Entering September, we at Trojans Wire were really excited about the new college sports cycle for 2023 and 2024. We still have USC baseball coming up in February, and the Trojans should be good when they hit the diamond under Andy Stankiewicz. Yet, the big buzz at USC coming into this autumn surrounded both football and basketball.
The football team was definitely expecting to win the Pac-12 and contend for the College Football Playoff. We all saw how that turned out. Lincoln Riley and Alex Grinch presided over a massive failure, a huge disappointment for the community of Trojan fans who had such high hopes in the first few weeks of the season.
Men’s basketball was supposed to be really good — not necessarily special, but certainly with a chance to be special. The Trojans had the No. 1 recruit in the United States for 2023, Isaiah Collier. Boogie Ellis came back for one more season. Vince Iwuchukwu was hopefully going to get healthier. D.J. Rodman was supposed to be a big portal pickup from Washington State, where he gave USC problems as a Cougar. Bronny James, once he joined the team, had a chance to provide a major boost.
Nothing has worked. Nothing has taken off for this program under struggling coach Andy Enfield. The Trojans have five losses before Christmas and are likely to miss the NCAA Tournament. They will need a huge Pac-12 season to get on the bubble and then get into March Madness.
Football: swing and a miss.
Men’s basketball: swing and a miss.
Women’s basketball, however, has been a home run.
To compare the toughness of the USC women’s basketball team to the football team and the men’s basketball team, simply consider how each team has dealt with injuries over the past few months.
USC’s offensive line never seemed to recover from the Gino Quinones injury. The Trojans’ offensive line performance declined after that one injury. This is not to say that injuries shouldn’t matter, but no one went into 2023 thinking that Quinones was a centerpiece or anchor of the line, such that an injury to him figured to be catastrophic. Yet, that one piece of the puzzle greatly affected USC. Other guys thrust into action just didn’t perform well.
Justin Dedich didn’t play well. Michael Tarquin didn’t play well. Jarrett Kingston was spotty. Only Jonah Monheim really excelled on the offensive line. That wasn’t nearly enough to give the Trojans what they needed.
Men’s basketball faced a home game against UC Irvine in which Boogie Ellis and Kobe Johnson didn’t play. Isaiah Collier was still on the floor. D.J. Rodman was still on the floor. Even without two important players, USC still had some dudes on the court.
The Trojans lost to Irvine, 70-60. Not by two or three points, but 10. At home. Other players didn’t step up with the big dogs out. The Trojans didn’t offer a lot of resistance and didn’t carry themselves like a top-end team.
Now go to Thursday, December 21. The USC women were missing superstar JuJu Watkins, the second-leading scorer in the country. The Women of Troy were missing their double-double defender-rebounder Rayah Marshall, their second-best player behind Watkins. USC was also missing Kaitlyn Davis, a superb role player who helps with scoring and rebounding but also does a lot of things (passing, cutting, setting screens) which don’t show up in the box score. USC lacked each of its three best players.
Football and men’s basketball crumbled in the face of some roster limitations.
The women regrouped and beat Long Beach State on the road, with role player McKenzie Forbes stepping up and scoring 36 points.
Two prominent USC sports programs floundered and could not respond well to adversity. USC women’s basketball, on the other hand, could not have responded any better. This shows how poorly Lincoln Riley and Andy Enfield have coached their own teams, but it also shows how well Lindsay Gottlieb and lead assistant Beth Burns are guiding the Women of Troy this season.
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