…..scored major points with me today. Managed his team by sitting his best player and not raising his voice one time. Showed that he will try to go win whether he has his best player or not. Sets expectations and culture without a bunch of yelling and cussing for show. Good win today and we at least have a chance of not being DFL in the league.
We’re obviously on opposite sides of the Paris hire, which is fine. I enjoy and respect different perspectives.
I’m glad we won today. There are obvious chemistry issues between GG and Paris. The team responded well today. However let’s not forget this is going to go down as one of the worst seasons in South Carolina basketball history. It’s right up there with Darrin Horns and Steve Newtons last seasons.
I’ll give Paris credit for standing up to GG. Not every coach would. I’ll give Paris credit for making the team competitive over the last 3-4 games.
But it’s also the honeymoon phase and it looks like our honeymoon has gone about as great as a week long stay in Gaston, South Carolina.
We may not beat one team that will make the NCAA tournament. Kentucky and Clemson are the most likely but they are on the bubble at best. Ole Miss has two conference wins—us in a game we played like absolute crap and they just won at Georgia with Georgias best player in concussion protocol. They’re bad and we will likely see them in the play in round of the SEC tournament.
We got our pants pulled down by George Washington, Davidson, Furman, Vanderbilt, East Carolina, UAB, Colorado State and Richmond. UAB and Furman might make the tournament. The rest of these teams are bad. We survived a horrible Georgetown team that will certainly fire Patrick Ewing at seasons end, if not sooner.
Had we shown up in these games we would have had a realistic chance to be around .500. We still would not have sniffed the tournament, but we would have a little more momentum.
The next 2-3 years will dictate if Paris is the right guy. But I would say you are in a very small minority of people that are having positive thoughts about the hire at this point.