Overview:
Josh Pierre-Louis is making 60% of his shots and 54.5% of his three-pointers so far this season
The coast-to-coast basketball journey of UC Santa Barbara star Josh Pierre-Louis could be best described with the lyrics of a John Lennon song.
Life, the former Beatle once mused, is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Pierre-Louis, star of the open court, always made sure to keep his options open.
“My parents always taught me to have a Plan A and a Plan B and a Plan C,” he said.
The highly recruited guard from New Jersey’s Roselle Catholic High School backed out of his national letter-of-intent with UNLV in 2020 when the head coach was fired.
He left Temple University after just one season when his older brother, Nate, one of the Owls’ star players, turned pro.
And then Pierre-Louis, known as JPL for his jet-propulsion speed and astronomical lift, shifted gears to Plan C:
California, here he came, to electrify UCSB’s Thunderdome during the darkest days of COVID-19.
Pierre-Louis has stayed the course with the Gauchos for the last four years, getting this extra season from the NCAA because of the pandemic.
“I’m trying to take in every moment with the guys — I love every one of them,” the 6-foot-4 senior told Noozhawk after a Gaucho practice. “Sometimes you take it for granted.
“You hear that and might think it’s all corny. But as you get older, you gather it all in and grasp the emotion of it, that this is the final go-around.”
This last turn of the season will take him to Fresno State for a game on Monday and then back to the Thunderdome on Wednesday to face Northern Arizona. Both contests will tip off at 7 p.m.
Three-peat for JPL?
He’s been a big part of UCSB’s last two NCAA Tournament teams and 66 victories over the previous three seasons.
“Josh has a chance of becoming the winningest player in the history of UCSB basketball, and the first from our school to play in three NCAA Tournaments,” coach Joe Pasternack said.
“That’s a special thing.”
He’s proclaimed Pierre-Louis to be the most athletic player he’s ever coached in a career that includes stints at power-conference schools Arizona and California.
Pierre-Louis put it on full display last Wednesday against Westmont College when ESPN’s SportsCenter ranked his spectacular dunk at No. 7 in its “Top 10 Plays of the Day.”
“He gives us a lot of dynamic energy,” Pasternack said during the post-game news conference.
He averaged 9.6 points on 50.9% shooting and 3.8 rebounds to help UCSB win a school-record 27 games last year.
The Gauchos claimed Big West Conference titles for both the regular season, which it shared with UC Irvine, and the league tournament at the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.
Pierre-Louis turned 22 soon after UCSB surrendered a halftime lead to nationally ranked Baylor and lost its first-round game of the NCAA Tournament.
Many presumed that his next step would be to the NBA’s G-League or to some professional team overseas.
His father, Frantz Pierre-Louis, a Hall of Fame basketball player for Wagner College on Staten Island in New York, had taken the foreign route a quarter-century ago to such countries as Turkey, South Korea, Spain and Italy.
But Josh’s plan for this year was to fulfill the promise he made to both parents, Frantz and Crystal, when he left the East Coast for Santa Barbara four years ago.
“It was to graduate,” he said. “Coming from Jersey, coming all the way across the country— traveling all the way across the world to come here — my mark was to graduate.
“I get one more year. My game gets to grow more. I get to come back and work on things I was missing on last year and have a blow-up season to play after this.”
Pierre-Louis is one of five children from a tight-knit family. He remains in constant contact with them all.
Nate is now playing for the NBA’s G League franchise in Mexico City after spending the previous two years with the conference’s South Bay Lakers.
Younger brother Christian, a 6-2 freshman guard, is averaging 11.0 points for The College of Saint Rose, an NCAA Division II school in Albany, New York.
“He’s going to blow that conference up and we’ll see what happens after that,” Josh said. “I make sure my brothers are good.
“I make sure to fly home to see my parents. And now my family also comes out here. It’s a nice little getaway for them.”
No. 1 in the Nation
The varied talents of UCSB’s three veteran guards — the athleticism of Pierre-Louis, the savvy of Ajay Mitchell, and the three-point marksmanship of Cole Anderson — have helped the Gauchos shoot 56.11% so far this season.
That percentage currently ranks No. 1 in the nation, well ahead of No. 2 Kansas at 54.6%.
Pierre-Louis said a summer exhibition tour of British Columbia enhanced the connection between Mitchell, the team’s junior point guard, and the rest of the team.
“When we went to Canada, we got to see a lot of how we play together,” he pointed out. “Seeing Ajay play the way he does now is ridiculous.
“I remember when he came in here at 150-160 pounds. To see him at 200 pounds, and how his game blew up last year as (Big West Conference) Player of the Year … He gets me better every day and I get him better every day.
“We’re best friends off the court … That’s my brother.”
Pierre-Louis has always lived with passion, whether it’s in his personal relationships or in how he plays basketball.
But Pasternack noticed even more fervor to his approach during this last offseason.
“He has hunger,” he said. “He really wants to get back to where we were.
“He has an incredible motor and is so important to what we do.”
Pierre-Louis’ growth, he added, had been stunted during the previous three off-seasons.
The pandemic prevented UCSB from holding team workouts during the spring and summer of 2020.
Injuries that Pierre-Louis suffered during the NCAA Tournament of 2021 and in the Big West Conference Tournament of 2022 also kept him from working out in the months that followed those events.
“This is really the first offseason when I’ve had the chance to be 100% on the court all spring and summer,” he said. “I was locked in the whole summer, changing my body. I gained weight. I’m in great shape.
“My jump shot is better. I’ve just been focused on what I can get better at to keep my game growing.”
He came into this season with career percentages of just .247 from three-point range (22-for-89) and .593 from the free-throw stripe (127-for-214).
Long hours of shooting workouts the last seven months have improved those percentages to .545 from three (6-for-11) and .667 from the foul line (6-for-9) so far this year.
He’s averaging 15.0 points and shooting 60% overall (24-for-40), ranking him tied for 56th on the NCAA’s statistical charts.
Pierre-Louis has picked up his offense while also drawing the toughest assignments on UCSB’s defensive perimeter.
“I love defense … That’s what I do,” he said. “I’m trying to get the Defensive Player of the Year (Award for the Big West), so I’m locked on that.”
Of Cramps and Coconuts
He was pressed into duty at point guard for the first two games this year when Mitchell was sidelined by an ankle injury. Creighton transfer Ben Shtolzberg, UCSB’s next option for the position, had offseason shoulder surgery and is still a few weeks away from playing.
Pierre-Louis cramped up with the extended playing time. The issue was resolved before last week’s game against Le Moyne, however, with a bottle containing a special concoction.
“I came into the locker room and it was filled with coconut water,” he said. “Thank you to the best coaches and best managers and everything, because it was the coconut water that got me through it.
“Endless coconut water.”
He showed flashes of greatness at point guard. Even when Mitchell returned to the lineup, Pierre-Louis’ playmaking carried over to the Le Moyne game with a 10-assist performance.
His 21 assists over four games have come at the expense of 20 turnovers.
“It was definitely a change for me, compared to what I’d been doing in past years,” Pierre-Louis said. “It was just shaking the rust off and me becoming more comfortable doing it.”
He is majoring in history and psychology. He said he may pursue law school after his basketball career is completed. The fashion industry is another option.
Pierre-Louis has put his dreams of an NBA career on the back burner, even while they’re reaching full boil with recent UCSB graduates Gabe Vincent and Miles Norris.
Love from a Laker
Vincent signed a three-year, $33 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers over the summer after helping the Miami Heat reach the NBA finals.
“I love Gabe,” Pierre-Louis said. “Gabe talks to me and makes sure I’m good. He follows the Gauchos, and it’s great.
“It shows what type of program this is — and what a close-knit family it is. We do a lot as a team with the community.”
Vincent has maintained close ties to UCSB’s program despite having graduated five years ago.
“Gabe Vincent is a great person to show that we have a great brotherhood because he’s constantly around, talking to us,” Pierre-Louis said. “He texts me.
“When I was wearing his No. 2, he was making sure it was in good hands. He’s a good big brother and a good mentor.”
Pierre-Louis, switched to No. 1 last year, gifting No. 2 to Andre Kelly as a welcoming gesture when the veteran center arrived from Cal as a graduate transfer.
Although Kelly’s favorite was 22, that jersey number had been retired long ago in honor of Gaucho alumnus Brian Shaw, a former NBA star and now an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Pierre-Louis admitted unashamedly that he cried after hearing that Norris had signed a two-way contract with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks after graduating last June.
“That’s my best friend,” he explained. “The countless hours he put in, the ups and downs we both had emotionally, how bad we both want it … I knew he wanted it so bad.
“Getting there and watching him do it … it made me feel like I did, too, because that’s how close we are here.
“Hopefully I’ll get to fulfill my own dreams some day. It’s a kid’s dream.”
But Pierre-Louis remains steadfast with Plan C. He’s got one more growing season to go at UCSB.
