Hello, everybody, and welcome again to the Occasions of Troy publication. I’m Ryan Kartje, your USC beat author at The Occasions, coming to you from the final gasps of USC’s males’s basketball season, in a again hallway of Pauley Pavilion on Saturday night time, questioning simply how his first season in L.A. had landed right here, with a dismal protection, a file beneath .500 and the identical variety of wins USC had final season, underneath Andy Enfield.
That wasn’t what Musselman had in thoughts when he was employed final April. However at USC, confidence within the coach is as excessive now because it was then. Across the program, there’s a way that Musselman has made actual, tangible progress, even when it won’t look that manner on paper.
It’s an inexpensive case to make: Musselman confronted an uphill climb from his first day at USC, with a roster to rebuild and solely a month to make it occur. However he constructed it. And from the beginning, he was trustworthy about its imperfections. He knew the shortage of a giant man can be an issue. He understood that USC was in all probability asking an excessive amount of of Desmond Claude. He questioned about whether or not the Trojans may execute his protection and knew that accidents may sink them.
All of these considerations got here to irritating fruition over the month of February. However had Claude not bruised his knee towards Michigan State, that month may additionally have gone otherwise. At Northwestern, USC misplaced with out Claude on a last-second shot. An inadvertent whistle price them a win over Minnesota. Video games towards UCLA and Ohio State had been nicely inside their grasp.
By then, USC was already worn down by a brutal Huge Ten slate that might solely intensify the roster’s points. The Trojans haven’t received away from L.A. since Jan. 22. Even the gamers had been acknowledging by the tip the toll their journey took.
“I really feel horrible at the moment,” guard Wesley Yates III mentioned after USC’s loss to Ohio State. “You simply should discover a technique to struggle via it.”
There’s no sense in blaming the schedule or the journey slate, even when it was an actual drawback to USC. Which it was. However that, as Don Draper would let you know, is what the cash’s for.
It was over that stretch, for what it’s price, that USC’s protection took a complete nosedive. Its opponents shot a whopping 50% from the sector from Feb. 7 on, a stretch of 9 video games. USC misplaced seven of them.
It was additionally throughout that nightmarish stretch that redshirt freshman Yates emerged as a future star. And no participant on the roster this season is extra of a testomony to the progress that’s occurring behind the scenes in 12 months 1.
Yates was a little bit of a multitude within the temporary stretches of observe we watched into the autumn. Musselman was consistently on his case, pissed off together with his shot choice. However in December, with accidents piling up, he put Yates into the lineup. He soared from there.
Now he heads into subsequent season as probably the most thrilling younger scorers within the Huge Ten, and he credit Musselman for growing him to that time.
“The assumption he has in me, from the beginning of the season to now, you possibly can see the swap,” Yates mentioned. “He let me play via errors. He’s let me play my sport.”
That perception goes each methods at USC, the place the college has willingly let Musselman play via his errors this season. However subsequent 12 months, the expectation is that the Trojans will make a significant leap. Musselman can have a top-10 recruit in Alijah Arenas to work with. Yates and Claude may each be returning. And with a complete offseason to assault the switch portal, USC might be extra deliberate in its method.
Which is to say there aren’t any excuses for Musselman subsequent season. However rely me as somebody betting that 12 months 2 winds up in a much more hopeful place than his debut.
The USC ladies misplaced to UCLA …
may that be a superb factor in the long term?
I don’t often subscribe to logic that implies dropping is best for any crew than successful. However hear me out right here: After all, USC would have slightly received the Huge Ten event title, to couple with its common season convention crown. However a horrendous — 22% — did them in Sunday. Beating any crew 3 times in a single season is tremendously troublesome, and USC’s luck merely ran out within the rivals’ third assembly.
However this crew has responded nicely this season when dealt a wake-up name. After dropping to Notre Dame earlier this season, USC obliterated the whole lot in its path, together with No. 3 Connecticut, over the following two months. When the Trojans then misplaced to Iowa in early February, they shortly found out what had been ailing them and tallied three top-10 wins. Two of which came to visit UCLA.
USC, at its finest, is basically unbeatable. The mixture of JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen is subsequent to none when it’s clicking. However USC continues to be liable to lulls by which it appears to overlook that potential. Perhaps Sunday would be the reminder it wanted.
The Trojans ought to nonetheless be a No. 1 seed when the sector is introduced Sunday. They may’ve been the No. 1 general seed with a 3rd win over UCLA. But when the loss can provide them that added push on the best way to the Remaining 4, one thing tells me they’ll recover from falling brief within the Huge Ten event.
—Chad Bowden is aware of what USC followers wish to hear, and that’s a superb factor. When USC’s normal supervisor final week, he knew exactly the precise notes to hit. He hammered residence the truth that USC is refocusing on native recruiting, one thing followers have railed about in recent times. And he projected a place of energy with NIL — “[USC will be] as aggressive as anybody” — and with income — USC “wouldn’t be slowed down in any manner.” His messaging, coupled with what athletic director Jennifer Cohen instructed me a few weeks earlier, was intentional. And it labored. Followers had been thrilled with most of what Bowden needed to say. Whether or not he’ll truly ship on his enthusiasm, I don’t know. However he’s obtained a ton of confidence and he clearly understands his circumstances. Now could be the time for constructing good PR. Sitting courtside on the remaining USC males’s basketball sport of the season, I’m fairly positive he shook each single hand in his neighborhood.
—The USC males averaged simply over 5,000 followers per sport in Musselman’s debut season, 1,200 fewer per sport than final 12 months underneath Enfield. That’s not excellent. However there’s some vital context required. USC had its highest per-game attendance in a decade through the 2023-24 season. This 12 months’s common of 5,074 per sport is definitely the second-highest attendance price of the final decade. Musselman lamented not doing sufficient to interact followers, and I do suppose extra might be finished. However an important step is discovering a star to construct round and successful video games. Then, followers will come. Simply take a look at the ladies’s program: The 12 months earlier than JuJu Watkins arrived, USC had a median attendance of 1,037. In Watkins’ first season, USC quadrupled that attendance quantity (4,421). And this season, 5,932 followers on common got here to observe Watkins and Co., almost 900 extra per sport than the lads.
—May Saint Thomas and/or Rashaun Agee play one other season with USC? They’re each at the very least “exploring” the thought, in accordance with Musselman. I received’t enterprise to say I perceive how the NCAA applies its eligibility guidelines nowadays. However I might think about that Agee has a greater case right here than Thomas, by advantage of his single season at a junior faculty in Wyoming and up to date rulings surrounding such conditions. Thomas would presumably attempt to enchantment to the NCAA that he left Loyola due to his psychological well being and would warrant a medical redshirt. Truthfully, I don’t know how the NCAA would possibly rule in both case, however I’d think about each would in all probability be welcomed again. Whether or not they’d have the identical roles is one other query.
—USC is hiring a director of soccer technique to assist with clock administration and situational selections. However earlier than your thoughts runs away with that sentence, this isn’t a new function, per se, on Lincoln Riley’s workers. Earlier than, there was an analyst on workers whose job tasks included serving to with these selections. Now that accountability is being shifted to a brand new function stuffed by Joe D’Orazio, who labored as a top quality management coach at Baylor final season. Earlier than that, he was offensive coordinator at Columbia. Whomever is doing the job, hopefully somebody can get a deal with on time administration this upcoming season.
In case you missed it
What I’m Watching This Week
To be completely trustworthy, I knew earlier than even watching the pilot that Hulu’s latest hit present, “Paradise,” was in all probability in my wheelhouse. A mysterious dystopian thriller with James Marsden because the president? Say no extra. It’s exhausting to actually say a lot concerning the plot with out making a gift of the primary episode’s many reveals, however I wager you’ll know after these 45 minutes if “Paradise” is your factor.
