Since being hired as South Carolina’s new head men’s basketball coach in late March, Lamont Paris has had quite the eventful eight-month stretch.
In his first weeks on the job, Paris was a one-man operation until he was able to compile a staff while also building his roster and creating a schedule.
That schedule began with Wednesday’s 80-41 exhibition win over Mars Hill, the first time Paris saw how his team reacted to playing an opponent in front of fans.
Paris had one final message to his team prior to tipoff with Mars Hill and it related to setting the tone for what the program will be about.
“One of the last things I said before we out on the court for the first half was ‘you have to establish who you are, how you’re going to play and what you’re going to be about’,” Paris said.
“The sooner you can do that, and it doesn’t happen because we had one exhibition game and now we’ve established who we are. At the same time, I hope you’re not establishing who you are, again an arbitrary date – Jan. 20. I hope that’s not when you’re going to establish who you’re going to be as a team. But it starts now and I thought we did a good job of that.”
The Gamecocks open the regular season Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. against South Carolina State.