The USC Trojans didn’t know when or if Vince Iwuchukwu was going to join them when this college basketball season began. This past week, we finally got some reports which pointed to medical clearance for the five-star recruit, who suffered an episode of cardiac arrest this past July.
There was speculation that Iwuchukwu could play on Saturday against Utah, but USC was able to get him into the Colorado game on Thursday. All told, Iwuchukwu played 11 minutes this week — five against CU, six versus Utah — and got his feet wet in the world of college basketball.
Iwuchukwu made a very minimal statistical footprint, but he was able to play a few game segments and begin his college basketball education.
He played in the first half against Colorado, and in the second half against Utah. Andy Enfield put him in different situations to acclimate him to a wider set of circumstances. Against Utah, he was able to defend smaller offensive players and cover more of the floor. He grabbed a defensive rebound and made a small but noticeable step forward in his development.
Enfield achieved something valuable this week: not only giving Iwuchukwu some minutes, but doing so without drastically disrupting the USC rotation. Playing Iwuchukwu could have reduced USC’s defensive chemistry and led to a bad game sequence and a costly loss to either CU or Utah, but USC was able to integrate Iwuchukwu into the lineup and not lose either of these two games. Iwuchukwu was initiated without paying any price in terms of wins and losses.
Now USC has four days before the Arizona game on Thursday. Iwuchukwu can look at what he did and study game film. We will see if Enfield is able to play him eight or nine minutes (up from five or six) and get more defense from Iwuchukwu. If he can defend Arizona’s big men, Azuolas Tubelis and/or Oumar Ballo, on Thursday, USC’s ability to handle Arizona’s offense becomes much better.
No one should expect any offensive contributions from Iwuchukwu just yet, but if he can add to USC’s defense, the Trojans could make noticeable improvements just in time for some of the bigger games of their season in Arizona.
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