USC basketball lost one of its greatest players from its greatest era earlier this week. Gus Williams, who led the Pacific 8 Conference in scoring in 1975, died at the age of 71. Per USC athletics, Williams “finished his career with 1,308 points, the most by a Trojan guard at that time, averaging 16.1 points per game. He also set records for career (362) and season (141 in 1974) assists. He still ranks in the USC all-time Top 10 in assists and Top 20 in scoring.”
Williams is legitimately one of the greatest players to put on a USC basketball uniform. The NBA champion with the Seattle SuperSonics was a multi-time NBA All-Star who produced a lengthy and productive career. Beyond the numbers, though, what stands out with Gus Williams at USC is that he was part of the program’s best era.
Andy Enfield’s string of NCAA Tournament appearances was impressive, but USC basketball’s absolute height came in the first half of the 1970s under then-coach Bob Boyd. USC was a preseason top-25 team in five of the six seasons from 1970 through 1975. USC was ranked in the AP Top 10 at some point in five of those six seasons as well. The Trojans consistently won despite playing in the shadow of the dynastic UCLA Bruins under John Wooden. The Trojans also played in an era when the NCAA Tournament didn’t allow second-place teams in major conferences to participate in its event. If the NCAA Tournament had been a 64-team event in that era of college basketball, USC would have been able to make multiple Final Fours.
The 1971 USC team is generally if not unanimously viewed as the Trojans’ best men’s basketball team of all time. In an expanded NCAA Tournament (had it existed), the 1971 Trojans would have been a No. 1 seed. The 1974 team probably would have been a No. 2 or 3 seed, winning 24 games and again running into the brick wall known as UCLA. Gus Williams was the leading scorer on that 1974 team. It’s a shame he never got a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament.
That year, 1974, was pivotal for college basketball, because the 1974 ACC Tournament final between North Carolina State and Maryland — a classic game — revealed the absurdity of not allowing second-place teams in conferences to compete in the NCAA Tournament. That game led to the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from 25 teams in 1974 to 40 in 1979. USC, in Bob Boyd’s last season, got into the tournament thanks to that expansion. In 1985, the NCAA Tournament increased to 64 teams, a decade too late for Gus Williams.
He was a great Trojan in a luminous era for a program which flourished precisely when other forces in college basketball — Wooden’s UCLA and the smaller, less welcoming NCAA Tournament — cut against USC. Never allow those outside forces to diminish Gus Williams’ greatness or the brightness of his memory.
