Come At The King Best Not Miss! Nate Oats Dunked On South Carolina's Lamont Paris In His Post Game Press Conference After South Carolina Claimed "The SEC Isn't Ready For Them" But Lost By 27 Points
You gotta be a real dope to fire up a team with bulletin board material. You gotta. be even more of a dope to fire up a team and then lose by 27 points while only scoring 47 points in 40 minutes and that's exactly what South Carolina and Lamont Paris did last night.
It's unclear exactly where and when Paris said the SEC wasn't ready for them, but what is clear is The Gamecocks were picked last in the SEC Preseason poll and that didn't sit well with Paris entering the season.
247 Sports - “One thing I can thank the media for is that they picked us last,” Paris told the reporters in the crowded ballroom of the Grand Bohemian Hotel Mountain Brook. “Second to last is nothing, what does that do? I can’t use that as bulletin board material, so last it is.” “I know my team is more experienced, I know my team is better. I don’t aspire to not be last, but someone is asking me about the fact we were picked last, but it just doesn’t make much sense to me. Hopefully to my team, it will be something as far as inspiration and disrespect, honestly, to them. They’re not playing to not be last. What a low goal that would be.
So it's interesting that a guy like Paris who was looking for his own bulletin board material entering the season, would shoot his mouth off to a team that has been kings of the conference for the better part of 3 years. In 2021 they won the SEC Regular Season and The SEC Tournament, in 2022 they had a down year but still went 19-14 and made the NCAA Tournament. Last year they were the #1 Overall seed and AGAIN won the SEC regular season and conference tournament.
In the last 3 seasons, Alabama is 41-13 in conference play. In his first season with South Carolina ... Lamont Paris is 4-14.
Just some quick advice to Lamont Paris ... if you are going to shoot your mouth off, and have your players yap the entire game, make sure it's not against a team who has literally DOMINATED the conference in recent years. Maybe pick a fight with a team picked 13th and try to edge up one spot from 14th considering you were again picked dead last entering the season. Low level boxers don't get to trash talk a champ while they are working their way up the ranks, it doesn't work like that, and Lamont Paris quickly got reminded of that with a serious dose of humble pie tonight as his team was puffing their chest after a decent first half, and got pummeled in the second half. What's Omar's saying? "Come at the king best not miss"
Remind em Nate …
Two other things on Tuesday night's game …
I said a few weeks back, for all the people who claim Alabama shoots too many threes and is critical of their style of play. They have 6 guys who take a large amount of threes shooting close to 40% on the year. (Wague doesn't count)
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In the three biggest games of the year … Alabama shot :
19/46 from 3 vs Purdue (41%) … lost by 6
4/22 from 3 vs Creighton (18%) … lost by 3
8/40 from 3 vs Arizona (20%) … lost by 13
Yet still … there major contributors were near the 40% mark for the year. Making those who know ball realize that the cold and untimely shooting in the biggest games more of a fluke than anything. It's like seeing a student with a 90 average and they got a 60 on a test. It's almost more impressive they are holding that 90 average knowing they had to overcome the one bomb on a test. Thats' what I saw when I watch Alabama, yes the shots didn't drop in big spots, but over the course of the year guys drill it from deep and the Tide would be just fine.
It's also tough to claim a team "shoots too many threes" without looking into what goes into effective shots. Oats spoke about that at length during our interview in 2021, when I myself asked about the high volume of 3 pointers the Tide put up. Just firing up threes is what most people assume they do, but when you watch them … they are almost always via a drive that creates space and leaves a guy open to take that three.
Second thing on last night's game … Mark Sears is a BADDDDD man …
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Roll Tide …