Oregon’s Jermaine Couisnard scored 40 points to help eliminate his former team, the South Carolina Gamecocks, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
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.
