We mean this sincerely: We’re happy to see so many people freshly interested in USC men’s basketball. We welcome one and all to our coverage of USC hoops. We’re certainly not going to say, imply, or suggest that people should have been following this program very closely in previous years. UCLA is and has been the big cheese in Los Angeles-area college hoops. The Bruins and Arizona have been the class of the Pac-12 the past few years. Oregon was a big-time basketball school six years ago under coach Dana Altman.
We can be honest with ourselves and admit that USC has very rarely fielded elite men’s college basketball teams. The 1971 team, the school’s best ever, was elite. So was the 1974 team. So was 1940, when USC made the Final Four. The 1992 team grabbed a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, USC’s highest seed in March Madness history.
That’s pretty much it. USC has not been an enduringly successful college basketball school. Why would casual sports fans in Los Angeles be expected to pack the Galen Center?
Now that Bronny James is here, however, that is going to change. People will want to be at Galen. They will want to see Bronny. They will want to see a USC team which has real star power and a higher ceiling than any other USC team in recent memory.
This is all very new. If you’re new to USC basketball, let’s take this time to give you a primer on the history and identity of this program, plus the 2023-2024 Trojans: