By james art 
After a 74-71 loss to North Florida in the season opener, South Carolina head coach Lamont Parris spoke to the media about his team’s performance and where things went wrong. Here’s what he said.
— Of course the metrics will really like this result as far as the Gamecocks are concerned. Helpful, it will be good for them. He thinks they were outplayed in many different ways. It’s okay not to play well. This will happen sometimes. But as competitors, North Florida dominated them.
“I knew North Florida was a dirty gang.” Their DNA is how hard they play and compete. Every dropped ball, they were first. This is DNA.
“To be honest, last night really made him worried about what to expect from North Florida. They did all the right things. A few guys didn’t have a good day at the office.
— Some guys shoot free throws better than others. Others may improve over time. This is an example size for one game. They won’t shoot like today all the time. When your name is called on the free throw line, stand up. You have to go there and do them. They also had a certain lack of discipline. His dream was to go an entire season without fouling out on three-point shooting, and they only got to the first game before doing that.
“It’s hard to train effort.” I’m not a big fan of coaching efforts. They approach the game the same way no matter who they play. Maybe part of it was getting them too high for this game.
“They have to play better.” They need to pass and catch better. You are doing a scouting report. They don’t just walk onto the court and leave involuntarily. They watch film, do a scouting report on the opponent. Thinks it has to do with attention to detail. Interesting to see how many of the offensive tackles were long tackles. They started off slow and the energy wasn’t great. He knows the atmosphere when we are here well. It didn’t feel like they felt that way all game.
“He agrees that the sky is not falling.” It’s a story. They could have won the game too. The numbers still weren’t in their favor last year when they lost one game in non-conference play. They just have to play. Focus on improvement. It helps force you to look at the loss and why the game ended up in that situation.
“They’ll be troubleshooting all the time when it comes to playing time.” The boys will have to earn what they do there. Valuable possession is played in the final minutes. They will have to show and demonstrate where they need to be. They will try to find the perfect combination of composition.
“They definitely earned exactly what they got today.” They got what they earned in the end the way they played.
“He thinks they’re going back to basics.” There’s not a lot of frustration in the games because guys usually do what they’ve done. You really don’t get that frustrated with poor play on game day. But it gets frustrated repeating itself over and over again. The things he says sometimes need proof to be true. So that’s where they’re going to start (three-point shooting foul). I would like to get those points back. Pump tampering. They did it twice, jumping on them. They could easily turn them around the way they practiced and what they talked about coming into this game.
— A strength of last year’s team was locking down the small details that allowed them to win games. The challenge will be to help recognize the value of these things and how they relate to victory. He needs to do better on his end.