COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lamont Paris and the South Carolina men’s basketball team have a long way to climb.
Hosting No. 8 Tennessee (13-2, 3-0 SEC) on Saturday — one of two top-10 teams in the SEC — the rag-tag Gamecocks showed just how much of a disparity there is between them and the upper-echelon teams in the conference.
Paris’ team fell to the Volunteers, 85-42 — a historic deficit. The 43-point loss is the Gamecocks’ worst loss in a decade and the worst for the team in SEC play, after losing by 39 points at Florida in 2013. Saturday’s game is the second 30-plus point loss for South Carolina this year, with the Gamecocks losing to Colorado State by 32 points in November.
