NCAA Tournament: On Jermaine Couisnard's long road to the Big Dance; The Ducks are in a zone
A little pre-game reading about Jermaine Couisnard, N'Faly Dante and the Ducks' zone before the Oregon Ducks open against South Carolina.
If you somehow make it to Thursday afternoon’s tip-off between Oregon and South Carolina without catching a reminder that Ducks guard Jermaine Couisnard is set to face his former team, that will change — and, in all likelihood, quickly.
The TNT broadcast team will assuredly drill the significance of the full-circle moment into its viewers. They’ll tell you that only two players (Jacobi Wright and Josh Gray) remain on the Gamecocks’ roster from the 2021 season, after which Couisnard bolted for the West Coast. And that the sixth-year senior still talks to them to this day.
Each texted to congratulate him for guiding the Ducks to a Pac-12 Championship, which set the table for the program to steal a bid on Selection Sunday.
He knew he’d likely get follow-ups from both once the matchup was announced, too.
“But I ain’t gonna text them back,” Couisnard told reporters Sunday. “They know how I get.”
His former teammates may well. He spent four seasons down in Columbia, South Carolina, after all. Yet between now-normalized roster churn and some ill-timed injuries for Couisnard, forgive followers of the Ducks if they just haven’t had a chance to get much of a feel for the streaky guard during his 24-month stay.
A few weeks ago, it seemed his two-year go of it in Eugene might just end the same way the last few seasons have for this program: quietly, and with little big-picture significance. It’s unlikely Couisnard foresaw more roadblocks accompanying the second stage of his now lengthy career. Or, that it would take until his second season with the Ducks for them to pop their heads up in the Big Dance. Postseason exposure was a major selling point when he packed things up and hopped in the portal back in 2021; integral to a pitch delivered by phone from former Ducks forward Dillon Brooks.