Martin provides encouraging news on Couisnard, injured Gamecocks
SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS BASKETBALL
Jermaine Couisnard’s long and unusual freshman year is finally over.
The Gamecocks’ guard, who was dealing with academic issues coming to school, sat out his freshman season but Frank Martin said the scoring guard is full steam ahead and will be able to play once next season starts.
“He’s been cleared to practice from day one. He’s been cleared to play from day one. That’s never been a question. It was just freshmen eligibility and games that was in question,” Martin said. “I’m going to say this and I don’t think his family will get mad, but he’s a 3.4 student GPA-wise. I don’t see him being academically ineligible. He’s been very good as a student here. He’s good to go.”
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Couisnard is a scoring combo guard the staff was very high on coming out of a postgrad year at Montverde Academy in the 2018 class after averaging 29.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists his senior season playing in Chicago.
He wasn’t able to play in any games this season but did practice with the team all year and stay in basketball shape. Outside of not traveling for road games, Couisnard was at every home game on the Gamecock bench.
He’ll return next season with a talented group of freshmen that are now finally all healthy.
Martin said Tuesday the team is working back to full health and shouldn’t have any injury problems when they start summer workouts in June.
After a season-ending ankle and foot surgery, TJ Moss is finally out of his cast and boot and is walking around normal again. He’s not able to go full-bore yet but that will be coming sooner rather than later.
Moss played in seven games as a freshman with three starts, fighting through a nagging foot injury at the time. He averaged 6.3 points and 1.9 rebounds while shooting 39 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three.
“He’s one of the guys I met with yesterday and he said this is one of the first times in a long time he can walk and have no pain in his foot,” Martin said. “It’s a matter now of strength before he gets cleared. The plan with him is when we get back June 3 for summer school he’s fully cleared and it’s all systems go.”
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AJ Lawson is also back to full health after two separate ankle injuries threw a wrench in the final three weeks of his freshman year.
The All-Freshman guard who averaged 13.9 points and shot 41.3 percent from the field in 28 starts sprained his ankle against Alabama with three games left in the regular season.
He came back to practice for the SEC Tournament and rolled his other ankle before giving it a go against Auburn and not making the impact he probably wanted: one rebound in 13 minutes.
Since the season ended Lawson’s been able to get back to 100 percent and is full-go once the team starts individual work next week.
“He was really depressed on the flight out there. His spirits were better Thursday morning and he gave it a go in practice,” Martin said. “He was stiff but he got through practice and then he just wasn’t healthy enough to play. He’s good. He’ll be ready to go when we work out on Monday or Tuesday.”
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Justin Minaya has also been cleared to resume workouts after a knee injury in November sidelined him for the year and Jason Cudd is close to being cleared after dislocating his knee in January.
Both redshirted this season and will be redshirt sophomores entering the 2019-20 year.
Martin also said freshman forward Alanzo Frink, who battled knee and ankle injuries all season, is fully healthy as well.