Tag: USC basketball

USC wins by 55 points, and the scary part is the Trojans didn’t shoot well

USC won by 55 points on Saturday despite shooting just 6 of 28 on 3-pointers. Imagine how great this team will be if it knocks down the long ball.

The USC women’s basketball team won a game by 55 points on Saturday against Cal Poly. Given that the margin was 55 points, 90-35, you might think the Trojans shot the ball well. Actually, they did not.

USC shot just under 45 percent from the field — not terrible, but certainly nothing special — and the Trojans were a bad 6 of 28 from 3-point range. Malia Samuels (3-5) and Rayah Marshall (1-1) shot the ball well from 3-point land, but all other USC players were a combined 2 of 22. Just imagine what will happen when this team shoots the ball with some degree of consistency from long range. USC was just 1 of 11 on threes in the season opener versus Ole Miss. USC is therefore 7 of 39 on triples for the season through two games, which is under 20 percent.

If there is a concern with this team — and we know it’s early in the season — it’s very clear. Perimeter shooting, if it doesn’t improve, will enable defenses to pack the paint and make it harder for every USC player to finish near the rim and get easy baskets or free throws. Lindsay Gottlieb can devise great sets, but if teams don’t respect USC’s shooting, opponents will protect the rim and force the Trojans to hit a lot of mid-range shots outside the paint.

To flip things around, however: If USC does begin to shoot well from 3-point land, opponents will be in an impossible position in their attempt to defend the Trojans. If USC can make threes at an efficient rate, JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen will feast at the basket and score big.

Get into the gym and get that shooting stroke sorted out. USC has a clear priority after one week of play.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

The big loser in USC football’s quarterback change? Eric Musselman

Eric Musselman and USC are 2-0, but the football team was still the big story of the week due to its QB change. It’s a reminder about what gets the headlines.

Monday night at USC basketball was supposed to be all about Eric Musselman. Coaching his first game in charge of the USC men’s basketball program, the “Muss Bus” impressed in his debut. The Trojans dominated UT Chattanooga in a wire-to-wire 77-51 victory. Unfortunately for Musselman, however, he only had the spotlight for barely an hour after the game ended. That was because around 10 p.m. local time on Monday night in Los Angeles, it was reported that the football team was making a change at quarterback, and turning to Jayden Maiava to start against Nebraska.

Suddenly, Musselman and the basketball team were pushed to the back page. With the attention of USC fans naturally turning toward the big football news, they quickly forgot about the impressive performance from Musselman’s team in a game they had just watched.

Oh, and to top it all off, there was an election the next day — that was kind of important.

Fortunately for Musselman, Monday was only the first game of a long season. He and his team will have plenty of other opportunities to play their way back into the spotlight. USC beat Idaho State on Thursday in a game which was not on national television. It’s just as well: USC didn’t play particularly well. Yet, the Trojans are 2-0 and are trying to build something special under Musselman.

For the time being, however, being pushed aside by football in the news cycle must have been at least a little bit frustrating for the new head coach.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

NBA MVP visits USC as Eric Musselman focuses on improving team culture

A brush with stardom occurred for young Trojan hoopers: A 7-time NBA All-Star made an appearance at USC basketball practice this week.

The USC Trojans and Eric Musselman had a surprise visitor during their basketball practice earlier this week. Joel Embiid, a seven-time NBA All-Star for the Philadelphia 76ers, dropped by the Galen Center to watch USC basketball practice on Wednesday.

The 76ers were in Los Angeles on Wednesday to face the Clippers when the former MVP, who is currently sidelined due to a suspension, decided to visit the team.

Embiid comically towered over head coach Eric Musselman in a picture posted to Musselman’s X/Twitter account the same day.

Later that evening, Musselman attended the Clippers versus Sixers matchup and met up with former Trojans Caleb Martin and Ricky Council IV after the game, evidenced by another X/Twitter post.

Musselman is having an immediate impact on USC. He intends to start his tenure with a main focus on changing the culture of the team. Bringing in a former NBA MVP certainly helps to achieve that goal.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

USC endures frustrating night but survives Idaho State

USC overcame terrible free throw and 3-point shooting, plus multiple in-game injuries. The win over Idaho State was ugly, but it was also very important.

USC basketball started its season with a bang on Monday in a blowout of Chattanooga. The second game of the young season was a lot harder to watch. Thankfully, the Trojans were at least able to get a win, but there’s plenty to be concerned about after the 75-69 escape against Idaho State.

USC was favored by 23.5 points but went down to the wire, leading by only one point with 46 seconds left before Saint Thomas hit a decisive 3-pointer to rescue the Men of Troy. It was a night when hardly anything went right, but USC got the bottom-line result it needed. A loss to Idaho State would have been a hugely damaging result for the Trojans’ NCAA Tournament resume. That loss would have followed them all the way to Selection Sunday. USC avoided that stain and can try to figure out how to get better.

The first thing we have to mention about Thursday’s game in the Galen Center is how many injuries USC sustained. Matt Knowling got hurt. Jalen Shelley got hurt. Terrance Williams still wasn’t able to play; he missed the Chattanooga game as well. USC was shorthanded, and it showed.

USC also missed over 10 free throws and hit just 5 of 20 3-point shots. Those bad shooting numbers recalled the Andy Enfield era. The Trojans can’t continue to be that bad from the foul line and the 3-point arc.

Winning in spite of all those negative developments? It’s more of an achievement than some might think. The main thing: USC has to get healthy. The Trojans need their best players on the floor. That is their most direct path to improvement.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

One challenge for USC is to balance structure with freedom on offense

USC women’s basketball wants to give its star players freedom on offense, but that freedom didn’t translate into results against Ole Miss. This is tricky.

USC women’s basketball has a coach, Lindsay Gottlieb, who is very conscious about giving players freedom to make mistakes and learn how to read opposing defenses as they go along. This is how Gottlieb worked with JuJu Watkins in her freshman season. Gottlieb was not strict or overbearing in teaching Watkins. She was willing to live with JuJu making some bad decisions or taking some bad shots, knowing that JuJu was smart enough to figure things out and ask questions. Gottlieb did not want to place handcuffs on her superstar. JuJu made mistakes in the short run, but in the long run, that “long leash” approach earned a lot of respect and trust with JuJu. Gottlieb and Watkins developed a stronger relationship as a result of that patient approach from the head coach.

We are seeing signs of that same “wide berth” philosophy with Kiki Iriafen, the star transfer from Stanford who has helped make USC a leading national contender this season. Gottlieb wants to give Iriafen, not just JuJu, more freedom on the court.

Women’s basketball writer Sue Favor, at Women’s Hoops World, explored this point when writing about Iriafen:

Iriafen said the move to Troy has been a change from former Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer’s structure, to what she calls the professional style of Gottlieb, which has given her more flexibility.

“It’s given me better basketball IQ, and here there are so many great players that I’m just (working on) finding that flow in the offense,” Iriafen said. “I don’t have to score all the time, so I can (also) rebound and play defense.”

“It’s been a lot less pressure for me being here. I’m just trying to have fun in my senior year.”

The combination of Watkins and Iriafen is something that excites coaches and players alike.

“We get along super-great,” Iriafen said of her teammate. “She has a great work ethic…..if anything, we’re playing off of each other and letting each other doing our own thing. But we’re also looking for each other.”

Against Ole Miss, USC’s offense ran into problems. The tension for Gottlieb is, once again, accepting that some mistakes will be made when players get more freedom on the court, but knowing that in the long run, her players will respect and trust her as a result of being given that added amount of freedom. Short-term pain for long-term gain is the exchange Gottlieb is hoping for. Freedom within the offense is good, but there will need to be some structure at times, so that good defensive teams such as Ole Miss don’t give USC as many problems. This balancing act will be something to watch throughout the Trojans’ season.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Eric Musselman is already making very good decisions at USC

Eric Musselman’s exhibition win over Gonzaga fed this USC team’s confidence. Going hard in an exo was easy to second-guess, but it was the right move for USC.

Exhibition games shouldn’t be seen as season-defining events. They are, after all, exhibitions. They certainly don’t mean a whole lot in professional sports, other than potentially unearthing some lower-end roster decisions which could carry long-term benefits. Generally, though, we don’t focus on how Patrick Mahomes or LeBron James perform in exhibitions. In college basketball, it is usually the same. These are simply games in which coaches get to coach their players and give them a test drive before the real season begins. However, there can be exceptions to all of this, and Eric Musselman might have created one such exception at USC basketball. Kevin Sweeney of Sports Illustrated told us this about USC’s exhibition win over No. 6 Gonzaga in late October:

“USC didn’t treat this like an exhibition, really pushed its starters to the brink and did everything it could to win the game. Probably a decent move by Muss – try to build some buy-in and confidence inside the locker room while getting a big-name win to build excitement with the fans. Was impressed with how Claude looked as essentially a full-time point guard (a new role for him) and the positional size and shooting they have from 1-4 is impressive,” Sweeney said.

That decision by Musselman to go all-in for an exhibition game certainly seemed to feed USC’s confidence as a team. The Trojans looked very, very good in their 77-51 win over Chattanooga in the regular season opener on Monday. They looked like a cohesive team despite having only one player on the roster who returned from last season’s Andy Enfield team. On defense and offense, USC looked like well-connected team which knew exactly what it was supposed to do and where it was supposed to be on the floor. USC looked like a well-coached team.

Musselman could have soft-pedaled the Gonzaga game. Interestingly enough, it’s obvious Gonzaga did not go hard in that exo versus USC. The Zags just beat No. 9 Baylor by 38 points on Monday night. They took it easy on USC. Yet, USC beating Gonzaga still carried real value for the Trojans, who looked very confident in their win over Chattanooga. Eric Musselman made the right chess move, and it could have a huge effect on USC’s season. Let’s hope it does.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

College basketball analyst shares expectations for USC in 2024-2025

Making the NCAA Tournament is a realistic goal for USC in Year 1 under Eric Musselman, says a prominent basketball analyst. The Chattanooga win backs that up.

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.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Eric Musselman opens USC tenure with rout of Chattanooga

Eric Musselman made his USC basketball debut. Opening night could not have gone any better. The Trojans looked very well-coached throughout.

USC opened up its season with a dominant 77-51 victory over Chattanooga on Monday, beginning the Eric Musselman era with a bang. The Trojans looked like a well-oiled machine and did not play like a team which had just one returning player from Andy Enfield’s last team. This group, comprised almost entirely of transfers, looked sharp and connected at both ends of the floor. Guard Chibuzo Agbo scored a team-high 14 points on 4-of-9 from 3 while forward Matt Knowling added 13 off the bench. It was an all-around successful night for the Trojans, who had seven players score 8 or more points in the win. The Trojans held the Mocs to just 27.8% shooting from the floor including 17.6% beyond the arc.

The win is reflective of this team’s identity that was showcased in its exhibition win over Gonzaga in late October.

Kevin Sweeney, a college basketball writer for Sports Illustrated, put it this way:

“USC didn’t treat this (Gonzaga) like an exhibition, really pushed its starters to the brink and did everything it could to win the game. Probably a decent move by Muss – try to build some buy-in and confidence inside the locker room while getting a big-name win to build excitement with the fans. Was impressed with how Claude looked as essentially a full-time point guard (a new role for him) and the positional size and shooting they have from 1-4 is impressive.”

In his first year with the program, head coach Eric Musselman seems to be putting an emphasis on culture and making his players buy into his plan. While Chattanooga is one of the easier opponents this team will face this season, a big win, with no roadblocks, will make any Trojan fan happy. This was a very strong and positive opening game. Keep in mind that Terrance Williams, the Michigan transfer who is expected to be one of USC’s better scorers this season, did not play due to injury. USC did really well without him. Imagine what could happen when he gets healthy and gets playing time.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Talia von Oelhoffen gets an education from Ole Miss in USC debut

Talia von Oelhoffen had a very rough day at the office for USC, but she should be able to learn from this experience and become an anchor for the Trojans.

The USC women’s basketball team was fortunate to beat Ole Miss, 68-66, on Monday in Paris. The Trojans committed a whopping 26 turnovers. They made only one 3-point shot. They had a very hard time making field goals in the second half, relying on free throws to get over the finish line versus an excellent defensive team. Part of the reason this game was so difficult for USC is that one of its starters, point guard Talia von Oelhoffen, had a bad day at the office. This should not be seen as an indicator of what we are likely to see from her this season, but it is undeniably a point of concern.

We have to start with the obvious point that this is just one game. Let’s not react too strongly to a season opener against a good defensive team. Moreover, von Oelhoffen picked up three quick fouls and had to sit for large portions of this game. She then picked up a fourth foul in the third quarter. The whistle was a nightmare for her, and that explains most of her performance, in which she scored just two points and committed two turnovers. She did contribute a few assists and rebounds, and her defense contained real value for USC, but one can make a strong connection between USC’s disjointed offense and the fact that von Oelhoffen could not find a comfort zone at that end of the floor.

JuJu Watkins scored 27 points. Kiki Iriafen scored 22. They were both able to draw so much attention from Ole Miss defenders. Normally, von Oelhoffen should be able to feast when her two star teammates are scoring like that. In this game, she was stapled to the bench in the second quarter with foul trouble. In the second half, nothing USC’s offense did was able to work against an Ole Miss defense which controlled the last 15 minutes of games.

Players will get taken completely out of rhythm. It happens. It happens to great players, not just average ones. Talia von Oelhoffen now has to respond and show a capacity to make adjustments across the board — adjusting to the officiating, adjusting to tough on-ball defense, adjusting to defenses overplaying the passing lanes the way Ole Miss did. USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb will leave the Ole Miss game knowing she has to unlock TVO’s talents more than any other starter on the USC roster.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.

Kiki Iriafen shows why she is the key piece to the puzzle for USC

Kiki Iriafen does things USC wasn’t able to do last season. She offers so much needed versatility to the Trojans.

The USC women’s basketball team has JuJu Watkins as a returning superstar player this season. Rayah Marshall is back to provide defense, rebounding, and rim protection. The Trojans have the top-ranked freshman class this year. They have a lot of key pieces that go into creating a great team. The piece which might matter the most, however, is Kiki Iriafen. If you watched USC barely beat Ole Miss on Monday, you were instantly able to appreciate why Iriafen means so much to this Trojan roster.

USC had JuJu, Rayah, and some tough defenders who could shoot 3-pointers last season. It did not have a player like Iriafen. What do we mean?

USC had spot-up shooters who couldn’t create with the dribble. JuJu was the only player who could create consistently on the dribble drive to the basket. This made USC easier to guard. Iriafen can create with the dribble. She is agile near the basket but has the size to finish over a smaller defender. She can shoot over defenders. She is an agile player who can make plays on the perimeter, in the mid-range area, and at the rim from a forward position. JuJu gave USC elite versatility in the backcourt. Iriafen offers similar versatility in the frontcourt. The Trojans did not have a player like that last season. Iriafen will be able to pick up the slack if JuJu struggles. Crucially, Iriafen can get to the rim if JuJu struggles. There wasn’t a USC player who could regularly do that on last season’s roster.

Iriafen’s 22 points came without one 3-point make against Ole Miss. She was operating 15 feet from the basket or closer. She can draw fouls and get to the line in crunch time, as she showed against Ole Miss. USC doesn’t win this game without Iriafen. This is why the Trojans have so much more upside than they did last season.

Visit our friends at Fighting Irish Wire, Buffaloes Wire, Ducks Wire, UW Huskies Wire and UCLA Wire.