Monday night, the USC men’s basketball team kicked off its 2024-2025 campaign. The Trojans beat UT Chattanooga, 77-51, at the Galen Center. The Eric Musselman era got off to a solid start.
Recently, college basketball analyst Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated shared his expectations for USC in 2024-2025. Sweeney believes that the Trojans can push for an NCAA Tournament bid in their first season under Eric Musselman.
“I think making the NCAA tournament in Year 1 is a reasonable median outcome. There’s enough wing talent here that climbing the ladder in a Big Ten where parity should reign supreme is definitely possible, and we’ve seen in the past that Musselman’s teams tend to be playing their best basketball by March. But with this many new faces and questions at arguably the two most important positions in center and point guard, as well as the unknown effect of all the extra travel, things could unravel.”
With essentially an entirely new team from last season, USC truly is a wild card team heading into Year 1 of the Eric Musselman era. With the Trojans also playing their first season in the Big Ten Conference, we will soon find out how equipped this team is to compete with the nation’s best. Monday’s game against Chattanooga offered a lot of positive signs. USC played strong defense in holding Chattanooga to just 51 points. The Trojans received balanced scoring, with seven players scoring at least 8 points. USC did all of this with Michigan transfer — and expected scoring threat — Terrance Williams out due to injury.
It’s only one game, but USC made a good first step against the Mocs.
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