‘I know that feeling’: How Antonio Grant watched USC’s latest buzzer-beater
The boys basketball coach at Mead Hall Episcopal School was done with his game and joined a couple buddies at a local restaurant for a quick bite to eat. This was Wednesday night in Aiken, an hour down the road from what was brewing in Columbia.
The South Carolina Gamecocks trailed 10th-ranked Kentucky by eight at halftime, by 14 with 15:32 left, by 10 with 11:27 left, by 1 with 3:59 left and then were tied with under five seconds remaining as Alanzo Frink in-bounded to Jermaine Couisnard. The boys basketball coach at Mead Hall, locked on a television screen at Prime Steakhouse, inched forward in his seat.
“I was watching him dribble the ball up the court,” he said, “and I was like, ‘He’s going to have a chance to get that off.’ And then he shot it. And I was looking ... boom. The place kind of erupted.
“And I was, ‘Ohh, there’s another one.’”
Antonio Grant had company.
Couisnard’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer to cap an epic South Carolina rally against a ranked team came 22 years after another Gamecock freshman did the same thing.
Grant also launched from beyond the top of the key when he famously finished USC’s 23-point comeback against No. 18 Cincinnati on Feb. 1, 1998.
“It just kind of brought back memories for a split second or whatever,” Grant told The State on Friday. “And I was like, ‘Man, I know that feeling right there.’
“Whenever you’ve been in that moment and you’ve experienced for yourself, it’s kind of hard to explain.”
It’s known in some circles around here as “The Shot,” Grant’s perfectly timed gather and release following B.J. McKie’s stumble. When it swished, pandemonium ensued at old Frank McGuire Arena. It was an instant highlight that’s followed Grant ever since. The 6-foot-5 forward went on to have a long professional career overseas and is now a coach and the athletics director at Mead Hall.
“That’s like my claim to fame,” Grant said. “When someone really sees me, they’re like, ‘Grant, I remember you. Cincinnati, baby!’ I was in (Los Angeles) one year and someone just randomly noticed me in L.A., and they didn’t say, ‘Antonio.’ They said, ‘Cincinnati, baby!’ ”
In location and nature of play, there are obvious differences between the two shots. Couisnard sent Colonial Life Arena — built a year after Grant graduated — into a frenzy with his. He also did it on the run after Kentucky’s Immanuel Quickly knotted the score at 78. Grant, meanwhile, was the mid-court in-bounder for McKie, the school’s all-time scorer. The Gamecocks were trailing the Bearcats by one with 4.1 seconds left and coming out of a timeout.
“I was supposed to get the ball to B.J., and he was supposed to try and create,” Grant said. “They were really swarming us. And I got it into him. It was really a great catch on B.J.’s part. I put some zip on it because they were pressuring him. And he caught it and I just ran over to the middle while he tried to penetrate to the middle. There were two guys on him, so he kind of stumbled, and I was standing there.
“He just kind of saw me and gave me just a bounce. I just picked it up, and I had no other thoughts.”
Couisnard said Wednesday that his shot felt like an “air ball” when it left his hands. Grant knew his was pure.
“I let it go,” Grant said, “and I was just like, ‘That’s good!’ It just went in and I just looked at the ref to make sure. And he gave the go-ahead signal. And that was history.”
YouTube helps brings that two-decade-old shot to life with one click. When Grant returned to Mead Hall on Thursday morning, some students had done their homework.
“They said, ‘That looked like you out there!’ ” Grant said. “I was like, ‘That was some 20 years ago. Y’all weren’t even thought about then!’”
Couisnard’s heroics landed him the No. 1 spot on “SportsCenter’s” Top Plays. Grant recalls longtime ESPN anchor Linda Cohn talking his shot up as an ESPY candidate.
A couple local moments that made a national splash.
Couisnard and Grant haven’t met each other, but now they’re forever connected.
“I would tell Jermaine to enjoy the moment, but keep pushing,” Grant said. “Strive to get better.”
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 5:02 PM.
