Trojans Wire writer Tim Prangley talked to coach Eric Musselman about the emerging culture of leadership on the USC roster.
Year 1 of Eric Musselman’s USC basketball tenure is off and running. On a team that returns only one player from last season, Harrison Hornery, Musselman pointed to sources of vocal leadership after a practice held in the Galen Center.
You won’t typically find a roster which is created almost entirely from the transfer portal the way this USC basketball roster was assembled, but Eric Musselman had no choice in the matter. Andy Enfield’s sudden departure to SMU, which was not expected by anyone inside the USC athletic department, initiated the coaching search which led to Musselman’s arrival. Musselman has a reputation for being able to work the transfer portal better than most in college basketball. He went to the portal quite liberally and frequently to replenish his rosters at Arkansas and make three straight Sweet 16 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, including two straight Elite Eights in 2021 and 2022. It is important that leaders do emerge on this USC roster, so that the Trojans form the cohesion and chemistry they will need if they are going to make the 2025 NCAA Tournament in the Big Ten Conference.
With @HarrisonHornery the only returning letterman at USC as the Muss Buss gets rolling, I asked USC head coach, @EricPMusselman : which players on the team are stepping forward into a leadership role early in practice.
Eric Musselman has landed a lot of mid-major transfers at USC. Now he has landed a Power Five transfer.
The USC Trojans and coach Eric Musselman have added another player in the transfer portal. This time, USC basketball went to the Big Ten and gained Terrance Williams II from Michigan.
“Williams was a team captain at Michigan last season. He averaged 12.4 points and 4.5 rebounds per game shooting 43.3 percent from the field. Williams took a jump as a 3-point shooter in his senior year with the Wolverines, hitting a career-best 39.7 percent of his shots from deep. He’s a career 74.3 percent free throw shooter.
“Williams, who stands at 6-foot-7 and weighs 225 pounds, played the last four seasons at Michigan. He’s unranked in the 247Sports.com transfer portal recruiting rankings. As a high schooler coming out of Gonzaga College in the Washington D.C. area (the same high school as Caleb Williams), Williams was the No. 105 overall recruit and No. 20 power forward nationally. He has one year of college eligibility remaining.”
Beyond having Big Ten experience and therefore being a player who can more effectively help USC counter its 2025 Big Ten opponents, Williams is notable because he is a Power Five transfer. So many of Eric Musselman’s previous transfers in the 2024 cycle were mid-major players. Williams offers a different perspective and background. Having played in the Big Ten, he should be able to physically withstand the rigors of the coming season at USC.
Terrance Williams II commits to USC men's basketball: Trojans up to 11 scholarship playershttps://t.co/zdkMNqFIPW
Michigan has the pieces to win the Big Ten next season.
Barring any late surprises, the Michigan basketball roster is set going into the 2022-2023 season now that the Wolverines landed Youssef Khayat, the Lebanese basketball sensation, on Sunday.
While the Wolverines lost some contributors from last year’s team: Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate to the NBA, Frankie Collins to Arizona State, and Brandon Johns to VCU, Michigan added a couple of key pieces this summer with the additions of Jaelin Llewellyn (Princeton) and Joey Baker (Duke) along with Khayat.
The Wolverines have a solid recruiting class coming in the fall with Juwan Howard’s son, Jett Howard, headlining the class. Since Moussa Diabate declared for the draft, incoming center Tarris Reed should see significant playing time, and point guard Dug McDaniel should see some backup play as well. The bigger question mark from the incoming freshmen will be how does new forward Gregg Glenn fit into this year’s rotation, or does he see a redshirt year?
With all that being said, we are going to do our best to predict what next year’s lineup is going to look like when Michigan takes the court for the first time.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It didn’t take very long into their college debuts to see why Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate, Michigan basketball’s two five-star signees, are special.
Houstan had 11 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal, whereas Diabate had 7 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks. Both immediately looked at home, with Houstan in the starting lineup and Diabate coming into the game early off the bench.
It was no surprise to head coach Juwan Howard that either were able to come in and make an early impact, given what he had seen from each in the lead-up to their first official game.
On Diabate’s performance in the first half, he said: “Love it, love it. Doesn’t surprise me at all, because that’s the kind of player he is. He brings energy, effort, toughness.”
“Caleb, man — he’s shown so much poise as a young freshman,” Howard later said about Houstan. “Think about it: this guy re-classed up. So he’s supposed to be a senior in high school at Montverde. But he decided to make the jump. With his maturity and how he competes out there on the floor, you just think he’s been around for a very long time. He’s always, like Terrance, always listening, asking questions, want to learn, want to get better. I trust that he’s always gonna make the right play. Every player make mistakes. One thing about Caleb, this is a game of growth. It’s hard when you have foul trouble and you’re playing so well and now you have to sit for a while and lose your rhythm. But, in the start of the second half, I was trying to get him to lean up down the floor, get him loose, run him a few sets, get him more comfortable and get back to the flow he had in the first half. And he came out and he made a big 3 for us during that run after Terrance made his 3.”
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But it wasn’t just Howard singing their praises. Their sophomore teammates also had a lot of positives about the two after the game.
It’s hard to pick which one was more dynamic in their debuts, so forward Terrance Williams II spoke about both, and what he liked about each in their first time out.
“I’m gonna start with Mouss — Mouss came in with a lot of energy. The crowd was rocking with him,” Williams said. “The crowd (was going): ‘Mouss!’ — he plays on the offensive and defensive end. I feel like the fans love it, we love it. The shot-blocking he has, attacking the rim, rebounding, contesting the shots that don’t show up in the stat book — a lot of contests on No. 34 — he made him miss a lot. There was a lot of energy, the crowd’s gonna love him, we love him for that.
“Caleb came in, started hot. He got into foul trouble, but we’re not even worried about that, to be honest. He played his game. He still had a great game. He made a big shot down the stretch that we needed. So, both of them played really well in my opinion as freshmen, and I feel like it will continue.”
Freshman big Moussa Diabate. Photo: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
Hunter Dickinson, of course, got to pair up more specifically with Diabate when, instead of Diabate playing the five, Howard inserted a lineup that saw him at the four with Dickinson remaining at the five.
Dickinson says that Diabate has a lot to his game that makes it particularly enjoyable when the two are paired up.
“Yeah, it’s fun! Just two really big guys out there,” Dickinson said. “He’s really athletic, he’s able to cover a lot of ground and he’s able to make up for a lot of mistakes for the other four players on defense. And offensively, he attracts so much attention. When he has the ball, sneaks around and moves freely out there. Playing with him, he’s another high IQ guy, so definitely love playing with him offensively and defensively.”
Considering Dickinson’s history of playing big-time ball in the DMV, has he seen another big that’s been able to come in and do the types of things that Diabate does?
“No, he’s such a freak of nature athletically,” Dickinson said. “Like I said, he’s got so much potential. I don’t think he knows how much potential he has so far. Us, we’re trying to show him what he can do and how good he can be. Sky’s the limit for him and he’s gonna keep getting better as the season progresses.”
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It was a bit of a chippy game, with Michigan basketball getting everything it could handle from a feisty Buffalo team. Not only did each team have 23 fouls a piece, but three times, double technicals were assessed — not exactly what you would expect from two programs that certainly are not rivals.
So what happened?
Wolverines forward Terrance Williams II was one of the three Michigan players to draw a technical — after a Hunter Dickinson charging foul where he landed on a Bulls player — and he shared after the game why the two sides were going at it in the season opener.
“It was a little trash-talking, going back and forth,” Williams said. “Just normal basketball talk. Juwan just kept telling us to stay neck up, keep the mental composure. I feel like we did that after the technical foul I got, because they were talking — ‘OK, let it go. Stay mentally composed.”
So, was it coming mostly from the Buffalo side of things, the trash talk? Williams says it was.
“Yeah, it was more coming from them, especially No. 10 (Ronaldo Segu). No. 10 was talking a lot,” Williams said. “He started it off. With me, I like to talk back if you’re talking to me. So I just wanted to stay mentally composed. I got the (technical foul), but hopefully it won’t happen again.”
As mentioned, that happened as Dickinson was assessed with the offensive foul. It was a strange sight in the immediate aftermath, him laying on top of a Buffalo player for what appeared to be an extended period of time.
Dickinson recounted what he remembered of that moment and why things appeared heated in the immediate aftermath.
“He took the charge and I wasn’t trying to make a sudden move when I was getting up,” Dickinson said. “So, then I got up and I felt a push and T-Will was over there. I guess they were trying to help their guy up, my team was trying to help me up. It just happens out there.”
All-in-all, Dickinson says, it was all in good fun.
“It was a fun, hard-fought game — that’s what happens,” Dickinson said. “They’re not our friends out there, we’re not their friends. So, it happens. But I think it makes the game fun.
“After the game, we all dapped up and had, I guess — not a good time, but mutual respect after the game. Nobody was trying to fight each other after the game. So it was mutual respect.”
The desert loss was costly. Also, catching up with Terrance Williams, Moose’s HoF chances, and a rookie stays out of trouble with Mama. | From @ToddBrock24f7
Friday evening got off to a promising start, with Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott out on the field throwing in pregame warmups, even though he wouldn’t be playing versus the Cardinals. But things in Glendale turned gloomy as the team not only lost a close game, but lost a handful of players in the process.
Apart from the second preseason contest of the offseason, we take a deep dive into one of the things that makes Zack Martin so good, the seldom-heard-from Will McClay talks about what’s impressed him in training camp, and there are roster predictions to mull over. Also, where does the Cowboys offense rank heading into 2021? One rookie is watching his mouth around the HBO cameras, one former Dallas receiver has found a new way to extend his football career, one iconic fan favorite remains outside gold-jacket talk, and the team says goodbye to Cali and comes home to Texas. Welcome to the News and Notes.
The 2020-21 season is off to a good start as the Wolverines take down the Falcons. Here’s the good and bad that we saw from Michigan’s win.
[jwplayer muvLZIyi-XNcErKyb]
While the game remained too close for comfort for much of the duration, Michigan basketball managed to win its season opener in the debut effort, 96-82.
The score doesn’t tell the whole story, however. It was an impressive showing — particularly offensively — by the Wolverines, with a deep rotation and multiple players getting into double digits in the win over the Bowling Green State University Falcons. But, the perimeter defense left something to be desired.
Not only did the usual suspects step up — Isaiah Livers and Franz Wagner — but Columbia transfer Mike Smith was more than adept at leading the charge, taking over from multi-year starter Zavier Simpson, and Wake Forest transfer Chaundee Brown certainly displayed his shooting prowess going 5-of-7 from downtown with a team-leading total of 19 points.
All was not perfect, certainly. So with game one in the books, here’s what we liked and didn’t like as we emerge with five takeaways following the victory.
For fans already jonesing for pro football action, the XFL season begins Saturday, Feb. 8. Here are five, whether they fared well in college or showed glimpses in the NFL, players that will ring a bell: Landry Jones, QB, Dallas Renegades (Charles …
For fans already jonesing for pro football action, the XFL season begins Saturday, Feb. 8.
Here are five, whether they fared well in college or showed glimpses in the NFL, players that will ring a bell:
Landry Jones, QB, Dallas Renegades
(Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
Jones, a former star at Oklahoma under Renegades head coach Bob Stoops, was the first player to sign with the XFL. Jones, the former backup to Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh, will likely miss the season’s first four to six weeks with a knee injury suffered earlier this month.
The Wolverines added a 2020 four-star power forward to the class.
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When Michigan hired Juwan Howard, there were more questions than answers. Now, just a few months into his tenure, we now have more answers than questions.
And that goes for both on and off the court.
While the Wolverines have had an impressive start under Howard, including two early season top ten wins, the first-year head coach has had solid success on the recruiting trail. It started with getting now-starter Franz Wagner to come to Ann Arbor instead of playing pro-ball in Europe. Then he landed five-star Isaiah Todd and four-star Hunter Dickinson, both standouts in the 2020 class.
And the Wolverines got a New Year’s gift, adding another to the 2020 group, with Terrance Williams posting on Twitter that he’s committed to the maize and blue.
Williams is a four-star power forward, rated as the No. 84 player in the 2020 class, regardless of position. He’s also the 17th-best power forward and top player in Washington D.C., as he plays high school ball at Gonzaga.
He visited Ann Arbor on Dec. 28, so he apparently saw all he needed to see.
