Chris and Mark discuss USC's loss to Gonzaga in Vegas, preview the upcoming game with Long Beach State and speculate on how Bronny James might help the Trojans going foward.
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 USC's loss to Gonzaga in Vegas, preview the upcoming game with Long Beach State and speculate on how Bronny James might help the Trojans going foward.
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. Change direction by back. This is the final of life and the tension for the others has been the same. It is a hydrogen tundra.
Speaker 2:USC is on to the sweet 16. All right.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of the Dunk City podcast brought to you by USCBasketballcom. I'm Chris Houston, here with Mark Baxter. How you doing, Mark.
Speaker 2:I am doing great, although I'm still trying to sort out exactly what we saw in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Speaker 1:Well, I know what I saw, which was a really good team in Gonzaga, a lot of skilled players hitting their shots and really giving us a hard time. It's kind of funny If you look at the what they do is. It seems like last two times USC's played in Gonzaga, gonzaga just does a flurry of punches and and you know, and then it's up to USC to respond, and both times USC respond. You know, the first time didn't really respond at all, but the second time because you get stunned, right, it's like getting a, getting a bunch of haymakers at you. And the second time, here there was a lot of haymakers and USC sort of responded. If you look at the play by play, gonzaga was up 20 to six at the 1337 mark of the first half and from that point on USC one by one point.
Speaker 2:That's a good point.
Speaker 1:So for 33 minutes essentially 32 and a half minutes USC outscored Gonzaga the last 32 half, 32 and a half minutes of the game. But it was that initial flurry of skill of shooting, of forcing turnovers and just generally, you know, getting runouts and fast breaks, that that really ended up being the back breaker for USC.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't know if I'd say that we were the better team for the last two-thirds of the first half, but I think we definitely outplayed them. Yeah, I, what's it? What's frustrating is the final score doesn't indicate, I think, the difference in the two teams. I mean just one, you know not. I don't want to just sit here and just repeat the column that that was uploaded today. You know, but just Gonzaga shot so, just so, completely out of their minds compared to what we've seen in their prior games. It just didn't make sense. I don't know about you. I was almost a little bit happy that we had, we had hung in there after just taking that first barrage because I was thinking, all right, this is not going to hold up. You know, how many times do you see a team you know just goes nuts on on three pointers in the first, like six or seven minutes, and then it turns and then it's it's time to swallow hard, just to hold on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they generally hit the swallow hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they never hit the swallowing hard stage.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so it's. When you look at that game USC like I think when you're a USC fan, you're we're watching that game. This is what it's like to be on the receiving end of those types of games like the like the Eastern Washington game that USC had previously, where everything just kind of went in and obviously Gonzaga is a skilled team and they've they've got a lot of players who look like great shooters against USC and it probably. The reality is that they're probably not as great as they shot against USC, but they're probably not as bad as they had been shooting coming in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is not an excuse thing, this is a I guess what would I say, an empirical thing. I've read just too many things that say there are, there are real limits to how much a team can control. It's three, it's defensive three point, three point field goal percentage. You know, if the other team, basically the you know the findings are, if the other team has just one guy that can really, you know, hit it from outside and everybody else is just a whatever, you know you can really do it like that. But basically if you've got more than more than one person on the other team really hit it from the outside, it's just one of those things I've, I've since reading that, you know, the last couple of years I've really disregarded defensive three point field goal percentage just because of that, because it's it's almost a luck metric.
Speaker 2:You know, now, some of the times there's, you know you're doing them favors when you've got, you know and this is not to pick on Josh Morgan, but we saw this in the Oklahoma game when Morgan just wouldn't go out to guard their big guy who just couldn't miss that day. That's one thing. But if you're kind of in the vicinity, it's just, you know, shooters are going to make them. Sometimes I mean, that's just that's kind of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and and some of the stuff, when you're shooting that well, when you're Gonzaga and you're shooting that well, it kind of changes the complexion of everything else, right?
Speaker 1:And for example, there has been talk about, oh Joshua Morgan not having any rebounds in 18 minutes. Now, obviously that's not a great stat. No one is necessarily defending that. But when you're playing down low and the other team is shooting 12 or 22 from three point the balls, I mean you're shooting. The other team is shooting 23 pointers, the other, you know, if the balls are coming off, they're usually bouncing far. They're usually like long rebounds right so exactly.
Speaker 1:And, and then, and then. They're making a lot of them. Not only did they make a lot of three pointers, but they had clearly worked on their little runners off the glass.
Speaker 1:They did five of those you know, to get it over Morgan, and they have, you know, just such skilled shooters who were able to definitely lay it off the glass, and sometimes you just don't. I don't know if Morgan was just unlucky, because I certainly didn't see a lot of plays where, where, you know, he just got beat out for a rebound or just like. I just don't think the opportunities were there as much.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, I mean, you said that in my first. My first reaction was rebound. I didn't think like Gonzaga didn't miss Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know the thing is to you make a good point about, just you know, three pointers have. They're just they're long rebounds and I think that's one of the reasons why, as you say, that didn't occur to me until you just kind of mentioned that. That probably makes sense why Boogie was our leading rebounder with seven.
Speaker 1:Sure, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know he went in the paint a few times, but a lot of them are just like okay, who's going to be quickest? To the, to the loose ball in the perimeter.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then also, the other thing is is a lot of USC's misses were long rebounds which turned into two runouts and fast breaks for Gonzaga. Gonzaga beat USC 21 to eight on fast break points which, coincidentally, is the margin of the game 13 points. In the first half it was 15 to four. So that you know, just from a pure point standpoint, that was a big part of it.
Speaker 1:As far as the margin, and arguably I'd say I'd say one of the small sort of constellations of the game is that I don't think Gonzaga took their, their foot off the gas on offense, I think they, because they try to score, they're always trying to score, and they just kept kept, you know, going hard and USC, you know, didn't give up and ended up being a 13 point margin. So 13 points is the margin by which USC beat Kansas State. It's not a not a blowout, it's not a devastating loss, it's a solid win for, for Gonzaga. But USC didn't have a complete and total breakdown, which is, you know, if you're looking for little silver linings, usc certainly played better against Gonzaga than they did the last time and the last time USC played Gonzaga. Both teams are much better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess again, not to just repeat the column that went up today, but no, please repeat it.
Speaker 1:Not everybody's read it, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:The fact that we shot 56.8% from two against a team that I was concerned about. You know they were just going to bowl us over with the big guys and J Williams basically also made that point. He said well, gonzaga's got a real advantage in the front court here, you know we outshot him by 5%. What? 5.6% or, if you want to be, you know, more financially contextual and give it a little more boom, 56 basis points. That's significant, especially, you know, when you know, supposedly coming in, the narrative was that Gonzaga would have an advantage there. It's, you know, and I don't know that's. That's one of the things. Again, to go back to a point of earlier pods is, j Williams is fine, but it's, you know, I'm spoiled with the Pac 12 network guys. They know the team so well and you know this is not to slight him, but he's got a national perspective and he probably did, you know, probably about a third to a quarter of the prep that a typical Pac 12 network analyst would do. Yeah, you're just getting different narratives, so I don't know if, basically, I'm going to buy everything he said.
Speaker 2:Can I ask you a question, kind of going off that? Yeah, he made a point. He said you know what I don't see from USC here as a true floor leader and I'd never thought about that. I kind of assumed that it would be Collier and then I thought, well, it's a true freshman and it seems like you know are there are a lot of vocal players. You know, boogie is just he's kind of like the silent assassin, and so is Kobe. The outgoing one seems to be Collier, but when it's a true freshman, I think that you're going to have maybe he made a point that I think we might be missing a little bit, just like you know, emotional leadership on the court. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I think Andy Enfield alluded to that too. He said his captains need to be captains and lead and help these guys along more. I do think Collier is vocal on the court, like you said. I think Kobe is vocal on the court but usually on the defensive end, talking smack more than anything rather than boosting his team. But I think in general the team communicates pretty well when they're on the court. Some of that stuff might be overblown to a degree, but you know.
Speaker 1:Just going back to the game, you know Anton Watson was held to nine points. He was four of nine, didn't have the greatest game. Of course he had some foul trouble. Graham EK had 14 points, 10 boards. He was 5 out of 10 shooting the way you hear people talk about this game. You thought he was 8 out of 9, right. 5 out of 10 for a big is nice, but the great bigs shoot a lot better than that right. So it wasn't like he was just having his way. What really killed the Trojans was just the perimeter game of Kanzaga. Yeah, and and and. Like you said, it was something that hadn't been there before and it they. You know it was even better in the second. Actually I shouldn't say it was better, it was. They shot 6 of 11 in the first half and 6 of 11 in the second half from three. So you know you're just not going to. It's really going to be hard to beat a team like Kanzaga when they're shooting that well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. But to your point, just to, and I saw this and I just thought, wow, this is very different from how how the game was being described. To your point about Ike, his VP 100 for the game was only at 38.2. Now, if you're just watching, and in the second half, kind of, you know, having a drink, maybe just to deal with the game a little more, it would have seemed like he was just kind of you know, their version of buggy and it's that's very inefficient number for a big. To your point, and it's busier was only 0.1. You know, because the bigs don't really have assists and they do turn the ball over, they need to shoot, yeah, 60, 70 percent to have that same level of efficiency. And and we really held him that way too, which is another, you know, another win for us. I just I see a lot of wins here and they add up to a 13 point loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are some individual things, but but when, when you, when you break out the three point shooting, when you look at USC's lack of a three point shooting, and particularly, I think this was our worst three point shooting night of the season, I think our previous low was 28 percent, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1:You know, I think in the against against UC Irvine not the check on that but if it wasn't the worst, it was the second worst right and USC didn't shoot horribly overall. Like you said, the two point shooting was 54 percent. But that three point shooting percentage which you know and I had written that piece about USC being a three point shooting team out and we are, because once again we're averaging 22 attempts per game and we shot 22. But when you, when one third to one half of your shot attempts are three pointers and was one third in this last game and you only make six I don't really care what you know what else happens in the game that's going to hugely affect you and also goes without saying, going eight of 17 for the free throw line certainly didn't help either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just checked while you were. You were mentioning that we actually shot 19 percent from three against UC.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the second worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and nobody besides Hornrey made one in that game, which is, I guess, if you're missing Kobe and and Boogie, maybe that's that's believable, but that just is kind of how dire that one was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, in this one I think Boogie made four and Kobe made one and Rodman made one, and I think you know there's a couple of things at play here, which is, I think, usc is only. This is only the second game, I guess maybe third or fourth actually fourth game since they've really been back healthy and right now so they're two and two, with one of the losses at the buzzer, and this is still a team that is figuring out who who is who they're going to play and who plays well with each other. There were some good things, like Arrington. Page really played a nice game Nine points for rebounds, had a bunch of dunks, didn't play out of control like he, like he's played in the past, only had one turnover. Something seemed to click for him. I think they used him as a cutter more often, which was good. I don't think it was a good idea. I think one thing they got to get away from is when they do the four out one. In a lot of times they were using Page as one of the four out and he's really even though I think he's skilled for a big man and might eventually turn into a really good three-point here, I don't think he's a three-point threat right now. So and I think when USC plays the two bigs it, it tends to slow down their offense. So so I'm kind of waiting.
Speaker 1:I think things are going to change a bit. Hopefully when they're going to get back to the game. Hopefully when when Brony James comes back, because it's going to create, if it's let's let's just stipulate that he comes back and is able to be in the rotation, is able to contribute Right, he's not just he's not like Malik Thomas was last couple years, he's, he's more like let's say he's more like gets the minutes that Osai sellers might have. Right, if he comes in, it creates more flexibility because because he's he's almost like, I think he would back up Kobe because he's he would be like he's the same style of player where he's not really a high level facilitator, but he's a pretty decent ball handler, good three-point shooter and plays defense. So a big factor in the game is Gonzaga, was Kobe getting those two early fouls and he just wasn't the same player after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But with Ronnie you kind of have a little more flexibility. Maybe I'm not saying he's as good as Kobe, but if he can come in in some games where Kobe is dealing with some foul trouble, maybe you get a little bit of a facsimile of what Kobe brings to the table.
Speaker 2:Very fair. And then without him, to your point, if you're playing a four out, well, you don't really have a lot of depth. You've got a thin bench to fill four spots on the perimeter Well, no, but but well, yeah, you're right, but you until Ronnie comes back, right you have, then you have.
Speaker 1:You'd have seven guys, right, you'd have seven shooters, seven shooters, you know. You've got Collier Boogie, Kobe Rodman, hornary Sellers and Ronnie right. Seven guys who in theory might be able to average at least 35 percent from three point range.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, I mean pretty realistic. A lot of guys, just a lot of guys to select from, to see, OK, who can, who can get hot today?
Speaker 1:Right who's going to be hot. You know you find the right combination and also you're able to do more things, like with Ronnie. You're able to, like you know, play a little more aggressive defense because of Ronnie gets some fouls. Who cares, right? And now it doesn't have to be Kobe playing as aggressive, or he still can play aggressive, but you don't have to worry about managing his fouls as much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And to that point, not only did he get his second foul early, he got his, he got his third foul early, really early in the second half too. I think at that point you know you're almost you're kind of a no man's landwork. Jeez, you know you're not going to get the full Kobe because yeah, don't want him to.
Speaker 1:It was just a really weird situation and yeah, I mentioned they kept him in to the. Kept him in after that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mentioned, you know, just in the second half we had just, you know, some spells of a defensive indifference and I think that's it to your point. You know, yeah, he, he is kind of the leader on defense and I think when he's kind of, you know, having to give less than than all these capable of because of fouls, I think that probably does hurt the tone a little bit on the defensive end. That I think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly, and you have to have a high level defensive intensity. Against Gonzaga, and it was one of the great disappointments of the game was was the level of defensive effort and intensity wasn't there. If you're not shooting well, that happens Some games you're just not shooting well. Even I know the way we shot from three point range Typically means that you're you're gonna struggle, but USC shot, you know pretty well, from two-point range, like you said. So Not having that, you know, but there's no reason not to have that defensive intensity Although, like you said, you know, with Kobe having the foul trouble, you take it, take away an element of that, but it is disappointing and I just wonder, you know, one of the things I wonder about is is why that intensity for some reason Isn't there in this kind of setting, when it should be kind of like an inspiring Reason to go out and play hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you would think like in that, in that environment, if anything, the concern would be okay. Are you know? Are the gents too fired up and you'd need to kind of tone them down a little bit? You know, going back to something said about Paige, a couple things you know more of a cutter, I like that. It's really going back to what assistant coach Keras told us in the offseason. It's going back to having him embrace what makes him a good player. Yeah, and that, I think, is right now. You can tell he can handle the ball, but I don't know if it's this level. He will at some point, you know, maybe middle of next year, but just, it's not there yet. I get I don't know about you I get a little nervous when I see him Start to handle and back down.
Speaker 1:Oh, I hold my breath, Okay yeah all those things, any of the bigs are dribblin. I'm just like get. Get the ball out of your hands, give it to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, but of all the bigs, he probably has the most long-term potentials to be able to handle it. He, you know, he is able to, like, dribble the ball down the court by himself, unencumbered, right in ways that I don't think the other bigs can do it. So, yeah so. So, looking at your analytics, who let's look who are the leaders for the game against Gonzaga?
Speaker 2:For the game. Let me pull this up here, for you know, the boogie was far and away the best players. Buscar was 7.8, the best for either team. He was 2.6 above Ben Greg for Gonzaga. That's a. That's a. That's a wide margin for a single game.
Speaker 1:Greg just just killed us too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, by the way, I think he's the new.
Speaker 1:I think he's the new Gonzaga asshole.
Speaker 2:I Didn't know that was a singular title. I thought that was kind of a shared role.
Speaker 1:Like tip. You know, like you like, he like me drew.
Speaker 2:Jimmy, was that guy for?
Speaker 1:yeah four years, who everybody's you know. He just sort of you know blue kisses to the crowd and the mustache was cocky. He's this he's the new cocky guy that everyone's gonna hate.
Speaker 2:He has the true heel belt, if you will.
Speaker 1:it was a wrestling thing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, no, that's a very fair assessment. So boogie was, you know, I imagine, getting 50% more out of boogie than then Greg did. Now Greg did it in fewer minutes too, but you know boogie played 39 minutes so yeah, that's, that's amazing context.
Speaker 2:The next post productive player was Collier with a Buscar 2.0 BPO 145.6 not that efficient. You know, a lot of BPO's were low in this game because of all the miss free throws. The the miss free throws are basically think more or less as a missed free throw is like a half of a missed opportunity, if you will. Yeah, so those really added up Along those lines as, as nice of a game as Paige had, his BPO 100 was only 43.4, you know, because he missed, I think he missed. He missed two free throws and then he had a turn Over. So you know, as productive as he was, just those, those little things add up and just drug him under a 43.4, yeah.
Speaker 2:One other thing on him just away from the metrics, from a second. I think it was really, really interesting that I know that Paige started the second game for us I think it was, but this is by far the earliest that that infield had gone to him off the bench and I think he kind of sense that he needed Maybe a more physical, big did that kind of seem to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he started against UCI actually yeah and because he had to right. I think, I think it was just a matter of early on just trying to get rebounds, trying to get someone in there to get bounce and because Actually I think USC was out rebounding Gonzaga at the half. So I don't think I don't think necessarily it was an issue, but also Morgan had had two fouls as well.
Speaker 2:I believe In the first yeah, yeah, that's right, you know, for the game. So that was a bit of an issue, so so he definitely.
Speaker 1:I think that was one of the reasons he came in early. We saw some good things out of Vincent Iwachuku. I thought yeah what are the metrics?
Speaker 2:say yeah, Buscar 52.4, which is literally just exactly what I would want from a big coming off the bench. I think that's really about what, what Kajani has given us for the year. You know, I've just I've kept an eye on that and I've said for the last few games, if you get that kind of, you know, efficiency From a big off the bench, that's that's a really, really good sign. You know, the not-good sign is that it was, you know, 17 points higher than Josh Morgan's 35.4. That that's a rough one, but it's nice to have that luxury to say, okay, you know, plan a is not working, let's just go deep into plan B.
Speaker 1:That's a nice you know nice option to have and you could see Vincent kind of Developing game by game. He played 17 minutes, made all of his shots, had four offensive rebounds and no defensive rebounds at all. Offensive he seems to be, he seems to have really figured out the Offensive rebounding side of the equation, because I think for, I think for the season, if you look at his overall season I believe he is he has more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds. Wow, I actually that's not true. He actually has one fewer offensive rebound that he has. He's only played. He only plays 14.5 minutes per game and he leads the team In offensive rebounding rebounds.
Speaker 2:That is a crazy ratio, yeah he has.
Speaker 1:He has, he's played 87 minutes Right and he's got 14 up the rebounds. Joshua Morgan has paid 177 minutes and has 13 up the rebound. So that's that's a really interesting ratio and if you look at but I mean, you know, here's the other thing we I think we talked about this in the preseason what we expected out of the center position, the five position, joshua and Vince right now they're averaging 12.7 and About 10 rebounds a game. So that's in in 36 and a half minutes for the position. That's not Not horrible, right, and it seems like it should only go up as Vince, you know, keeps scoring. But it's definitely not like a major, a major deficit on the offensive side of things.
Speaker 2:Agree, agree. Um, you know, I just one of my metrics I have is the rebounds per 40 minutes and you know, Vince is at 13.3.
Speaker 2:Now you know unless you're just not even boogie plays 40 minutes a game unless it's a complete emergency, yeah, but that that's a heck of a game and that's a heck of a ratio, um, 13.3 and 40 minutes, um, especially considering that um, you know, I he started what was his first game. I think he missed maybe one or two of the games where he was first game was brown, I believe. Okay, so you know, I think he would have probably had a pretty good time against Irvine, for at least Um, just to be fair. And I guess he missed the Bakersfield game too. Did we play Bakersfield before?
Speaker 1:or after brown.
Speaker 2:Uh, before, so he missed. Okay, yeah, so he missed a couple of nice Pat's.
Speaker 1:Daddy and he's played six. He's played six games, yeah and yeah, and he's, you know, been pretty good from the free throw line. Yeah, and he's, you know, been pretty good from the free throw line. He's shooting 50%. I think that number has has gone up over the last few games quite a bit so, and Josh Borghan has plummeted all the way to 74% from the field.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just going where I was going to go to next and that was, you know. Interestingly, another really good sign in this one was, you know, my frustration. I think I'd said in the last pod it just seemed like Vince was too anxious and he was just he was putting the ball up before he had his feet settled, just to put it, you know, in a layman's terms. And this was, I think, the toughest front court that he's faced, and his BPO, you know, 152.4 was, I think it's by far his best. He's, you know, frustratingly, been in the 30s and 40s.
Speaker 1:So that's a good sign.
Speaker 2:You know, can you repeat it to be determined? At some point we'll see him in starters minutes and it'll be tougher. But you know that's that's. That's a pretty deep team up front that we played so encouraging that he did that and maybe take away that. Okay, if we do have to, you know, put him in, you know, in a starters minutes position. You know he can more than handle his own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think it's kind of at some point in the season that's probably leaning towards, towards that I don't know psychologically if if Joshua would be better coming off the bench or just starting and not playing as many minutes. So that's a question. And you definitely. You know you have this great shot blocker and he's a guy who is a pretty good finisher when, when he gets the ball in a good position and that's what he brings you, but he doesn't bring you much else. And he, right now, he is who he is. He's in his fifth year. I don't think the lights going to come on as far as, like, I don't think he's going to make any major jump, but he's a contributor to the team and he's an important factor for the team and he plays hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So so he's flawed and I think a lot of USC fans they've been complaining for the last I don't know four years that USC didn't have ball handlers and point guards. You know Andy Enfield couldn't recruit an elite point guard. Well, now we've got an elite point guard. We're a guard oriented team. So now the, the bigs, are the subject of the IR, you know. So it's just you're not going to have perfect players at every position.
Speaker 1:Where USC isn't, isn't Duke or some of these teams that are able to recruit at an even crazier level. And even Duke you know Duke is has three losses already. Michigan State has three losses. So every team is different.
Speaker 1:Three years ago USC started out 13 and they were a much better team from the get go because they had a lot of experienced guys right away. This year's team has some experience but is not as experienced as some previous teams and it had some injuries early on. So I think the overall development of this team in the preseason or the non conference schedule has has been a lot more sluggish and and there's only 11 non conference games. So I think this team is probably going to be better in the conference when it goes to more familiar places, starts playing more home games. It seems like USC, you know, is playing all these neutral site games that keeps playing in Vegas and San Diego and and I know that's that's very common in the non conference, but it just didn't seem like there's been they played very many home games where they can get comfortable on their court.
Speaker 2:And then, well, and you know, two of those were far from full health, I mean yeah, you know they haven't had the full team on their home court very much, Unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, going back to your point about about no team is perfect at every position. You know, probably the best team I've ever seen was the early 90s UNLV team. Oh yeah, and they started David Butler Center and I would David Butler start for this team.
Speaker 1:I don't think he would know, I swear, but he was really kind of like there, josh Morgan, he was just, yeah, he was a good defender, he was part of that scheme and you don't, it's like sometime like you don't need, like everyone's like, oh, usc needs to get more post scoring. Well, I mean, it'd be obviously be nice, it'd be great if Evan Mobley was on this team. Right, if Evan will be was on this team, we probably, you know, be a number one team. We probably never won team right now. We'd be like a shoe and we'd be like the odds on favorites when the national title.
Speaker 1:But but that doesn't always, that just doesn't happen, right, and the way things have worked out is that we're very young up front, but people are acting like you know, like like these guys are, like there's some kind of I can't even explain it, but they're like. People are there's like relish. They're relishing piling on on these, on these bigs. It's like they relished piling on Ethan Anderson, or are they relished, you know, piling on Max Agba, Polo and a lot of these guys were just like you know, freshmen and sophomores and people you know, and they'll miss a couple shots and people are like, oh, he can't shoot, you know, or you know it's like you know, it's like you know, Morgan gets beat, you know, down low for play. Oh, he can't defend, right, he never. Or he gets beat free round, he never gets a rebound, like it becomes. He never does this, he can't do that. And it's like you wonder, it's like, okay, well, no one's saying he's the greatest player in the world, but he's a contributor and sometimes you have guys on your team that fill roles and and it works better than if you had a guy who was, who was just like you know, maybe demanding the ball more. Because really, if you think about it, usc doesn't really need scoring down low, usc needs rebounding and defense.
Speaker 1:Now, josh Morgan brings defense. I know some people don't think he does, but he brings defense. He finishes down low when he gets an opportunity, shooting 74%, and you know. And then, and then it's like you know what you want to take shots away from Boogie Ellis, so that, so that we can, you know, get, have a guy in there to shoot a, shoot a fade away from from the, from the left block. I mean, what is that what you want? It's like. It's like people are still wedded to these old concepts like we need a, we need to one or two, three, four or five. Basketball is very different. Now you don't need all these positions. And yes, it's. It's like there's a weakness in the rebounding area on the. You know, you see guys averaging four or five rebounds but you get volume boards. Usc is averaging. I think they're averaging 39,. Usc is averaging 39 rebounds a game.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, now they're down. They're down to 37. They were averaging, they were going to the game, they were averaging like 38 or whatever. It's like you know, and those teams with Isaiah Mobley and those teams average like 40 rebounds. So it's like two for your rebounds. You're just not getting two or three guys dominating the, the, the stat.
Speaker 2:Well and it's early, and it's early, yeah, I mean it's it's look, it's college basketball, it's not an NBA All Star game, you know. And for people saying, Well, you know, we got to, we, I'm kind of. I'm kind of surprised that that some are saying this, you know, saying, oh, you got to give it to the guys inside to create, Go back and watch the Brown and Irvine games. Those were incredibly frustrating where we tried that and I think it's clear that you know the bigs are best at finishing off, you know off of action that that's been created by a buggy or Isaiah Collier.
Speaker 2:You know we don't have a Bob Lanier or a Korean on here where they're going to. You know, just sky hook, you dig, that that's just not their skill set and no matter how much you want to happen, it just isn't. You know, maybe Vince, at some point you kind of see some signs that he might, just because he's so long, and you know, but he, he as much as anything, he's more of just a face, the basket kind of player, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think he is a guy who, who can yeah, he's a face the basket guy, maybe a little baby jump hooks and and and put backs, but yeah, I think a total face the basket kind of guy he's not going to be a I don't think he's as strong with his back to the basket.
Speaker 2:No, actually, you know, I think is the best If we have a Kevin McHale on this team. I don't know if you feel differently. I think it's DJ Rodman. He's going to got the crafty footwork and he knows that. You know, now you got to give him the space and get the right matchup for that. You're not going to do that against like a, you know, looking ahead and Adam Bono or Kenneth Nuba. But you know you get him against somebody that's his size and that's how you're going to get some points.
Speaker 1:But yeah, absolutely he's, he's, he's. You know he's undersized, but yeah, he does. You can definitely see the footwork down low on. He's another guy who who, as he rounds into shape and he's as he rounds into playing with this team, it's going to be better, he's going to be better and that'll make the team better because he brings a lot of experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't it weird how different he is from his dad. Even his dad just couldn't shoot free throws or just shoot it all. Yeah, and you know, really had no offensive game and DJ is a really good offensive player. Just it's weird, same game but totally different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, so, okay, so, Gonzaga, the final thoughts from Gonzaga on what you think is what, what's, what is you as he need to fix, based on what you saw versus Gonzaga.
Speaker 2:I honestly don't know. I mean, just don't have a bad shooting night on the, on the night that the other team just lights it up and you don't have literally your second worst night. That's way below your average. When the other team shoots what it was it like? I think maybe like 14% better than they've shot on the season. I don't know what the you know it's not like I can't take my the defensive intensity. Yeah. That that's probably the one thing where I'd say fix this. I'm. You know, we kept it close on the boards against a team with some talented front court. I can't really be upset about that. That's yeah. That's why I said I led with in the column. I'm confused.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, unfortunately, one of the things that always happens with USC basketball fans is now that USC is lost to Gonzaga. We're now getting the questions will USC make the tournament? Is Andy Enfield a long term solution, which is amazing, and it is basically going to go to the tournament. He's been going to the tournament every year for the most part last five years, or whatever it is, or at least having a tournament worthy team. And you would think that by now. I mean I remember the same conversation last year where the team was struggling early and the question was are they going to make the tournament, are they going to be any good? And then they started rounding into shape and playing really well and they were transitioning from a big oriented offense to a more regard oriented offense, but they didn't have a point guard. That was fixed, but just because of its college basketball, you can't always get everybody on the team at the same time.
Speaker 1:Usc has come very close in recent years. I always wonder what had happened if, by some miracle, onyeko Okangu had come back for a sophomore year. Right, if he hadn't maybe just been quite as good as he was and came back for a sophomore year, I think we might have won the national title in 2020. I don't think that having a front line of Evan Mobley and Onyeko Okangu and Isaiah Mobley probably would have been too much even for Vergan Zaga to handle in that game, because those guys were two top six picks and two really good defensive players shop lockers, rebounders, scores. So it's all about timing and unfortunately USC hasn't been able to get the timing right. Where they have the great guards with the great bigs, they've either had one or the other, and so I get there's some frustration out there about it, but I think the hope was that some of these bigs would develop faster, but I think that they're just on a longer development track than we'd like, but I do think that by compact 12 play, I think they're going to be a lot better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess and to your point, this is not to crap on anybody that's not with the program anymore but what was the upside at this point last year when we say we had to improve, versus the upside this year? You have a Vince that's still recovering to full health and you have a true freshman who's played what? Eight games now. And what was the upside at this point last year? Well, maybe Peterson can improve as a playmaker, maybe Sellers can be a contributor. Question mark Trey White. I was going to say this is almost Trey White's high point. I mean he basically played it at a pretty good level until that Washington game and then he kind of kind of disappeared. And ReSix and Waters, I think there was hope that he would improve and he just he never really did.
Speaker 1:Struggled very early with the shooting. So did a lot of the guys early on the shooting last year was not very good early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I just think there's more potential. Just if you just look at OK, Vince is upside and Collier is upside, but it's. You know, I don't know, I don't. Do you feel that that? Do you feel that we've seen the absolute best of? No, they have to give.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of slack and if you guys, there's some slack to be, there's. There's Collier, yes. There's Vince yes. There's DJ Rodman there's. There's some improvement that's going to occur. Just, he's a veteran guy, you know, he's not a superstar player, but he's a lot. I think he's a better player. He's a significantly better player than he's shown so far and he's I think he's just, you know, finding his role. I think there's some upside with Ozai sellers. I think there's a little bit of upside with, I think there's a lot of upside with Arendt and Page. I think he's a guy who could potentially I mean, after this last game, you know, there's always this point where someone realizes, hey, I can play college basketball or I can play college football Right.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of like when he went to the line, when it's funny, when someone like Morgan goes to the line or any of the bigs go the line, I'm always like, okay, just make one Right. I'm like, let's just get one. So I'm like in my mind I'm like, okay, adding one point. So page comes out, he misses the first two free throws that he took.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking you know, a lot of that was, I think. I think he was playing really hard and he was kind of just shook up and sort of like in a frenzy over over just the pace of everything that was going on. So I knew, I knew he wasn't going to make those free throws. I'm like there's no. I told my wife as like there's no chance that he's going to make these free throws. So he misses both of them. But what happened was later on, after he started, after he got a couple of dunks under his belt, after he made a couple of good plays and he had that, he came down the middle lane and he tried to dunk it and he got fouled hard, I think, by EK and I was like you know what? I think he's acclimated enough to the game that he's going to make one, and he made one.
Speaker 1:And this is kind of one of those things. It wasn't. You know, when you're out there in the free throw line and when you're out there playing college basketball early in your career, I think you kind of feel a little. You feel a little weird out there, you probably feel a little naked. There's a lot of pressure going on.
Speaker 1:You know you don't want to screw up, but at some point you just play and you don't think and I think I don't want to say he's reached that point, because he's sort of he's sort of kind of like made improvements and then fallen down and made improvements and fallen down again. So but I do think that doing it against Gonzaga, having his best game against Gonzaga, you know, showing his skills against Gonzaga, in his mind he's thinking OK, you know I'm not where I'm going to be eventually, but but I did contribute to the team against a really good opponent. So I think this I'm going to keep let's keep an eye on Aaron to page because because, potentially, if he starts piecing together just a few good, solid, consistent nights like this, and as we head into the end of December, then I think the potential for him going into conference play is pretty good, especially because he's going to be a new factor to the league? No one's. No one will have seen him yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah to your point. I mean that back and forth and up and down is just the natural part of being a freshman and it's encouraging that he more than held his own against, I think, by far the toughest team that we've played. I don't know if you disagree with that.
Speaker 1:Arguably the toughest team we will play potentially.
Speaker 2:I know Arizona. I know Arizona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know Arizona's out there, but but Arizona's not a perfect team either. I know somebody said on the board that somebody said the board that you know the way Morgan looked. You know they're scared of how he's going to do against against Bellow, bellow of Arizona. I'm like, well, we've already seen him play against Bellow last year and you know Bellow and Bellow had to bella to kind of protect him more last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So again, you're not looking for Josh Morgan to outplay Bellow. You're looking for Josh Morgan to to limit Bellow's advantage over him because hopefully some of USC's other players are going to have greater advantages over other players on Arizona right. So it's all about overall calculus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I would think you know more near term for page because it's it's sooner than we play Arizona and this just. I still kind of have a little bit nightmares about this Oregon. When we are Oregon last season Dante just killed us. He just absolutely bullied us and we had no response and well, he's hurt. Is he really?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's hurt. Bittles are there. They've had a ton of injuries right now, so they're they're having some issues with their whole roster. So, luckily, I mean I, you know, I'm not like trying to be like gleeful over their, over their injury status, but right now I don't think that Oregon, like USC, is going to get them early, which is good because Dante is either still going to be out or just barely back.
Speaker 2:He'll be at best.
Speaker 1:And you know, biddle, nathan Biddle is also out. And they have one other guy, who's who's hurt. They're playing. Yeah, in fall a Dante's hurt, he's. He hasn't played. I think he's only played one game this year. So, and you know they're playing. Some freshman Kwame Evans is there. Jackson Shellstead, who's a freshman point guard who hit a big shot against Michigan to beat Michigan in overtime. So I'm not really as scared of the Ducks this year, although it'll be at their home court, which is always tough to play. But USC also beat them up there, was it last year? The before, I think you were before.
Speaker 2:Last year was so.
Speaker 1:So this is not yeah, this is not the. I don't think this is the Oregon team that we would typically fear with their, with their bigs.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, I'm like I hate to say good to know. Good to know I'm not celebrating anybody's injury, but yeah, fortunate break for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we can update that later. I'll look into see. You know when the expected return is, but it sounded to me like it was something that was going to be ongoing. But again and then. But playing Oregon state. You know Oregon state's always a tough out up there as well. So yeah but yeah, maybe, maybe USC can Can surprise a bit and you just never know what these teams, you just never know with college basketball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last thing to take away, and this is kind of a tongue in cheek, but not really. I think in the future, next time we see the other team make two buckets high off the glass, I just we just put in Vince because Josh just isn't going to be the same factor on defensively.
Speaker 1:Just okay, they figured that one out. The reason they do that, the reason they do that is because because he's a great shop locker. So maybe you put a guy who's not a great shop locker in there and maybe they won't do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe put DJ at the five then right, yeah, exactly, we could found him. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, okay, long Beach State coming up next Saturday. Long gap between games and then, I think, even longer, looking at the schedule You've got after Long Beach State you got another week, so USC is only playing two games in 15 days, which I guess. You have finals coming up this week and the next week. So good for the guys to be able to get their academics in order Long Beach State at home, and then they go the next week at Auburn, december 17th, and two days later at Alabama State, before going up to Oregon on December 28th. What do you think about Long Beach State?
Speaker 2:You know, munson usually has good offensive teams. The defense tends to ebb and mostly flow. I guess I'd say this looks like a typical good offensive team under him. He's been there for like 19 years or something. Can you believe that he actually coached Gonzaga before Mark Few? Just incredible, weird how this all works out.
Speaker 2:You know, I look at Long Beach and they've got a decent amount of breath. They've got three. They have two starters and then one bench guy who plays basically starter minutes that all have BPOs of 50.4 or higher. So you know you kind of you need to be careful. It's not just pick one guy and let the other ones kill you, because you know, of those three you've got a Buscar 14.9, 15.1 and then a very meaty 26.7 by Abu Bakar Traure. Remember him. We played this team last year and I remember him last year. Just that's a name that sticks with you. Big man shooting 61% from the field, 66% from two, and apparently got a little excited and shot five three-pointers. Not surprisingly, he's missed all five of those. So that'll be a good test for you know. All right, you know, let's see. Josh, I think this is probably a good matchup for him. That sounds like, you know, maybe one of the more ideal, ideal, big man, that he would want to face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, actually this could be one of those games that Josh and Vince can, and maybe Kajani can, keep people off their backs for a game. One thing I wanted to mention which is kind of interesting looking at the schedule, usc, between November 19th, which was the Brown game, and January 3rd, which is an entire month plus plus 12 days, usc plays two home games.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's wild. Think about it.
Speaker 2:It's crazy.
Speaker 1:It's. It's the Raides Children International in San Diego, then Eastern Washington at home, Gonzaga and Vegas, Long Beach State at home, then at Auburn, at Alabama State, at Oregon, at Oregon State.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty crazy yeah it should serve us well though In the tournament I mean, it's not like we assuming that we you know, we we do well in those spots should serve us very well when nobody really has a home game.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Unless you're Duke or Kansas, who seemingly get home games every, every first round.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you know the other thing that you know people are talking about, you know, will this team make the tournament? And losing to and you know the impetus for that was losing to Gonzaga and pretty much in the I don't think in the committee like losing to Gonzaga Gonzaga it's not a bad loss, yeah Right, and and Oklahoma is also a top 25 team. That's not going to turn out to be a bad loss. What they're looking for are bad losses, right, like the, the things that really kill you. Usc's win over Kansas State was pretty good win. Seaton Hall is a solid win. Uc Irvine is a bad loss, but they'll be able to look at it and say, oh yeah, they were, they were, they were had injuries. That game and you know the question is, is going to be down the road, is what are your signature wins? But there's opportunities against Arizona. Ucla Colorado is certainly good enough to to qualify as a good win. What are your thoughts on the long term tourney potential of this team?
Speaker 2:Sorry, I muted myself there. I think we're fine. It's too early, you know I would I would put it this way If we had this record in a typical non-conference now. Last year's was a little tough because we caught a tournament.
Speaker 2:we caught Wisconsin and Tennessee, and then yeah, and then we also caught we had played Auburn at home. So last year's was a little challenging, but in a typical one where we would just almost have like kind of a siloed non-conference, where you have one big game and then you know nine home games against your Bakersfields of the world.
Speaker 1:This was very concerned. It's much tougher.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm wondering. Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the strength of schedule is for USC this year, but let me look at it. Actually, usc strength of schedule is right now it's like Ken Palm has the strength of schedule 61, but certainly there have been a handful of like pretty decent teams. Seton Halls ranked 63rd, oklahoma is ranked 25th in Ken Palm, gonzaga is number nine. So and you?
Speaker 2:know you didn't mention what I was looking up. Irvine is 75th. Now that's, you know, a home loss is not ideal, but that's not. It's not like you're listening to a. You know a team that's 200s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Kansas State's 53rd. So that's, you know, that's a quad one, quad one win. So, which is kind of hard to say, say quad one, win, it doesn't sound like you're saying it right, I'll let you do that.
Speaker 2:No, I'll stumble it over. I'm a CPA.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I think that pretty much wraps up this episode. Trojan fans, it wasn't a great outing for USC, but hang in there, this team will get better. Andy Enfield's team always do improve during the season and there's a lot of potential there Very high ceiling, a lot of good players who have yet to play their best ball. So you know, I know USC fans like to to doom monger and doom scroll, but I, please, please, I recommend just enjoy your holidays and trust that the team is going to improve and eventually show that. Hopefully they show that one of the better teams in the country at the end.
Speaker 2:You're much nicer than me, I'll just I'll keep it at that. Well, I want to give. Let me give her try to hear quad one.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I want to hear you being not nice for one, okay, well, okay Next time.
Speaker 2:Okay, you promise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've used up my vinegar for this episode.
Speaker 2:I'll save it up.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, mark, who's good talking again? Hoops with you and everybody. Be sure to check out the podcast on all the streaming platforms and we hope, if we don't hear from you or if you don't hear from us for some reason before the holidays, you enjoy your holidays and we'll see you out there on the message board uscbasketballcom. And we'll see you later and, as always, fight on Mark.
Speaker 2:Fight on everyone.