Lamont Commends Team's Makeup, Credits Grad. Transfers With Culture
The South Carolina Gamecocks came up just short in their attempt to join the Tennessee Volunteers at the top of the SEC standings on Wednesday night. However, it's not the first time this season the team has dealt with heartbreak, and due to the evidence shown in their season trajectory and how they've gelled together throughout the season, head coach Lamont Paris made it clear in his post-game presser that his opinion of the team hasn't changed one bit.
"It's unbelievable [the] character that this team has. I'm telling you, I've been doing this for a long time; I've had some really good [teams]. I've been a part of some teams where it's like, 'Wow, man, if we can ever get close to that, that would be awesome.' Forget about making shots; we've gone beyond that in most cases. It's an unbelievable group; I can't say that enough."
Tonight was sadly the last time that Ta'Lon Cooper, BJ Mack, and Stephen Clark will ever play in front of a home crowd at the Colonial Life Arena. There may be others to follow once the season is over, but for the guys who took a chance on Paris' vision for this program in spite of the lack of wins last season, their impact on the program will be everlasting.
"Hopefully, from my perspective, it's been a great one year for those guys. The opportunities that they've had; the relationships they've developed [are] bonds that they'll have for a long long time," Lamont expressed. "Those were the exact right guys. We got the exact right guys that we needed to help establish what our culture is. We don't have the culture exactly how we like it, it's hard," Paris lamented. "It started last year. We made some GM moves from a personnel standpoint; we added those guys to it, we kept some guys that also were really about what we wanted to be about, and it all came together for a grand slam. I mean, in the world of culture, it was the bottom of the ninth, world series, bases loaded, and it might've been full-count just for a little extra drama, and it was a grand slam what we did with our culture."
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