-
Brooke Pryor, ESPN Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — As the ball splashed through the bottom of the net in the first half of No. 11 Oregon‘s first-round meeting with No. 6 South Carolina, Jermaine Couisnard heard Jacobi Wright, his former teammate, start celebrating.
“It’s cash,” Wright said, according to Couisnard, as Wright’s bucket gave the Gamecocks a three-point lead with 9:01 to go in the half Thursday.
Couisnard, who spent the first four years of his career at South Carolina before transferring to Oregon when coach Frank Martin was fired in 2022, was energized by Wright’s trash talk. Two possessions later, Couisnard hit his first 3-pointer. Thirty seconds after that, he added another, this one on a fast break off a South Carolina turnover.
“That’s what got me going,” Couisnard said. “I’m a competitor, and that’s like a guy that I kind of mentored when I was there. Once he hit a 3 and he got to talking … but it was fun, man. Those guys kind of made me. I grew a lot. I learned a lot when I was there. So I appreciate those guys more than anything.”
Couisnard finished the Ducks’ 87-73 win with 40 points, setting a record for points scored by an Oregon player in an NCAA tournament game and also at PPG Paints Arena. He also scored the most points by a Pac-12 player in an NCAA tournament game since Bill Walton poured in 44 in the 1973 national championship.
“He was really feeling it,” said Oregon coach Dana Altman, who moves to 8-0 in first-round games with the Ducks. “He had a couple 3s that were tough, and I think that really got him going. He got in the paint and finished some tough shots. He just had it going. Those are games every player dreams of, you know, getting it going and getting it going in the NCAA tournament is a really good feeling.
“It was a big-time performance. They tried hedging those picks really hard and getting him out of some ball screen action because he’d been really successful with that. But he just found another way to score.”
Couisnard hit 5-of-9 from beyond the arc en route to shooting 14-of-22 from the floor. Four of those triples came after halftime as he poured in 26 second-half points. Thanks to Couisnard and forward N’Faly Dante, who had 23 points of his own, the Ducks outlasted a foe that refused to go away down the stretch.
“I wish we had found a way to slow him down better,” South Carolina coach Lamont Paris said. “… He was aggressive, going to the basket. And I think a few of those, I mean he hit a floater against the zone that we fouled him on. He makes tough shots. He doesn’t average 40, but he makes tough shots. … We’re normally really good defensively. He had a good game.”
Couisnard also added six assists and went 7-for-7 from the free throw line. But playing against his former team wasn’t his only motivation. There was another familiar face in the crowd.
“This is one of my grandmother’s first games,” Couisnard said. “So I was happy to see her be able to drive out here and play in front of her and be able to watch me play. It wasn’t [South Carolina]. It was just me being competitive. I know those guys have a great team over there. Coach Lamont did a wonderful job this year. It was just me just showing my will, just trying to compete to win.”