We talked to college basketball expert Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated about USC basketball before this highly-anticipated season.
Sweeney discussed the balance Boogie Ellis will need to strike between looking for his own shot and deferring to Isaiah Collier within USC’s halfcourt offense.
“Yeah, it’s one of those problems that every coach wishes they had. Once they get it, then they’re like, oh, this isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. But yeah, I think it’s twofold. One, there’s a certain level of sacrifice that Boogie Ellis is going to have to make as a fifth-year senior,” Sweeney told us. “It is not his nature to pass up the ball, right? Yes, he is a score-first player, he always has been. I do think to a certain degree, yes, Isaiah Collier is more of a true point guard, but things trickle down from your veteran leadership. If Boogie Ellis is going to be a leader on his team, it’s going to require him to make decisions that aren’t necessarily fun for him or that aren’t necessarily the way he’s always played.
“Winning cures all ills, right? If they can beat Kansas State in the first week and then Gonzaga in December, if you win games like that, it all of a sudden gets pretty easy to say, oh, I’m going to keep the ball moving, I’m going to play my role. I don’t care if I score nine versus 13 points per game. I don’t care if I’m getting up eight shots versus 12. Those things are easily cured when you’re number eight in the country in the AP poll and everything’s rolling. At the end of the day, if this group can win early and build some buy-in together, I think it’ll be fine. I think if they struggle and they start to feel the weight of the expectation, that’s when things can get hairy and that’s when I think the real challenge for Andy Enfield would start.”
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