Lamont Paris is on the board as South Carolina's men's basketball head coach.

The new head coach from Chattanooga made a winning start to his tenure in Columbia as the Gamecocks survived a late scare from South Carolina State 80-77 at Colonial Life Arena.

The Bulldogs had an opportunity to tie the game late when a missed South Carolina free throw opened the door for a last-ditch shot at overtime, but Paris elected to issue a foul before an attempt could get off. One missed free throw and a lane violation later, South Carolina had the win.

Highly-touted true freshman GG Jackson made his collegiate debut and showed a little bit of everything, from flashes of athleticism to some freshman moments with 18 points and 10 rebounds but also a team-high four turnovers.

"The exhibition kind of showed me the speed of a college game, but SC State is another DIvision I mid-major," Jackson said. "Going up against them, I guess I got to see the full speed. Those guys were hitting shots, it was crazy."

But Jackson was not the only program newcomer to make an immediate impact.

Citadel transfer Hayden Brown scored 21 points on an efficient 6-of-10 shooting, something he was very consistent with at his previous stop. Brown shot over 50 percent from the floor in each of his last three seasons before making the move.

Brown was a central figure in everything the offense did, to the point where Paris still had him on the court late in the first half despite his two fouls.

"I've been around a lot of winning at the highest level," Paris said. "I'm looking around; I recognize it; I can smell it; I can see what it is;-- it's his game. He's a winning player. He makes winning plays. He does winning things."

Part of Brown's necessity on the court was due to point guard Meechie Johnson's off-and-on injury battles throughout the game. First Johnson rolled his ankle when he slipped on a fastbreak midway through the first half, keeping him off the court for three minutes that immediately sparked an 11-0 South Carolina State run. He suffered what looked like a cramp at the 16:28 mark of the second half, and it restricted his minutes down the stretch as well. Johnson had nine points and three assists in his 25 minutes of action.

South Carolina jumped out to a 29-14 lead early, triggered by some active hands-on defense leading to easy buckets in transition. But South Carolina immediately hit back with the 11-0 run after Johnson went down, and controlled the action for a lot of the rest of the first half. It even briefly took the lead at 33-32, but South Carolina responded with the final four points of the opening half to go into halftime up a triple.

The second half was a case of the Gamecocks trying to keep the Bulldogs at arm's length, fighting against some of their own inexperience and the turnover struggles they had last week in the exhibition against Mars Hill.

“There’s a lot of learning still out there for us," Paris said. "And when I say learning, I mean tangible stuff that affects winning. We’ll go back on some things, like the basics, pump fakes, things like that. I’m always reminded of the value of the basics."

But every time South Carolina State looked poised to reclaim the lead, South Carolina had a play. And specifically, Jackson had one.

On two occasions when the Bulldogs were within four and three points respectively, Jackson cleaned up a missed shot and put the ball back up with authority for second-chance points plus a foul.

"Each time we got in the huddle, the coaches were extremely mad at me because I wasn't crashing the boards," Jackson said. "I realized I was the biggest guy on the court, so the ball nine times out of 10 was going to come in my direction. I feel like I can rebound at a high level. When it came off the rim I got nervous; I felt my hands start sweating. And then it went in, and I just had to talk my talk and yell 'and one!'"

South Carolina State did have one final opportunity to push the game into overtime, but it never got a chance to shoot a game-tying 3-pointer due to what Paris called his "philisophical" belief in fouling in similar situations.

"As long as I continue to do it and I don't get burned by it, I'll probably do it until I do it and lose," Paris said. "I'm a believer in it."

South Carolina will move on to its annual rivalry game against Clemson on Friday at Colonial Life Arena.