South Carolina drops one spot in AP Top 25 going into March Madness
Heading into March Madness, South Carolina will still be a ranked team.
The Gamecocks checked in at the No. 16 spot in this week’s AP Top 25 rankings.
South Carolina played in the SEC Tournament this past week in Nashville and beat Arkansas in the second round. But in the Quarterfinals, the Gamecocks lost by 31 points to Auburn, who went on to win the tournament title.
In the other rankings, South Carolina is ranked 49th in KenPom and 51st in NET.
Now, the Gamecocks will turn their attention to a bigger prize. They’ll be playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017, an honor that’s been a long time coming.
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South Carolina will be a No. 6 seed and face 11-seeded Oregon on Thursday in Pittsburgh in the first round on Thursday. Tip-off is at 4 p.m. on TNT.
If the Gamecocks can survive, they’ll face the winner of No. 4 Creighton vs. No. 13 Akron in the Round of 32 on Saturday.
Former Gamecock guard Jermaine Couisnard shares thoughts on facing former team in March Madness
By: Jack Veltri
As the rest of his teammates stood up and went nuts, Jermaine Couisnard sat a moment longer. He had his phone in one hand and the Pac-12 championship trophy in the other, ready to soak in the moment his team had worked so hard for. Then he saw who they’d be playing.
Fate has a very interesting way of working out sometimes. And in Couisnard’s case, he’ll get to face a team that he’s more than familiar with.
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From 2019-22, Couisnard was a key player for South Carolina. Now, in his swan song and final year with the Oregon Ducks, he’ll get to play the Gamecocks in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s a good opportunity for us,” Couisnard said. “I know a couple of those guys over there, a lot of the strength coaches and the trainers. So it’s going to be a fun game for me.”
As the bracket was unveiled, the senior guard thought there was no chance the Ducks and South Carolina would be paired together. But then he got some news that his two worlds were going to potentially collide.
“Somebody had texted me before to give a big heads up that we’d probably get them. So that was cool,” he said.
Couisnard transferred to Oregon after former South Carolina head coach Frank Martin was fired following the end of the 2022 season. He left before ever getting the chance to play for Lamont Paris, who just signed a six-year extension with the Gamecocks.
Though it’s been a few years since he played in Columbia, he still has some connections on the current team. Jacobi Wright and Josh Gray, key players off the bench, were both Couisnard’s teammates for one season. Wright was a freshman and Gray was a sophomore transfer.
“That’s crazy. I still talk to them to this day, like every day,” Couisnard said. “They congratulated me yesterday for winning (the Pac-12 Tournament). I know I ain’t check my phone but I know they probably going to text. But I ain’t going to text them back, because they know how I get. But it’s all right, though.”
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Since joining Oregon, Couisnard’s game has only continued to improve and develop. He’s come a long way from being the hero of the 2020 upset win over Kentucky with his crazy buzzer-beating shot.
So far this season, he’s been averaging 15.4 points per game on 38.8 percent shooting. He struggled some in the Pac-12 Tournament, shooting just 29 percent over the three games. But he did help the Ducks win the conference championship and help them reach the Big Dance for the first time since 2021.
“When I shoot the ball everyday, I shoot with confidence. I know I can make shots,” he said. “The numbers don’t really settle with me. … Everybody has a bad shooting day. So that’s the one thing, when I found my jumper wasn’t falling in Vegas, I was trying to get big, get aggressive to the rim a lot.”
