Chris and Mark discuss all elements of USC's impressive 82-69 victory over Kansas State in Vegas on Monday while looking ahead to the home opener on Thursday against Cal-State Bakersfield.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Chris and Mark discuss all elements of USC's impressive 82-69 victory over Kansas State in Vegas on Monday while looking ahead to the home opener on Thursday against Cal-State Bakersfield.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Welcome to the Dunk City podcast. All right, welcome back to the Dunk City podcast. My name is Chris Houston on, the owner and publisher of USC basketball dot com. This is the only website and podcast devoted entirely to USC basketball. We don't spend time talking about any other sports and we don't really get into any other team unless USC is playing them, so thanks for joining us. Obviously, everyone's really excited about USC's 82 69 victory over Kansas State in Vegas on Monday night. I thought it was a really impressive win and it served notice to the college basketball world that USC is for real. So let's start talking about it by bringing on our co-host, mark Baxter, who is our analytics guy. If you want to find him on Twitter, he goes by Buck Metrics. Incidentally, you can also find us on Twitter. We are at USCBasketball underscore and we're also on the tiki tack. Mark, how are you doing and what did you think of the game?
Speaker 2:Uh, very good, as I said in the column ahead of schedule.
Speaker 1:Seems like it, right, yeah. So what did you think? What were your impressions of the game? Uh, both from just you know, a visceral standpoint and, uh, from an analytics standpoint.
Speaker 2:You know um, visually, obviously, the first thing that stands out is is Isaiah Collier in his first game at this level. Boy he, just he kind of, was able to do whatever he wanted for the most part, um, seemed like really to a degree, he, he. The only thing that stopped him was himself when he tried to get a little fancy in a couple of instances. Does that seem like a fair characterization to you?
Speaker 1:Sure, and that's something that we saw, I think, you know, in the summer, um, you know, with uh and also just in his high school career. He is a very um able passer but he does essentially occasionally um take some chances and I think that's okay, especially uh in the early going. He's going to clean that up and a couple of his of his turnovers were also of the nature where they were they were actually they were less um careless than um than I'd seen uh over the summer, like, for instance, uh, I think he stepped out on the end line on this on the baseline one time and um, I think that's you know, that's just something about, you know, getting better spatial awareness and nothing like incredibly careless, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh no, though that just certainly not a hole in his game. I mean, you see this all the time with freshman and you know, I'm, I'm sure season opener and especially, you know, in a venue like Las Vegas, I that's just going to happen. Um, you know, it was interesting to during the broadcast. Um, you know, the way Grant Hill was talking about Collier was was interesting to me. Um, a lot of times when these analysts are asked about a, you know, hey, what do you think about player X in the NBA, they'll use kind of a high pitch and say, well, you know he might have a chance and it's. It was so the opposite. I don't know if you noticed this too. He had such a serious tone talking about Collier in a way of, yeah, I'll be seeing this guy, you know, in the NBA for sure, um, deferentially, just just like he's trying to set it up. So, collier, will, you know, kind of do him a solid when he's in in the NBA. I don't know if you noticed that as well. I'm kind of a broadcast nerd.
Speaker 1:Uh, well, I didn't notice that particular thing, but I did notice that the broadcasters were actually very um, uh, they, they like they had taken Valium. I thought they were very, uh, uh, understated and also not seemingly engaged, uh, in the process. I think there was one point in the game where they were talking about again doing that, the usual piece with Andy infield and fuller golf course, which, you know, every game that is on a on a national network will always have their segment on Florida golf coast and any infield, and so they do this. Uh, there's some kind of tie up on the court and they're doing their, their little segment on Florida golf coast. Uh, there's a whistle.
Speaker 1:Uh, there's no comment on on what's going on with the whistle and we go to commercial and that is I posted uh on the game thread. You know, uh, you know who's. Was it a foul? Let's stay tuned and find out. Um, because that's pretty much uh, it was not a very good uh broadcast. Uh, I thought our telecast I should say so bad telecast and uh, you know things like, uh, isaiah Collier, like I was following the game on the, the stats, so I knew how many fouls Isaiah Collier had, but they weren't mentioning it, like there had been no mention of well, that's his third foul or well, that's his fourth foul, you know. So when he fouled out, they were like oh, he fouled out. So it's like yeah, yeah, thanks for following, yeah.
Speaker 2:That was a surprise to me too. Um, they didn't really mention when. Um, I think when Morgan went on the bench that he had that was his second foul. I, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that either. I'm like, I'm like, why isn't Morgan playing? And cause I hadn't, um, I just hadn't been able to, you know, check, check the fouls at that point. And so I'm like, uh, and then I realized later that he hadn't played, because some of these fouls a couple of them had like, for instance, I think there was one in particular for Isaiah Collier, where that was assigned to him that I think really should have been assigned to someone else.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah and yeah, I don't want to spend too much time on the telecast. But yeah, agree, it was subdued as a very generous word on your end. Um, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Um, but uh, you know, I agree with you. Um, isaiah Collier, definitely the highlight of the game. What's really cool is that he carried over what we saw in the summer and in high school over to the college level quite easily and he really just controls, uh, the tempo and the sort of the pace of the game, which is really cool. And uh obviously seemed to be able to score at will. The fact that he could do that he was doing that in high school and um, in the all star games over the summer and and so the fact that he can just come over and score at will against uh, uh, pretty good um, division one team is encouraging and I thought, just overall, the the movement on the offense uh was excellent. There was lots of uh um, good passes. Uh, I think we had 17 total assist, which is which is a really good number, and uh, just in general, there was good energy. Uh, I thought the defense was excellent Uh, and everyone looked like they were in really good shape and uh, very athletic yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, it seemed to me too, the movement was unless I'm just misremembering or just didn't catch, it seemed like the movement was a lot better than the second half too, and I don't know if that was maybe to your point about being in shape where we're just easier to get. It was easier to get open off better, quicker cuts Over tired defenders.
Speaker 1:Uh.
Speaker 2:I was a little frustrated in the first half that it seemed to be a little too one-on-one at times.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, I, there was definitely a few cases of that and I think it's just it was a matter of some of these guys kind of getting their getting their feet uh settled, uh, in the new season. Yeah, um, and once, I think, once they started playing, and once they started, uh, once Collier especially started just forcing the issue, um, I think things kind of opened up from there. It's really cool because because with him in there like I think we talked about this in one of our previous podcasts the offense can be stagnant and then he can just un-stagnate it. You know, he can just come in and say, okay, I'm just going to get a couple buckets, you know, get some N ones, and this will result in the rest of the team sort of like, uh, you know waking up a bit, uh, the defense, you know focusing on him, and then suddenly guys are open, they've got their shots and and I think a lot of what he does is contagious, because it's funny, I think he comes out, scores 15 points in the first half.
Speaker 1:Boogie uh started out a little slow and I think this sort of you know got Boogie going. It's like, hey, I got to keep up with this guy, and so, uh. So Boogie comes in and he finishes strong, it's a great one, two punch. Uh. Then Kobe, same same, uh, same thing with him, where he he sort of started a little slow and then came along and just of course you're the great defense, uh, the whole time with Kobe. And so that trio man, I don't know what we're going to call it, three amigos or something, but that trio needs a nickname because it's the best backcourt in the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely agree, and more on the Collier theme was really interesting was that the what turned out to be really the decisive run of the game happened, with him mostly on the bench, and yet at the same time, as soon as he fouled out, my gosh who among us was not was not thinking oh my gosh, how desperately we would want this kid back in the game right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wasn't honestly too worried because I felt, like you know, we were controlling the game defensively and certainly Kansas State was not having a good shooting night. As we talked about before. They aren't a particularly good shooting team. They do have a couple of good shooters but they're not particularly good. There are some guys you know, like Arthur Columa, really struggled from from the field. They played pretty good defense but not good enough to really to really be able to handle just the physicality that USC brings on the offensive side of the ball and you know the our bigs certainly.
Speaker 1:I think when Arrington Page came in, which, which you know, I got to give a big shout out to him. His big knock coming out of high school was that every time I'd seen him, you know he wasn't a very high energy guy, especially on defense. So what does he do? He comes in the game immediately, does this leaping steel where it gets on the ground and I almost look like he caught the ball with his, with his palm that's how big his hands are but he gets on the ground, grabs the ball, secures it, gets the steel and from there, you know, every young guy has this moment where they realize they can play college basketball and some guys takes longer for that realization to hit. Some guys it happens right away. Isaiah Collier happened from the tip but Arrington Page came in and getting on the floor, getting that ball and making a great play right there I think did a lot for his confidence and it certainly showed that he was ready to come in there and and play hard.
Speaker 1:And I thought you know like, like you mentioned in your column, there were some times where he wasn't as sharp as he could have been on defense, but he wasn't completely lost, certainly wasn't as completely lost as some of our freshmen looked at times last year. To me it's very promising. He's a very promising prospect and the fact that you know he's still coming off of of mono and still recovering probably wasn't in full game shape. Once this guy gets in game shape he's you know he's 611 and can really move around and it's now you can add him when, once Vince gets back. You had this incredible trio not incredible. We have a very good trio at the five spot that you can rotate in Lots of versatility, lots of athleticism, lots of rim protection. Once Vince comes back, you're going to have some scoring with that as well and good finishing down below. So, gosh, it's really exciting prospect to see Arrington Page just coming in and contributing right away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I had you not had mentioned that, I wouldn't have thought that he had. It was getting over anything. I didn't see anything about boy. This guy needs to get in shape, or needs to kind of you know, catch up to the speed of the game.
Speaker 1:Well, he was having a poppin at one point. He was definitely not in perfect shape at one point during his run and I think Andy Enfield mentioned that a little bit later on, after the game.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. The other thing on on on page is a really good thing, obviously, aside from just having a nice win over a legit power 16,. You know, playing a team like Kansas State it really removes any doubt about. Okay, you know this is nice in the nonconference season, but you know, can he bring it in pack 12 play?
Speaker 2:I've seen that a lot, where you know a freshman will have a big game in November or December and there's still a doubt about, okay, when you get to the conference games, you know, are they going to be able to bring it? You know I'm not saying that case they would win the pack 12, but they're definitely would. They would fit into our conference from a talent standpoint, especially, you know, length and athleticism, athleticism, pardon me standpoint. So it just really puts the might of these about to your point. Yeah, this, this guy is, you know, part of a rotation that that is going to be, you know, not fun to deal with if you're an opponent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know every freshman has upsides and downsides, in the sense that the upside is that they're doing the first around, right, the first time they get contact with, with a, with a, an opponent the opponent doesn't have a whole lot of film on them, hasn't played them before and in the conference level you do the first. The first time you go around usually is your best, right for the freshman. It's the second time you come around, second time you play these teams that maybe you start to hit the wall, right. So. So Kansas State didn't know, probably wasn't really trying to prepare for Erranton Page too much going in and they will probably will never see him again, at least you know, not anytime soon. So so for for him, like that's a great position for a freshman to come in and just sort of like come in without having being the focus of the other teams, attention, and so that's when, if you're really a prepared freshman, you can make an impact right away. So and then when he goes, when he gets to pack 12 play, it's going to be the same type of thing that first, those first nine games, those first nine conference games, he'll probably be more effective than in the last night. If he's special, then you hit a little wall and then you rebound, you know, in the last half of that last night, right, and you're ready by by the end of conference tournament. All that stuff which is something like like Evan Mobley, for example, would probably be a great example of that.
Speaker 1:He had a little, a little lull at some point. I think it was around the second time they started playing the other, the other teams in the conference. But if you know, if you can bounce through that, that's that's when you're a special freshman. But with Erranton Page it's definitely a good sign that he can come in first game of his career and really equit himself. Well, six points for rebounds at a steal, I think in 14 minutes, had some nice finishes and you know, hey, like you know you asked, for example of him being a little winded is the fact that he you know that that he had a shot blocked by the rim on that on that one finish Was an example of he just couldn't get up, he just didn't have any juice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair, fair, he seems a lot more confident. Finishing, I'd say that this is not a slight on Johnny, but just, you know, johnny, just I don't know if he's a little more reticent just to kind of throw it down, and maybe that's because Paige is more athletic, but you know, paige does not, does not seem to lack for confidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, paige is not only more athletic, but he's just. He's just longer right. So the great thing about page is that you know if you can lift, you know if you can raise your your, your hands with the ball and your couple feet above the rim. It's going to really help you finish, whereas Kejani is a burly guy but he's not the longest guy, right. So I think you know he did have that. First I think he scored a little baby hook, a quick jump hook early and then, and then I think he missed his next shot. But I think to some extent in the back of his mind he's thinking I've got to get this shot off in a crafty way because I'm not the longest guy and I might get blocked. I think once Kejani gets kind of that past that, that notion that he's worried about getting a shot blocked, once he gets past that I think he'll he'll start to settle down a bit and score. But I but I think that you know he's a guy who's going to have his, his really good moments this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, agree.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the analytics of what you saw, or, I guess, the analytics of what happened against Kansas State. We have our Boosgar and BP 100 ratings. Can you give me like the kind of the order of Boosgar for the team, this in this game and and maybe just do a really quick, just a really quick introduction to people who don't know Boosgar is? You can find it over at uscbasablecom on the Buck Buck metrics tab, which is where Mark is. Analytics have their home for right now. So, yeah, just give him a little quick, quick acquaintance and then let's know, let us know what what you saw.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, just a thumbnail sketch. First of all, we get the number of opportunities for each player and we define an opportunities, basically, when they created a bucket through points or an assist, or they had a turnover, we take the total of opportunities that they had and we divide their number of points for the game basically by by points scored or created by an assist, divided by those opportunities, and that gets us, that gets us the BP 100. The Boosgar is a measure of okay, how many buckets did they create? For the number of opportunities above replacement, or as we say the R, and Boosgar is for our beloved Rico Heinz, former foe from across town at UCLA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Rico Heinz is. A is a deep album cut for those of you who follow college basketball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's the thumbnail is Chris said. Go ahead and look on the on the site for a more detailed explanation. So for this game the top Boosgar player was actually boogie at 7.1. You know, I think the big thing there's five assists, which little unexpected considering. You know we have a.
Speaker 2:We have a top notch point guard named Isaiah Collier for turnovers but he was very efficient with with the ball and scoring. Number two was was actually Josh Morgan at 5.4. You know, really efficient. His BP 100 was 61.3, which I think, if I'm looking here, was the top of any player in the game. You know he had two turnovers but you know very high percentage in terms of is shooting percentage was five or six from the field. That'll help a lot. You know, when you have a high shooting percentage that's obviously is going to help your Boosgar a lot. Third was Isaiah at 4.9. Obviously he had a great game. The big drawback there was the six turnovers, which is going to drive your number of opportunities up without a bucket. Any questions about those so far. Do want to go a little deeper here.
Speaker 1:No, that's good. Actually, I have a few comments on a few of them. I think if you actually look at obviously you look you consolidate some of these, these metrics by position and if you want to consider Isaiah and Boogie as both like the primary ball handlers or the main ball handlers handlers, you're looking at 11 assists from the main ball handling position and that's excellent. Of course, there were 10 turnovers, but still 11 assists is good and I think that Boogie is a better assist man when he doesn't have to be the assist man if that makes sense, right, I think, I think when he doesn't have to worry about being the main guy, I think it leaves him open to be more creative.
Speaker 1:And he had some really nice creative, creative passes that that converted for points. And then I think it's funny, it's like you look at Josh Morgan 11 points, only three rebounds, but and but he had to assist in five blocks. And that's if we can get 11 points and five blocks out of Joshua Morgan. On most nights he did this in 22 minutes as well, Right, yeah, and so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, if you know, if you can get, like I said earlier on the last podcast, if if USC can get 13 points out of Morgan and Vince Iwachukwu, then that's a really good output, I think, from that position. And, of course, now you have Aranton Page who looks like he's going to also you know, also be a contributor there. So, like you're looking at the volume of that position potentially going into, it could be, you know, 18, 19, 20 points a game out of that position, which is nice, because you're going to get 45 points a game out of Boogie and Isaiah and Kobe, most likely somewhere in that range. So you're looking at a really strong output from from the five spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's when, when I, when I grouped the, the big men together for USC and Kansas State I don't want to say that where this is, the game was won or lost, but it's really kind of the, the place where it was sneakily won or lost Our bigs combined for a boost car of positive 12.2. And to the point about Josh's defense, I think this is a huge part of that Kansas State's bigs had a boost car of negative 7.3. That's that's, you know, a 20, 20 buckets swing there between the two Again. And it's not like you watch the game and said, oh my gosh, usc's bigs are dominating, because you know, our eyes are more focused on the offensive side of the ball. And they had, they definitely had moments and they were efficient, but you never thought that offensively we were taking over, but really defensively we shut down their bigs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, To your point, Go ahead. Sorry, yeah, you know, Josh is he had three blocks really early in the game and I think that's sort of set the stage for the interior defense and and people can say, well, K state wasn't shooting well. There might have been a reason they weren't shooting well, which is like when you're worried about your shotgun in blocked, you don't. You maybe you're putting a little extra, extra arc on it, Maybe you're not doing what you would normally do in that situation. So I think that's certainly contributed. It's the blocks and and the the threat of the block that Josh brings certainly contributed, I think, to Kansas state's overall poor shooting percentage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the other thing too, as we touched on briefly in the preview of this game is is they really miss Noel? They don't have really a playmaker, and I think that their big men were trying to do stuff that they really weren't asked to do last season in terms of creating more on their own. I was surprised that that I saw Kuluma handling and trying to create so much that just didn't compute with. I don't remember seeing him play last year, but just from a metric standpoint last year he wasn't really a, you know, a standout creator from from a big man position.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, he's more like a, he's more like a wing, you know, or he plays, he plays like a, like a three. This just you know. Given his size and everything like that, I think he's forced to play inside because they don't have a ton of of the quality big men. It's interesting. You look at the. If you were, if you had not watched the game and saw Tyler Perry's line 22 points, six rebounds, six assists, only one turnover, four steals you'd be coming away thinking, thinking that he had a really good game. And obviously the numbers are there. But to me those were. These were numbers that were, you know, chasing. You know they were chasing a USC with those numbers. They weren't a thing that they weren't numbers that were controlling the game like you would. You would like if you're a K state fan.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, yeah, his BPO 100, as I mentioned in the column, is actually the best of any perimeter guard at a 58.3. But I wouldn't call them empty calories, I would call them maybe a, as you said, in a chase mode is a very good opportunity, or your description of it, and kind of the one of those situations where somebody has to get some points here. I guess as well. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly Okay, let's talk a little bit about the Boussqar element with the game against Kansas State.
Speaker 2:We went through. I think we talked through Collier right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we talked about his turnovers.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, I've just got this sorted a different way. Yeah, so the next most productive player for USC side from a Boussqar perspective was actually Arrington Page, with a 3.1 in just a brief 14 minutes, which is really promising. You know, we've talked about him a bit. But you couple that relatively high production in a short amount of time and it leads to a BPO 100 of 60, which trailed only Josh Morgan on the team. Interesting that our big men, as I said before, were so efficient.
Speaker 1:But that's sneakily where we really took advantage of K-State here, yeah, and I think that that was probably something that wasn't anticipated, but I think it's a precursor to what we're going to see here more and more, as especially just the getting overall consistency out of some of these players. These main three are very consistent, of the main guards, and then Morgan is hopefully becoming a more consistent player, and then it's just a matter of and then, of course, dj Robin is another factor. He didn't have a great game. He did do some nice things here and there and he had a couple of key plays down the stretch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I was about to mention him, and he and Sellers were the two that stood out from an unfortunate performance in terms of metrics. They had a BPO for Rodney of 23.6 and Sellers of 25, which is really really below average, and this just stems from their poor shooting on the night. Each of them were one for five. You know Rodman's better than that. I think you might have mentioned this in the preview. I think it might take him some time to acclimate to not being just, you know, a first or second option, as he was at Washington State and trying to, you know, figure out okay, how does my game fit into this new system and new tempo and where I fit in? Does that seem like a fair assessment?
Speaker 1:No, totally. I think it's pretty natural for this type of thing to take a little bit of time. This guy's a proven player. He's not like you said. He's the fourth option most likely in the offense, and the fourth option doesn't usually get a lot of opportunities. He had five shots he had, you know, he attempted three, three pointers, Didn't make any of them, but he did get four rebounds and, like I said, he had a couple key plays down the stretch and I think that's really what he's there for.
Speaker 1:I mean, you don't need DJ Rodman to score a lot of points. What we do need is DJ Rodman to make veteran savvy plays when things can go either way for the team and to kind of write the ship. He's a write the ship kind of guy and I think he's comfortable with that and I think you need those kind of guys in your team because not everybody can be the guy that goes out and just keeps. You know, shoots the rock every time down the court. But he will have those games where he does. He does hit a lot of big shots and you need those kind of guys.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely Proving. You know, proven commodity. Just you know, once he settles in, it will be fun and there'll be one or two, as we call you know, a DJ Rodman game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly it wasn't. It wasn't his night and that's okay, but I, you know, didn't didn't shoot great. Obviously he did have that one great tip back, which which was surprising and I think that's sort of a indication to me I thought he looked a lot more athletic out there. He looked a lot more assertive athletically on that one play where he was. I think he looked like he thought he was going to come in and dunk from from from an absurdly far place and he took off way early. It was kind of lucky he got. He got. He got fouled because because he probably went to made it to the rim, but I but I liked, I kind of liked his attitude about it and I liked that he was just going to go up there and and and just try to challenge I forget who he was going up against just try to challenge the K-State player and just get up there and just be strong about it. And so I did like that. It looked to me like he was.
Speaker 1:He was definitely being more sort of it didn't show up in the box score as far as making the shots, I think it's a matter of time with him. And then, of course, harrison Hornery I thought, you know, he wasn't a big factor in offense. I thought he did some nice things defensively. He got a block shot. He did some good, you know, did some good help help defense. So you know these are guys that are that are going to have to accept their roles, come in and try to try to get what they can while they can, but also to be satisfied with just going out there and and playing hard and not worrying about about getting their shots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two things. On Hornery I was about to bring him up, so I'm glad that you did. Interesting that he had the most minutes off the bench. I don't know if you caught that, I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Seventeen yeah, yeah, I did see that. He, you know, I think it's just a function of the fact that you know he is a big body, but he can also get out there and shoot. It looks like they were trying to set him up for some shots. He only got one shot off, but yeah he's. He's sort of like a swing reserve in that he can play with with the small lineup or with the big lineup and of course he, you know, he is a junior, so at this point he's a junior, right, yeah, no, wait, yeah, he's a junior, so he's, he's bringing some level of of experience. He knows what he's doing out there at this point and so and you know, that's something that is a strength there's not a whole lot of guys out there who don't know what they're doing right now, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to that I think the other thing that he brings I think it was it was he who had that really nice interior pass big to big, and that's one thing I was a little concerned about and I think that he does that. He had no turnovers in 17 minutes. I, he, he plays well within himself and he just he doesn't really do the bonehead stuff that you'd especially expect from a guy from a bench that's pushing too hard. Yeah Well, in fact none of it.
Speaker 1:None of the bench players had a turnover, which is actually a good thing, I mean, obviously a good thing. But you come in, you come in and and, and you know, don't mess up. And I think last year that wasn't the case. Some of these guys would come in, whether it was Johnny Wright or Zaya Sellers, they'd come in and maybe they, you know, sort of grip a bit and get caught up in the moment and throw the ball away. And you didn't see that in this game. So you know, if the first, if the first thing you want to do as a reserve is do no harm, then then then all these guys pass the test.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. So all in all, I thought, a convincing, solid, impressive victory that I thought really we announced to the National College basketball or to the college basketball world that USC is a serious contender. The Pac-12, if we, if we weren't thought of already, we surely should be thought of of that now. I think we moved up to number 15 in Ken Palm overnight and I think I think this is definitely should be considered a top 15 team. The rest of the way, you know, of the preseason, given all the number of weapons that are there, and I think there's only going to be between now and Gonzaga, there's not really any, any major tests. There's the tournament down in San Diego with Seton Hall in Oklahoma and or Iowa, so those will obviously be more of a challenge than Brown and UC Irvine and Washington, but it looks like there's a good chance for US CDV 7 and 0 when they go back to Vegas to play Gonzaga.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agree, hey, can we just hit on two more topics on this one before we move on? Absolutely All right, first one, I just I have three little bullet points here that I would just, you know, broadly put under coaching. One thing that I'd love to see when Kansas State went to a zone, the first thing, our first possession, we had a silly turnover where we had a kind of a bad or lazy entry pass.
Speaker 1:That was that was buggy. Yeah, that was trying to get it. To try to get it to the, to the, to the guy at the top of the key. Yeah, I think it was Morgan.
Speaker 2:And then what? Yeah, it was. And then, right after that, what did we do? We followed it up with two zone busting jumpers, which just is literally the best, absolutely the best outcome you could have after that, because, you know, you just get a little uncertain about oh my gosh, do we know what to do? And back to back, we just, we kind of put that thing to bed really quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Kansas State didn't run the zone. After that they're like OK, we're done with the zone.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then, speaking of zone on the other side, you know, when Kansas State kind of had their last gasp with the ball in about 90 seconds left and feel just went to the zone out of nowhere. I love he tends to do that in late game situations where he just kind of keeps it in his back pocket and it's not a shutdown move, it's just kind of like a delay tactic, like oh my gosh, what are we supposed to do here? It was great because you could see just the hesitation in Kansas Kansas State, pardon me and they're just like what do we do? Oh my gosh, we're in a hurry. They just didn't recognize what to do. It was a brilliant move.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you're going into I agree with that You're going into its first game of the season and you slip into a zone and now the other teams got to get into their zone. Offense switch over real quick and I think that, after dealing with the intensity that USC brought defensively, bringing that extra look is definitely something that I think is a challenge for other teams to deal with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then last little point in the coaching thing just there were a couple instances where they just had Kansas State has had just a couple of really easy penetrations and just led to the big man coming out to help and then all of a sudden the baseline guys wide open for an easy dunk. Just little thing to work on. I don't know if that's coaching or just execution, but just stood out to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, just to recognition that they have guys who are good athletes, who are going to make some plays and you can't stop everything and sometimes they're going to make the right read, the right cut and the right pass.
Speaker 1:And having a guy like Morgan back there is good, but this is also maybe one of the drawbacks you get when you, when you play smaller with DJ Robin at the four, so maybe that's something that doesn't happen as much when when you have Vince there with with Kejani, or Vince with with Arrington, or Morgan with Arrington. So so, yeah, I think this is something that teams are going to are going to try to take advantage of. But I think we have really a good enough into your defense. And you see, and then you have, you know, kobe Johnson coming and and, as these bigs, I think, columa a couple of times you know he tried to get down on the blocks and set up and then Kobe just came and picked his pocket coming around. So knowing that, knowing that you have Morgan to deal with on your back to try to get a shot over him, and then you've got a Tasmanian devil coming at stripping you from the other side is is something that is, psychologically, I think, tough to deal with when you're working the post against USC.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very much. So Believe me, if I'm, if I'm complaining about that, I'm getting deep into picking knits. Except for the other thing I want to talk about and if you can give me just a 90 second runway here on rebounding and I'll try to be nice, OK, Clearly we need to improve on the defense of rebounding. I think that we were. We're very fortunate that Kansas State, as I mentioned, is a pretty ragged offensive team, or else we you know we didn't have to pay for our sins on the rebounding end.
Speaker 2:What was really odd was for a while there there were so many missed shots because of solid defense and missed follow ups because of poor rebounding, but more solid defense. It was almost a bad analog to defensive stat patting where we were just driving down the defensive field goal percentage. It just seemed like that for a while. We're going to need, it seems like and he came through with eight, but it seems we're going to need at least five rebounds a game from Kobe and to have this not be a problem and the other thing is that it gets a little lost is we need the bigs to rebound so we can get Collier and transition. You know when your guards are coming back. It's not quite the same as a big man who just gets it and can look up court for, you know, for Collier and transition, Because those are going to be the easiest buckets that we get game in, game out is Collier and transition.
Speaker 1:Absolutely A couple of things about that One. Sometimes the other team is shooting so poorly that that you know you're playing defense and you don't expect the ball to be shot that poorly and maybe you're not ready for for help, help, you know, ready for that rebound in a sense right, like it's not an orthodox set. They're maybe the thrown up a wild shot and you're like, wow, that guy threw up a shot and then it bounces, bounces off the rim and it hits. There was a few of those, I would say like there was a few of those where the ball is just kind of bouncing around in a weird way and sometimes those are just hard, to hard to get a hold of. So, second, you know, obviously some of their outfits of rebounding was just the the product of them missing a lot of shots as well.
Speaker 1:To our next, I would say to your point about Kobe rebounding, I agree with that and it's not just the rebounding.
Speaker 1:If one thing they did do a good job, and one reason why Kobe had so many rebounds in the game and one reason why Boogie had a lot of rebounds in the game, is that the Biggs did a pretty good job boxing out.
Speaker 1:They weren't necessarily getting the rebounds all the time, but they were boxing out well.
Speaker 1:And if you box out well, then you've got Isaiah Collier coming in to swoop in and get that rebound and start doing that transition that you talked about. So you know, if, once you get our, if our guards can get more rebounds, or if it can be, if the Biggs can do the work for the guards to come in and get the rebounds, then we're going to be going right into transition really quickly and that'll probably arguably be a faster way to get in transition than if the Biggs have got the rebounds themselves. So so, yeah, so I think that's as long as it doesn't really matter to me who gets the rebound, as long as as long as everyone's pitching in, as long as the guards are crashing, knowing that, knowing that there's going to be a space for them to get it, then I think we could be successful, kind of we're not going to have a single dominant rebounder, but I think we can be a good rebounding team overall because of just everyone working together, everyone crashing the boards.
Speaker 2:Yep, fair. Two points. Number one I guess you don't coach your, your Biggs, to position themselves anticipating that Ball's going to hit the bottom of the rim. I think there was a few of that. I also think that that this is really where Paige is going to earn a lot of minutes pretty quickly. He was clearly our best, our best rebounder on Monday night.
Speaker 1:Well, he was definitely boxing out. Well, I thought he definitely put I noticed a few times that he was he was putting a lot of emphasis on getting a body on his guy and there was a couple of times when the fact that he put the body on his guy definitely led to a positive rebounding outcome for USC.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. So we pretty much covered the Kansas State game. I just you know we got Cal State Bakersfield on Thursday night, which is the home opener for USC, and there's really just only one thing I want to mention and hopefully I mean I don't know who you know maybe the right people have to listen to this Hopefully some of the guys who've been on the show in the past will listen to this. But the issue I kind of had was with USC basketball, usually USC basketball fans and and their, their knowledge of USC basketball, and and only really in one specific thing, and I noticed it for the first time, ironically enough, with the USC Washington football game the other night. So USC is playing in the Coliseum against Washington, usc has the ball and the crowd is cheering. I hear the crowd noise. I'm watching the game on television. I hear crowd noise. I'm like, why is the crowd? You should be when USC has the ball in the Coliseum, you should be able to hear a pin drop, right? I mean, obviously the opposing team has some fans there, but they're stuck in the corner of the end zone for a reason because, because you can't hear them that way, right, and so you should be able to hear a pin drop when USC has an offense. Now apparently someone told me that the DJ who was at the game is telling people to cheer when USC has the ball. Okay, Now this is funny because I noticed that at basketball games, the same DJ tells people to cheer when USC has the ball on. In basketball on offense, which, again, you should hear a pin drop when, when the ball is in USC's hands on the offense. So any fans out there you know what. I've seen these. I've seen it occur where USC has an inbounds just after a timeout and the DJ says everybody, get on their feet, let's cheer, and it's like no USC is about to have the ball.
Speaker 1:Usc needs to have absolute dead silence. So if Andy Enfield wants to tell them to do something, or if the or if Isaiah Collier needs to call out a play, everyone needs to be able to hear that. But apparently USC basketball this goes back to culture and understanding how to do basketball. To make the Galen Center a really good place, a really dangerous place for opponents and a good place for USC to play. This needs to get sorted out Like there should be only chairing when the other team has. There should only be only crowd noise when the other team has the ball. When USC has the ball, you should be able to you know, to rock your baby to sleep, okay. So hopefully someone out there can rectify that.
Speaker 1:I don't understand why this is not an obvious thing and why no one's noticing it and why no one's saying anything. I mean, there is an issue with the idea of the DJ leading the cheers in the first place, which can be effective if he does it right. But you know, and I think you know, as to the topic of crowd noise, they used to have this promotion where if the other team misses two free throws in a row, you get free Chick-fil-A sandwich right, and that's good to a point, because it got invariably got people cheering really hard during those games. I think you should. I think there should be something, a different kind of metric for that. Like, if USC can hold the opposing team to under 40% shooting, you get a free Chick-fil-A sandwich right. That means people are cheering the entire time, not just during free throws.
Speaker 1:So there's got to be some other motivation to get people to cheer. There's got to be some organization out there that can get people cheering at the right times. One of my ideas over the years was to bring in every game. There should be a sixth grade class of little girls who get free tickets to the game and they should be told that, whenever the other team has the ball, to scream at the top of their lungs, because if you've ever heard that many little girls screaming, it's akin to the sound of a jet plane taking off. So, anyway, there has to be a lot more creativity and a lot more common sense applied to getting that crowd to be loud, and I wish there were more people with basketball sense who were sort of working on that kind of thing. And other than that, there's not much else I have to say about the home opener, except for that it's really important for the crowd to be a part of it and to get involved.
Speaker 2:Two, the three things. When you mentioned the DJ, you don't mean DJ Rodman, just to be kind of silly, but clarify the actual DJ, dj Malm Malm I forget his name, but the DJ Malsky, I think. Yeah, the other thing that you didn't mention, which I thought you were going to, is there's also a perversion of what Arizona does I don't know if you've probably caught this where, arizona, the entire crowd will stand up until the opposing team, the visiting team, makes a basket.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it drives you nuts.
Speaker 2:And what does the DJ have us do? Stand up until USC and makes a basket, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the pressure's on USC. Gotta make that basket Make everybody sit down.
Speaker 2:I'm getting tired. Maybe something would a little kind of helper would be. Maybe we'll use the ad boards and graphics or cartoons just to literally just say quiet, usc has the ball. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be great if before I mean what you could do is before every game, with the DJs out there if he knew what it was doing, he could say, okay, here's what we're going to do on this, here's what we're going to do when the team has the ball, here's what we're going to do when this happens, and everyone could organize it and he could talk to the student section and do it. But it's just a kind of a willy-nilly operation.
Speaker 2:Or make like a snappy pregame part of the pregame video graphics package. But don't make it stupid like some teacher is saying do this or do that, make it go and just say, yeah, when we got the ball, you know let our guys play. And when they, when they, when the other team has the ball, you know scream your lungs out, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's, it's, it's, it's just, it's common sense stuff. And the funny thing is is it will be more fun for the crowd if, if they, if they do this right and it's something to get the students involved and to create the kind of environment, because once people see the environment, that kind of that kind of stuff is contagious. You see, it's getting really loud and you're like gosh, why am I the only person not screaming? And so you want to scream too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so those are my thoughts. Do you have any thoughts on the home opener coming up?
Speaker 2:No, as I mentioned in the column, no disrespect to Cal State Bakersfield. They just they're a team in transition, to put it nicely. They lost their best player about a third of the way through last season. You know he was about at a Drew Peterson level. Their second best player in that team last season was about as a Trey White level. You know kind of rough when that's your number one and number two players.
Speaker 1:Not from a quality standpoint, you mean just from a, just from a metric standpoint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just struggled on the offensive end and even getting their best player back, I don't see. I don't see them doing much more. I think that we might be looking at at the road runners getting somewhere in the 50s or lower 60s.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, there was one other bit of news that came out of the game in Vegas, which is that TNT reported actually, they had talked to LeBron James and LeBron revealed that at the end of this month, bronny will be reevaluated, with the hopes of him being cleared to start practicing with USC in early December. It doesn't sound like it doesn't sound like it's a long shot. It sounds like this is something that they expect to happen. So if Bronny James is starting, or I should say if Bronny James starts practicing in early December, I can't imagine he would need more than a couple of weeks to get up to speed. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised just based on the fact that that he'd be cleared to play if he gets on the court at Gonzaga, because versus Gonzaga in Vegas, because you know competitors want to play and and and you know guys want to get out there and, and that would be a such a marquee game in which to to at least let him make a debut, even if it's, even if it's just a few minutes, and so we could be seeing here the next few weeks.
Speaker 1:It looks like you know Vince Iwachukwu, from what I hear is his return is imminent. It could be any game, any game now and then. So you get Vince back end of the month or sometime in December, hopefully. You get Bronny back and suddenly this team's at full strength and, and you know, you get him back early enough to where you don't mess with whatever chemistry you've, you've created or whatever workarounds you've had that you're doing. So you get him back early enough and suddenly you don't mess with that chemistry. So now you've got a chance to really just have it, have an awesome team going forward, I think once those two guys get back.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. So unless you have anything else, Mark, I guess we'll call it Nope.
Speaker 2:That's all for me. Fight on everyone. Fight on everyone.
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