Tag: Boogie Ellis

National college basketball expert offers bold assessment of Boogie Ellis

Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports thinks Boogie, not Isaiah Collier, should be preseason #Pac12 Player of the Year. That’s worth exploring.

CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein recently attended a USC basketball practice. Rothstein is high on the Trojans this season, as are we. This is a special roster (even if Bronny James isn’t able to play in the first several weeks of the season, or at any point in the season). This is a unique and rare chance for USC to become a big hitter in the Pac-12 and college basketball. Rothstein understands that.

Part of why USC has a chance to be great this season is the fact that Boogie Ellis has returned for one more year.

Rothstein is so high on Boogie because he’s hugely experienced and has already proved he can consistently score at the collegiate level.

Rothstein made the case that Boogie Ellis should be the preseason Pac-12 Player of the Year heading into November. Rothstein’s argument is as follows:

“It’s so rare that a player who averaged over 17 points per game after his fourth year opts to come back, but USC has that,” Rothstein said.

We’re not going to disagree with Rothstein, because his logic is sound. What we’re going to do is simply raise the question: Is Boogie Ellis being the Pac-12 Player of the Year the very best outcome for USC hoops?

If a USC player is POY and not an Arizona player, that in itself is very good news. It would likely mean the Trojans beat out the Wildcats for the Pac-12 championship. However, one could make the argument that USC will be its very best self — and will reach its absolute ceiling as a team — if Isaiah Collier is the best player on the team. Collier, not Boogie, is a lottery-pick-level talent. Collier will have the ball in his hands more. Collier will initiate more of the USC offense than Boogie will.

Maybe it’s better if Collier is the Pac-12 Player of the Year.

However, if Boogie — who, as Rothstein noted, is already a proven scorer — makes another big leap forward and elevates his game to another level, that would indicate that Collier is putting him in a position to succeed on a regular basis. It would mean that USC’s most gifted and natural scorer is a much better scorer than he was last year, maybe to the tune of 23 or 24 points per game.

If Boogie does average that many points per game, the only added detail to inquire about would be his efficiency. Is he getting 23 points on 15 shots, or 25? If he’s relatively efficient and scores in the mid-20s consistently, USC is going to reach its potential, or at least come very close to it, this coming season.

There’s really nothing wrong with Rothstein’s argument. His point merely raises a fascinating Boogie-or-Collier discussion which will continue to be a talking point when the season tips off on Nov. 6 against Kansas State.

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USC’s Boogie Ellis on returning for one more year: ‘I’ve just got to show that I can win’

He can score. He can lead a team to the NCAA Tournament. Boogie Ellis came back to do much more at #USC.

The fire inside the athlete burns brightly, at least in the elite competitors who aren’t satisfied with modest levels of success. USC’s Boogie Ellis is consumed with winning at a higher level.

In a video produced by USC athletics, Ellis — who surprised a lot of people by coming back for one more season of college basketball — talked about the thought process behind his decision. Teammates and assistant coaches offered their views of a scorer who wants to create more Boogie nights for USC and delay his NBA plans for one more year.

It all started with the loss to Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament. Ellis struggled in a USC defeat. Both his performance and his team’s result stung.

“I didn’t want my college career to end like that,” Ellis said. That was the root of his decision to come back.

“I checked all the other boxes,” he continued. “Now, I’ve just got to show that I can win.”

Boogie Ellis has won a lot of games at USC, so when he talks about winning, he doesn’t mean winning 25 games and finishing third in the Pac-12. That’s not terrible, but it’s not the pinnacle of the sport.

USC has a Pac-12 title to win. It has a Pac-12 Tournament to win. It has a Final Four to reach. It has a national championship to pursue. Boogie said he wants to win the national title. He is not merely driven to improve; he is driven at a high level.

One assistant coach says in the video, “He is possessed. He truly loves basketball. He loves the process of being good.”

That’s a really insightful observation. It’s not just the reality of being good, but the process of becoming good — always getting better — which matters to Boogie Ellis.

If he is noticeably better this season than he was last season, USC is going to make a deep run in March.

That’s what Boogie came back for.

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Boogie Ellis, Bronny James and Isaiah Collier should give USC 3 top-50 NBA draft picks

Kentucky will likely have three top-50 picks at the 2024 #NBADraft. A few other schools will, too. #USC should be one of them.

We can hold out hope that Bronny James will come back for a second season at USC, but we certainly shouldn’t expect that outcome. LeBron James will want to play with his son in the NBA, and with the clock ticking on LeBron’s career, he will want to make that a reality sooner rather than later. The odds suggest — if not flatly indicate — that Bronny will be a one-and-done player at USC, even if he isn’t a lottery pick.

If we accept that one likelihood as the eventual outcome, USC will have three top-50 picks at the 2024 NBA draft, barring any injuries.

Bronny James — currently projected to be a late-first-round selection — would be joined by projected top-five pick Isaiah Collier and returning star Boogie Ellis. In a Pac-12 loaded with quality draft talent, USC should have a bundle of good players for NBA teams to choose from.

Boogie Ellis is not currently projected to be a first-round pick, but he has a situation at USC in which he will get every possible opportunity to develop his game and display his skills in one-on-one matchups. He won’t get double-teamed very often with Collier and/or Bronny on the floor at the same time.

This accumulation of draft talent is precisely why USC is Pac-12 analyst Jon Wilner’s choice as the preseason No. 8 team in college basketball. USC has a real chance to win a first conference championship since 1985 and make its first Final Four since 1954.

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USC buzz as Pac-12 title favorite grows with the arrival of Bronny James

Isaiah Collier is the main reason #USC can dream about winning its first #Pac12 hoops title since 1985, but Bronny James adds a big, new piece to the puzzle.

The last time USC men’s basketball won the Pac-12 championship, the Pac-12 did not exist. The 1985 Pac-10 season marked the rise of USC under then-coach Stan Morrison. Nearly 40 years later, USC is still searching for its next conference championship on the hardwood. The year 1985 was a time when the USC women’s basketball program was enjoying its dynastic period under future icon Cheryl Miller. The Trojans won multiple national championships in the mid-1980s and were a regular Final Four team. Men’s basketball is still waiting for that next conference crown, and for its first Final Four trip since 1954.

Just how serious a contender is USC in the 2024 Pac-12, the last season of Pac-12 basketball for the program before its move to the Big Ten? Let’s take an early look. Some national commentators, as you will quickly find out, are already buying in. Bronny James is part of this, but it’s also about the roster Bronny James is joining at USC:

USC’s run of elite recruiting has one superstar left to go: Bronny James

Isaiah Collier, No. 1 MBB recruit. Juju Watkins, No. 1 WBB recruit. Bear Alexander, No. 1 portal prospect. Can #USC land Bronny now?

It has been a remarkable college sports cycle for USC athletics in its revenue sports. The Trojans put both basketball teams in the NCAA Tournament and reached a New Year’s Six bowl in football, something done by only two other schools in this cycle: Alabama and Tennessee.

USC recruited the top-ranked prospects in men’s and women’s basketball, landing Isaiah Collier and JuJu Watkins. It retained Boogie Ellis for one more season. It just landed the top-ranked (spring) transfer portal prospect, Bear Alexander. We’re waiting to see if the Trojans can close the door and land Bronny James, who — though not the No. 1 prospect on the board — would carry value beyond recruiting rankings. Bronny choosing USC would make Trojan basketball much more of a destination program for other recruits. USC becoming “the place to be” for basketball, not just football, is exactly how Andy Enfield can build the Trojans into a Final Four-level program, a team which can expect to contend for college basketball’s biggest prizes. Let’s say more about this below:

What an Isaiah Collier-Boogie Ellis substitution pattern might look like at USC

Here’s how Andy Enfield can play Collier and Boogie for big minutes, not overwork them, and have them together most of the time.

Given the decision by Boogie Ellis to return to USC, the Trojans and their fans are naturally excited about the prospect of having Boogie and Isaiah Collier together on the floor. That’s going to be a knockout combination. However, one of the specific advantages of having two elite guards is that Andy Enfield can stagger them. This is true regardless of whether Bronny James joins the Trojans. If Bronny joins, that’s great, and USC will have a plan to juggle the three guards. However, if Bronny goes to Oregon or Ohio State, USC can still make great use of a Collier-Boogie backcourt.

Let’s look at how Enfield can use Collier and Boogie specifically, excluding Bronny from the equation.

Obviously, Enfield will want to have these two electric players together in crunch time. That will put maximum pressure on opposing defenses. Crucially, it will be very hard for defenses to double-team or trap either player, since doing that will free up the other.

Michigan State sent waves of bodies at Boogie Ellis in the NCAA Tournament. USC didn’t have another elite ballhandler to counter that move. Collier is that counter next season. Naturally, having those two in a closing lineup makes complete sense.

The staggers, then, will happen in the early and middle stages of games.

How can Enfield play these guys close to 30 minutes per game but not overextend them (33-35 minutes) and still have them on the floor together in crunch time? Let’s map it out.

You know that there are media timeouts at the first dead ball following the 16, 12, 8, and 4-minute marks of each half. That’s eight media timeouts per game.

Obviously, if either Collier or Boogie is on fire, there’s no point in taking him out of the game. This shouldn’t be an overly strict plan where rotations and substitution patterns are rigid. If one is cooking, let him continue to cook, and then sub him out later after he cools down. If he never really cools down and he winds up playing 35 minutes, that’s fine. Just sit him a few more minutes the next game, especially if that game is a Saturday game following a Thursday game. Give more minutes to the other backcourt player in such a situation to keep the two fresh over the course of the full season, thereby giving them a full tank for the NCAA Tournament.

In the absence of special circumstances, though, the media timeout structure would enable Enfield to do something like this:

  • Have both players start the game on the floor together. Sub out one of the two between the first two media timeouts (under-16 and under-12), near the 14-minute mark. If a player leaves near the 14-minute mark, he misses two live game minutes but is able to rest during the under-12 media timeout, thereby getting several minutes of real-time rest.
  • Sub out the other player at the under-12 media timeout. This gives the player multiple minutes of real-time rest plus the next few minutes after the under-12 timeout.
  • Bring back the first player between the under-12 and under-8 media timeouts, near the 10-minute mark. That player will have missed four live-game (scoreboard clock) minutes and received close to 10 minutes of real-time rest.
  • Bring back the second player at the under-8 media timeout. That player will also have missed roughly four live-game minutes, but by resting during both the under-12 and under-8 media timeouts, that player will get close to 12 or 13 minutes of real-time rest.
  • Give the first player a rest between the under-8 and under-4 media timeouts, near the 6-minute mark. Then bring that player back at the under-4 media timeout. That player will wind up missing six live-game minutes, meaning he will have played close to 14 minutes in the first half. If this substitution pattern is replicated in the second half, that player will wind up playing 28 minutes in a game. If one eliminates the two-minute sub-out late in the half, that player could play 30 minutes in a game.
  • Give the second player a one-minute rest after the under-4 media timeout in the first half, while the other player comes back in. This extends that player’s real-time rest. Reinsert that player with 2:30 to 3:00 left in the half. If this substitution/rest pattern is replicated in the second half, that player will play close to 30 minutes in a game.

Let’s map this out numerically.

Boogie Ellis minutes by half: Play from minutes 20-14, sub out at 14, return at 10 minutes, sub out at 6 minutes, return at 4 minutes, play until halftime/end of game. 14 minutes per half, 28 per game.

Isaiah Collier minutes by half: Play from minutes 20-12, sub out at 12, return at 8, sub out at 4, return at 3, play until halftime/end of game. 15 minutes per half, 30 per game.

Naturally, if a game is closer or especially important, Collier would come back at the under-4 media timeout in the second half. He wouldn’t miss that crucial minute late in the second half, so he would then play 31 minutes instead of 30. Similarly, Boogie might get a smaller rest late in a second half. Instead of sitting from the 6-minute mark all the way until the under-4 media timeout in the second half, he might sit for just one minute and come back with nearly five minutes left. He would play 29 minutes instead of 28.

All sorts of small alterations and tweaks could exist. The larger roadmap, however, is clear: Enfield would have both players together in the first four and last three minutes of each half, and in the last four minutes of each game, while not pushing them for 33-35 minutes every night. One of the two would be on the court at all times.

This is a sustainable long-term plan which would keep both players fresh throughout the season and yet have at least one of them guiding the team every minute of every game. Does that excite you as a USC hoops fan?

It certainly should.

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2023 USC basketball season will bear little resemblance to upcoming 2024 ride

Last season, Boogie Ellis played 33 minutes per game, Drew Peterson 36. It’s going to be very different for #USC next season.

Last season at USC, the Trojans did not have much depth they could really count on. Reese Dixon-Waters was the one reserve who was reasonably reliable. Other than that, it was a struggle for Andy Enfield to find consistent bench minutes.

Vince Iwuchukwu was healthy for one month, but for most of the season, he was either unavailable, not healthy, or restricted to fewer than 10 minutes per game. He had only one month in which he could play 15 to 25 minutes per game, so in that regard, he wasn’t a regular bench option, just a temporary one.

Other than Iwuchukwu (for one month), USC didn’t have strong bench options. Not Harrison Hornery. Not Malik Thomas. Not Oziyah Sellers. Not Iaroslav Niagu. Kijani Wright became a better player late in the season, but he wasn’t a consistent bench producer for most of the campaign. He wasn’t a factor until February.

Because USC lacked a deep bench, Boogie Ellis and Drew Peterson had to play extended minutes. Ellis played 33 per night, Peterson 36. Enfield needed them on the floor. If he had a deeper bench, they wouldn’t have played as much.

Now, however, with Ellis coming back for another season, the dynamics of the roster are going to change.

USC had one reliable bench player for the entirety of last season, with Iwuchukwu and Wright both providing roughly one solid month of bench help apiece, so maybe one could say the Trojans had one and a half bench options for the full run of the four-and-a-half-month season.

Next season, USC and Enfield will be in position to use a fully-stocked bench. We’re talking five or six players. Yes, USC could really go 10 deep.

Crazy talk? Not at all.

USC has a rotation of three bigs — Iwuchukwu, Josh Morgan, and Wright — with two wing defenders (Tre White, Kobe Johnson) and two elite guards (Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis). That’s the core seven-man rotation right now.

Forward Arrinten Page should be part of the rotation. Remember, he is a high school teammate of Isaiah Collier. That makes eight players who should get decent minutes.

Then, if Bronny James picks USC, the Trojans’ backcourt will become even deeper. That’s nine core rotation players.

Then there’s still a spot left on the roster which could be filled in the transfer portal. USC and Enfield really could work with 10 players, a 180-degree change from this past season.

If Enfield has five legitimate bench options, Boogie Ellis no longer has to play 33 minutes per night. Enfield would be able to mix and match combinations a lot more than he ever has.

One has to remember that much as a manager in baseball is influenced by the amount of options he has in the bullpen or elsewhere, a basketball coach is similarly constrained.

If bench players, like late-inning relievers, are really good, the coach is going to call upon them a lot. If they aren’t good, the coach will keep them stapled to the pine.

USC is in position to have an actual bench with three or four really good choices. Enfield could play eight to 10 players and not have anyone play more than 30 minutes per game. It wouldn’t be a philosophical change; it would be a response to having more good basketball players, and therefore being able to use more lineup combinations in various situations.

The past offers no template for the future. That’s what happens when a roster becomes significantly better and deeper. That’s the new reality for USC hoops.

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Why the Boogie Ellis decision doesn’t mean Bronny James will reject USC

Bronny won’t come to #USC to play 20 minutes per game, but even with Boogie and Isaiah Collier, he can still play close to 30.

The decision of Boogie Ellis to return to USC for the 2024 college basketball season has elicited a lot of thoughts, as you might expect. One such thought is, “Now that USC has Boogie, it really doesn’t need Bronny James.” A related thought: “Bronny will look at Oregon or Ohio State, since he won’t get enough playing time with the Trojans.”

Those are reasonable, logical lines of thought, but one should not assume that Bronny James can’t fit on next season’s USC roster as a central player who logs nearly 30 minutes per game. It can certainly happen.

With Isaiah Collier and Boogie on the roster, it’s true that Bronny — in the event that he chooses USC — would come off the bench at the start of the season, and maybe throughout the whole season. It could be that Bronny would rebel against being a sixth man with the Trojans. That’s certainly possible.

However, he could very realistically play close to 30 minutes per game and get the amount of playing time he thinks he needs and deserves in order to develop his game.

Yes, we would not see Collier, Boogie and Bronny as a trio on the floor at the same time. If you’re thinking that lineup combination is going to exist for more than 10-12 minutes per game, you need to adjust your expectations.

However, if Bronny does pick USC, you are very likely to see Andy Enfield put at least two of those three players on the floor at the same time for a whole game, and that’s where the Trojans can give Bronny enough minutes.

It’s simple math: Two guards playing 40 minutes apiece equals 80 minutes per game. If you put a third guard into the mix, three players sharing 80 minutes works out to 26.7 minutes per game if distributed equally.

Getting 27 minutes per game is not an especially heavy workload, but it isn’t light, either. It’s not “peripheral role player” playing time. It’s significant run, but it also means that over the course of the full season, a player is not going to be overextended. Guys will stay fresh. If a game goes into overtime, they will have plenty left in the tank. On the second game of a road trip (the Saturday game after a Thursday game), players will have ample energy.

Of course Bronny James won’t come to USC if he gets just 18 to 20 minutes per game … and Andy Enfield can pretty easily make sure Bronny will play over 25 minutes per game.

Given how much Bronny has seen his father, LeBron James, deal with load management in recent years with the Los Angeles Lakers, the idea of playing managed minutes — but still more than 60 percent of every game — shouldn’t be a turn-off for him.

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If Bronny James does choose USC, Trojans become a Final Four contender

No, #USC wouldn’t be a Final Four favorite — that would be going too far — but certainly a Final Four contender. No question.

Some will say the hype is justified. Others (UCLA fans?) might say the hype will be empty and meaningless until the Trojans validate it. This much is clear, though: If Bronny James does pick USC over Oregon and Ohio State, the Trojans are going to be discussed as a Final Four contender.

That is not hyperbole. That is not embellishment. That is a levelheaded read of the situation for USC hoops. Why are we saying this? Because of the decision of Boogie Ellis to return to the Trojans for next season and use his extra year of COVID eligibility.

Some perspective on USC basketball’s preseason rankings:

The 2007 Trojans went to the Sweet 16 but were not thought of as a Final Four team heading into 2008. USC was No. 18 in the preseason rankings.

The 2001 Trojans reached the Elite Eight. The 2002 team was No. 20 in the preseason rankings.

The 2009 team with DeMar DeRozan and Taj Gibson? No. 19 in the preseason rankings.

The 1992 Harold Miner team which got a No. 2 seed at the NCAA Tournament? That team was nowhere to be found in the preseason rankings.

The 2021 Elite Eight team? Nowhere in the preseason rankings.

USC getting preseason hype as a Final Four team is something we haven’t seen at any point in the past 45 years.

USC — which is battling Oregon and Ohio State in the recruitment of Bronny James — checked in at No. 16 in ESPN’s way-too-early preseason top 25 rankings, right after the April 3 national championship game won by Connecticut over San Diego State. Colorado was No. 13, and Arizona was the one Pac-12 team in the top 10.

That was before the Boogie Ellis announcement.

USC is probably a top-12 team right now based on Boogie’s return.

Then add Bronny James.

The Trojans would likely be a preseason top-10 team.

That’s what a Final Four contender is (at least on paper).

The Trojans would be picked in the top two of the Pac-12 preseason polls, and would likely pick up some first-place votes alongside Arizona and Colorado.

This is not normal.

If Bronny James does choose to play for USC, the Trojans are going to be in the big leagues … and in this case, we’re not talking about football.

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Bronny James has more to think about after Boogie Ellis USC decision

Bronny James could view #USC as a Final Four team if he joins. On the other hand, it’s more mouths to feed in the backcourt.

Are you having fun, USC basketball fans? Bronny James might not decide to play with the Trojans, but the mere possibility that he could play for USC next season is a topic with fresh new dimensions for the program.

Two or three weeks ago, the possibility of Bronny James playing for USC would have elicited some buzz and hype, but his presence wouldn’t have filled out the roster in an all-encompassing way. USC still needed a proven shooter in the transfer portal in order to feel it had plugged its roster holes and had a strong team coming back for this season.

Now, however, the equation is different. Boogie Ellis has decided to return to USC for the 2023-2024 season, a surprising move but one he was able to make due to the extra year of COVID eligibility.

USC doesn’t need a shooter in the transfer portal now that Boogie is coming back. That need has been filled, albeit in a way most were not expecting. The Trojans now know that if Bronny James comes to USC, he will join Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis in the backcourt.

Holy smokes!

The Trojans are already deep in the frontcourt with Vince Iwuchukwu, Joshua Morgan, and Kijani Wright. They have wing defenders, Tre White and Kobe Johnson. If they have a three-man backcourt of Bronny, Collier and Boogie, there will not be many holes on the roster. Only a stretch four would be lacking. Everything else would be in place. Defense, length, depth, balance, scoring, playmaking, shot creation — the Trojans could get something from nearly every position on the roster.

The decision for Bronny James would come down to this: Would Bronny want to be on a Final Four-level team, or would the idea of playing with ball-dominant players such as Isaiah Collier and Boogie Ellis limit his role and thereby serve as a turn-off rather than a reason to play for the Trojans?

Only Bronny James knows, but with Boogie Ellis returning to USC, Bronny certainly has more to consider.

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