‘You’re not as good as me.’ How East Chicago swagger drives USC’s Jermaine Couisnard
Jermaine Couisnard faced two defenders in the waning seconds of South Carolina’s game with Kentucky on Jan. 15. Immanuel Quickly, ranked 179 spots ahead of Couisnard in 247Sports’ final tally of the 2018 recruiting class, couldn’t contain his cross-over. Nick Richards, a 6-foot-11 forward and former McDonald’s All-American, couldn’t block his shot.
Couisnard banked in a 30-footer at the buzzer and USC upset the Wildcats for its first win in a 5-1 stretch that has the Gamecocks (13-8, 5-3 SEC) eyeing second place in the league standings.
Couisnard’s heroics began this run and his presence has kept it alive. The redshirt freshman will start a seventh consecutive game at point guard Wednesday when Carolina clashes with Ole Miss (10-11, 1-7) in Oxford. Gamecock fans have been served a good sampling of Couisnard’s skills these last three weeks — a natural scorer, gifted passer, aggressive driver — but there’s more to the 21-year-old from East Chicago, Indiana, that’s allowed for him to be the face of USC’s sudden rise.
If you watched the end of the Kentucky game — when he crossed one former five-star prospect and finished over another — you likely didn’t realize this was Couisnard opening up and telling you what he’s about. Dropping 26 points and the game-winner on a team full of future NBA draft picks? That’s the East Chicago way.
“When you come out of there,” said Pete Trgovich, Couisnard’s high school coach at East Chicago Central, “you look at other opponents and other players and you know that you’re better than them.
“Now, you might not be, but in your mind, you know, ‘Hey, I’m better than you.’ I think it can give you that edge. You just have that swagger where, ‘You’re not as good as me.’ Now, you could be totally wrong, but you have that mindest.”
On a three-game losing streak and at 0-2 in the SEC, South Carolina coach Frank Martin was begging for this kind of personality to emerge in USC’s locker room. Couisnard always had it, but perhaps he let others like Maik Kotsar (USC’s most experienced player) or A.J. Lawson (USC’s most accomplished player) try first. When nothing seemed to work and a true leader remained vacant, Couisnard, according to Martin, said “the heck with this, I’m doing it.”
What’s happened since has been no surprise to Trgovich. He grew up in East Chicago — a neighbor of Gary, Indiana, and a half-hour drive from the Windy City — and coached Couisnard for two seasons. That was enough time to spot the town’s signature traits growing in the 6-foot-4 guard.
East Chicago, an industrial giant in the early part of the 20th century, has fallen on tough times. Population peaked near 60,000 in the 1960s and is down below 30,000 as the steel business has plummeted.
A fighting spirit, though, remains.
“You had to be tough to be a steel worker,” Trgovich said. “Tough men usually have tough sons. And I think that had a lot to do with it and that just carried over into the basketball court. I think that’s a thing you have to live up to from generation to generation. When I got back in there, I made sure that’s the way it was. And it’s not like I did anything special. I think anybody that grew up in East Chicago would feel the same way.”
Rated as one of Indiana’s most dangerous cities, Couisnard described East Chicago as “rough.” Trgovich, who went from EC to UCLA and played a role in two John Wooden-coached national title teams, said basketball is often “a way out.” The town’s shining star is New Orleans Pelicans guard E’Twaun Moore, an East Chicago Central product who now serves as a mentor for Couisnard.
“There’s shootings every now and then,” Couisnard said. “But it’s home. You barely have places to go. If you’re not in the gym working or chilling with your friends, you’re doing nothing. We always had to go outside the city to do something.
“It’s rough, yes. It’s just hard to stay focused because people try to bring you down. So just keep your head on straight and basically play basketball and then nobody will get to you.”
There was comfort in a sport, but that didn’t soften the competition. East Chicago 1-on-1 games were intense and, Couisnard said, “if you couldn’t stand your ground, you were a nobody.”
Relevance was hardly an issue for Couisnard. He averaged nearly 30 points a game for Trgovich and then spent a year gaining the respect of a future lottery pick at Montverde Academy in Florida. It’s there where Couisnard, barely a top 200 recruit, routinely went at Duke-bound R.J. Barrett in practice.
“He’s really competitive,” said Barrett, now a rookie for the New York Knicks. “He talks trash, he gets into it. I love that about him. He wants to win so bad.”
No matter who stands in his way.
“I think every time he walks on the court,” Trgovich said, “he knows he’s the best player.”
NEXT
What: South Carolina (13-8, 5-3 SEC) at Ole Miss (10-11, 1-7)
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Oxford, Mississippi
TV: SEC Network
Radio: 107.5 The Game in Columbia area
