to figure out who they are, how it works at this level... it wasn't good from the start for us, but then how we responded to what was happening [caused] the score to end up [being] what it was."

In terms of whether or not he and the staff proverbially burn the tape and move on to the next game, Paris stated that there are portions, albeit not many, to go back and analyze.

"There'll be a couple of things early that I'll be able to show when we still had life so to speak, but at the end of the day, once it got down to where it was, we were not made out of the things to make any sort of comeback," Lamont explained. "In the face of what was there today, that was a new one for everyone out there... You got a lot of things going on in this game and then boom, it's on you and next thing you know, Mike Tyson came out and hit you in the liver and you're gasping for air."

South Carolina's freshman phenom GG Jackson had his worst outing to this point in his Gamecock career, as he missed all seven shots and didn't score a single point in the contest. When asked what led to him not getting into a flow, Paris plainly stated that Jackson didn't respond well to the Volunteers' defensive game plan.

"To me, it was a physical game for the young guys, for him particularly, that's how guys are gonna try to guard him and make him miserable. I think often times he defaults to the jumpshot... He didn't respond well, his body language was not good and I'm going to play the guys that act like they want to play really hard, and play for you, and try to win."

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