Chris and Mark discuss USC's sweep of the Bay Area schools and what it might mean for the rest of the season. One big plus: The team was moving again on offense and defense. Is Kobe back? Also, you'll hear Mark's Mean Minute, a breakdown of Pac-12 power rankings thus far, and a look ahead to games against Washington State and Colorado.
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 sweep of the Bay Area schools and what it might mean for the rest of the season. One big plus: The team was moving again on offense and defense. Is Kobe back? Also, you'll hear Mark's Mean Minute, a breakdown of Pac-12 power rankings thus far, and a look ahead to games against Washington State and Colorado.
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 backstreet. Here's the final wild flight Elton Henson For the OLS and then this show. It is on the Trojan Tundra.
Speaker 2:USC is on to the sweet 16.
Speaker 1:Okay, welcome back to the Dunk City podcast Brought to you by usabasketballcom. I'm Chris Houston here with Mark Baxter man. It is much nicer to come on this podcast following some Trojan wins, some badly needed victories for USC. Over the weekend Went over Cal 82-74 at Galen and then kind of a resounding 93-79. Gutsy win over Stanford on Saturday, a game that USC really needed to win, and Stanford brought a heat and USC returned the fire and it came out a very convincing Trojan victory. Usc is now two and two in conference play, eight and seven overall. It will play Washington State at home and then it will head to Colorado to play the Buffaloes on Saturday. Mark, how's it going?
Speaker 2:You sound a little more upbeat than I am. I'm upset. We gave Andy Enfield some great ideas on a new starting lineup and he didn't listen to us. And now look what happened.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, sometimes the coaches are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, believe it or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you think of the game?
Speaker 2:this weekend. I mean, exactly what we needed. This was the, I guess, the cure for the common losing streak, or just, you know, the net crack, as some people call it Just really exactly what this program needed. And, as I said in the column, there's one thing that we've kind of, you know, stumbled upon in the depths of these podcasts. This is Kobe's team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, precisely this. This was, if this team is going to turn around or try to make something of the season, these games were very vital. Winning the games doesn't mean the season will be turned around, but they were. They were much needed requirements to do it. So the first step, in other words, to a potential turnaround in the season, was taken, and so far, so good. Like you said, Kobe Johnson came back again after a good game against California and had a great game against Stanford. I mean just filled the stat sheet. It looks like he's got his confidence back shooting. You know, some of it could be being back in Galen, but I'm hoping that it can carry over. He definitely had some pep in his step and I think one of the things I noticed and we had I had a theory during his slump where I said that, whereas most players use defense to create offense, if he isn't scoring on offense, it affects his defense, and I think that once he started shooting well again, his defense got better. Did you see that too?
Speaker 2:I agree. And just to go back to the prayer week, I actually I think I shared it in the pod, but I remember noting I think it was the Oregon game in the first couple of minutes of the game at Oregon, kobe had a steel and a block shot and I thought here we go. But then the offense wasn't there and the defense just kind of seeped out of his game and he was like yeah, he was like oh right, I can't shoot.
Speaker 1:I suck so you can see in the body language, but this one it was the confidence right away and I think he was just saying you know, eff it, I'm going to go out there and be confident, get my shots. He took better shots and wasn't forcing it as much and I think once a few of the tough shots went down, I think that really gave him a lot of confidence and I think that's spread to the entire team.
Speaker 2:And I forget if it was the cal or the Stanford game, but one of those he got a very early. He got a good look inside the paint where he, just, you know, he cut to an open spot and got a nice, nice, kind of easy bucket, kind of like, I said, the old booth and fall trick that we did way, way back when just to give him a nice, nice, easy look to get the outside game going and whichever, whichever defense, it was obliged and wasn't zoning this up so he could. He could get to that spot pretty easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the things I think we're seeing. Andy Enfield had said that basically, if you're not moving around on offense, you're not going to play, and the last four games haven't obviously haven't all been wins. There are USC is two and two during that time but one of the bright spots on offense has been the increase in the assist numbers. The last four games 2014-29, which is one short of a school record against Cal 1975, against Oklahoma State 30. And then last game against Stanford, 18. So you're looking at over 20 assists. The last you know, 24 assists. Almost the last two games, 23 and a half. So these are good indications of movement, of players getting easy shots at the rim, of converting when they need to. So these are good signs.
Speaker 1:I have a few other stats I want to run by you. We've talked a lot about the big three of Collier, boogie and Kobe on this podcast and people talk about it in general because it's you know it was one of the strengths considered the strength of the team. Coming into the season, arguably many thought it could be the nation's finest backcourt. To this point, it hasn't proven to be so, but it has shown some signs of being that during the season. What's interesting is that in the six, the two, the three players have only played 12 games together, fully healthy out of the 15.
Speaker 1:And of those 12 games, six wins and six losses. And in the six wins, the big three are averaging 57 points, with a low of 42 and a high of 69, which we saw against Stanford. In the six losses, they're averaging 39 points, with a low of 29 and a high of 49. So generally when they lose, it's in there. They don't score over 50 together and they get down below the 30s. And when they win, they don't score below 40 and they get above the 60s. So I think that it's obviously for these big three to score at least 42, 45 points as a floor is pretty much going to be the requirement for this team going forward to have a chance to win, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other side of that too we saw up in Oregon, which kind of led to our desperation. Well, what do we do with the starting lineup? You cannot be in a situation where a true freshman is carrying your team, which is where we were when Brawny James was basically having the best game of anybody on the road trip. God bless the guy for coming in and playing hard all the time, but that's, you know, your best guys need to be playing the best.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think you know, with these guys playing good again and Brawny back, you can kind of see some of the rotation started kind of starting to take form. Then it's funny there's been a little bit of ebb and flow with some players. Josh Morgan started out strong, then he had some struggles. This brought in Vince Iwachukwu, who sort of had some good games, but then he started to struggle. This brings back Morgan, and then you have Ozai Sellers coming in and playing well, but then he then he's struggled a little bit, and Harrison Hordery had a horrible stretch and now he's starting to play well again. Played very well against Stanford and it seems like the big three. If they get their act together, then it's just a matter of trying to find who the best players coming up the bench are going to be and who you have in your rotation, and unfortunately it feels like they're still kind of figuring that out a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I honestly don't know if we are in any better place and understanding what we're going to get from whom in that position. Um, in January, then we were in early November.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of its matchups. I think, in some cases, uh uh, like example, harrison Hornery against Stanford, I think he matched up pretty well against Stanford, uh, so so you know we got good production out of him. So, um, I think going forward it's just going to be a general, a general matchup thing, Um, but I'd say the I think the development of it's it would chew quite was a bit concerning right now. I think he's, he's really he's just not getting comfortable out there.
Speaker 2:Agree, uh, offensively, I would say so. Yeah, defensively he seems to, I guess, be getting it a little more this season For such a uh, uh, uh, an athletic long guy. He was not really a factor blocking shots and just it seemed, um against Stanford, that he was kind of understanding how to position himself better, to make better use of his tools. Yeah, um, but, and, and and. He's really consistent, even though he's not getting the minutes. Um, I guess I'd say he's demonstrating sticky hands when it comes to rebounds, he's, really. He seems to be the most sure-handed rebounder where he gets it and it, just it sticks in those giant myths which I love, which has been a, a a real source of frustration earlier in the season when he wasn't in the game. Yeah, and he's consistently getting 10, uh, 10 rebounds per 40 minutes. You know the frustration is to your point. On the offensive end, he's, he's doing, he's doing youthful things, that, that, that limit his minutes, I guess I'd characterize it yeah.
Speaker 1:Someone said on the board he's kind of been unplayable, um, to a sense, and and it's kind of been reflected in his declining minutes. Uh, eight minutes against Oregon, uh, 14 minutes against Oregon State, 15 against Cal and only eight against Stanford. He was effective in those eight minutes. He had four points, uh, a couple of rebounds made, a couple of free throws, but, um, it really wasn't the role that we've been envisioning Vince having right. So I don't know what's going on, uh, something mentally in his head where he's just not feeling confident out there. Maybe the pace of the game is not, um, something that that works for him, or maybe it's. It's just a matter of when.
Speaker 1:When you change the focus of your team to just three point shooting and uh running the floor and just guard dominated offense, um, and he's, you know, when he's on the floor he's the fifth option, right, and there are some bigs who perform better as fifth options and some bigs who don't. Some bigs are, uh, you know, might be third options, and and if, if they're the fifth option, when their skillset is third option, their skillset festers a bit and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's kinda it's going to make them it's like Weihn dentist and then he will have like a regular draft. What type of equipment does that nervous actually be important?
Speaker 1:because you know he will know you're moving in like you're going to kind of step to a second option where he, he will be there throughout the rest of the賽. So that would be us, that would be you know, it would be, you know, one of my favorites, I think it happens to.
Speaker 2:I think that Vince has to play it and he has to. Would try to silly, I think. Let me get your opinion on this. To me, our bigs are finishers but not really creators.
Speaker 1:Do you agree with that? That precept, okay so, and they're not the greatest. To the extent that they score, it's because they're finishing right, but they're not the best finishers right, yep.
Speaker 2:So of the big men, who do you think understands that the most offensively about this is what I need to do offensively and understand my role and not play outside of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, joshua Morgan.
Speaker 2:Look, I think, yeah, I think there's one other guy and you know I've adopted him. Kejani Wright is another guy, yeah yeah, I'm again gonna make the plug. I wanna see him get more minutes because he stays within himself and he's not gonna be the guy to take that. You know that questionable shot from 12 feet out with 18 seconds on the shot clock. I think there's a lot to be said for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd like to look at the numbers, but I feel like some of our bigs Kejani being an example, arrington Page being another example, pretty much all of them they all have the potential to play well, but it's almost like when we're playing poorly, when the guards are playing poorly, they don't have the capability to, kind of you know, get us through stretches right. Josh is the closest because he's you know, he did that. What was the game recently where he had a? He had a pretty good game. Was it Auburn? I can't remember, but he had a game where he came out and he was just, you know, kind of Oregon, I think. I think he scored four. He was six of seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess Oregon.
Speaker 1:And again that was without Dante. So it's like you know he had a little bit better matchup situation. But aside from that, there's really there hasn't been any stretches during the season where it's been like, oh man, we're not shooting, well, thank God, thank God where our big guy down there is making plays and scoring right. So, and I think that it's a lot of its mentality right. And so Kejani's mentality is knowing limitations and to some extent Josh Morgan is, and, being somewhat veteran compared to some of these other guys, you know they're able to, you know to handle that better, but I don't think that Vince is handling that very well.
Speaker 1:And I think that, yeah, and I think that Arrington Page, it's all those things when things are firing in all cylinders and he comes in and the consequences of him playing poorly aren't so great, then he can play pretty well, right. But when it's one of those things where you know it's a close affair and the guards aren't playing well and we need someone to come in and hit his shot, he's, you know, we don't, it's not, there's not a lot of confidence there either, right. So it's one of these things. There's a lot of upside here, right. And these guys where, if one of these guys can go out and start stringing together some good games, this can have a transformative effect on the entire team.
Speaker 1:But the problem is that I'm not sure which one it can or will be, and it's hard for the team to sort of suffer through the things that has to happen for that to happen. You know what I mean? It's almost like it's almost like it has to happen during a blowout loss, right. It has to happen during a blowout loss where for Erranton Page to get some confidence and some reps and some shots, and it sort of happened like against. Who did that? Was it Gonzaga?
Speaker 1:He did pretty well against Gonzaga right, but the pressure was off right. He just sort of came in, you know, getting handled pretty easily by Gonzaga. Go on there, do what you can do, big guy, and he comes in and scores. But it's very different from you know. We're in a tight game. There's eight minutes left in the game. We need you to go in and play good minutes and then he gets the ball and it's like you know it's. There's not a lot of confidence there in those situations, so it's sort of a quandary that has carried over from from the offseason and from last season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, specific to page and you know it's not like he's playing a bunch of minutes and costing us. But what's interesting there is, I think I like to say, you know, big picture, everybody's Biggest strength is also there, their greatest weakness, and I think that he is so skilled but he just doesn't have the experience that it's it's. It's hard for him to go back to, like what Kurt Keras told us. You know, embrace what makes him a good player. Yeah, he has this full skill set and he thinks that that that's what makes him a good player, but not at this time, at this level. And it will, but it's just not there yet. But he, he doesn't really understand that. So he does things like dribble, way too much for a big man in a conference when he's gonna get his pocket picked a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and you know if?
Speaker 1:you if you took the, the different components of what some of these bigs have. If you took errington pages Skill set, you took a Johnny writes attitude and sort of understanding and his passing ability out of the, out of the post. You took Vince's his energy that he can bring and you took Josh Morgan's block shot blocking ability and and his ability to that casually finished pretty well. You know, if you can combine all those things into one big, you'd probably have a pretty good big. You'd probably have Some of the standard bigs we've had in the past, not necessarily Ocon we're a mobly but you might have a like an Isaiah mobly type, right. So you know, if there was an Isaiah mobly type on this team I think we would be really happy with the results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we don't have one into your point. So what do we do with? You know when, when the outside shooting is struggling? One thing I mentioned and I haven't quantified this yet, but there's almost no need to, because it's just so evident during the games, aside from boogie, this team just collectively sinks or swims from the outside. It's, it's coming into the season. We were, we were thinking, you and I were thinking, well, jeez, we have, there's so many guys that can shoot from the outside. There's got to be one or two a night that can really light it up, and it's basically been six or one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and and I think and, like you said, unfortunately, I think that's who we are this year. I think this is, this is a. This is like we talked about. This is a three-point shooting team.
Speaker 1:Boogie Ellis has a coli, or Kobe Johnson, brony James, dj Rodman, osaya Sellers and Harrison Hornery and, to some extent, eric and Paige are all guys who can, who can shoot from outside, and we can't shoot from inside. We can't. We can't really, we don't really have an inside game and and you know, knowing this full well, and you know, in recent years we had inside game, but we didn't have that the point guard are really the really strong three-point shooting. So we flipped it, flipped the script a bit and we flipped the, the makeup of the team and, and this is who we are, and this is why, like on the message boards, people are like you know, oh, they're still complaining about the bigs, as if, as if every game is a revelation, but it's not. Every game shouldn't be a revelation. This is we should understand the limitations of, of the players we have and and Understand that the strengths that we have are going to be the reason we win games.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and to that point where we are collectively sink or swim. If there's one thing I hope we take away from this weekend With, especially that Cal game 29 assists on 33 made shots, because we do have good outside shooters I think that we do get in a situation where the confidence of these guys they think we'll all shoot us out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Whereas what they need to realize is we need to create our way out of this. Yeah because we we can't dish it down low. That's been proven, that we don't have.
Speaker 2:You know, bob Lanier or Kimmelage, when down there, we need to set things up, and so we need to, when the shots aren't going down, don't shoot our way out of it, don't you? Feeding it to the post is not going to work. It. It's going to be the ball movement that we saw to get really good open looks and and eventually create, you know, the opportunities for the guys inside it, what they do best. Yeah, a couple feet away from the basket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, I think that the the theme for the year is movement. You know, this team needs movement on offense and it needs movement on defense. Right, it needs to be. It needs to close out three pointers. We are right now. Right now, the defense is Prop.
Speaker 1:You know it's having a real problem right and in pack 12 play these last four games, the opposing teams are shooting 51% from the floor and that's very hard to win games like that and so. So there's got to be an improvement there. If this, if this, you know, this team can be salvaged. There's got to be. It doesn't have to be necessarily as good as the teams In previous end field years, but it can't be 51% impact, well play. So it's got to get down. It's got to get down to the mid 40s.
Speaker 1:I'd say yeah for this team. You know so, because otherwise you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to really shoot amazing every night and you're gonna end up having to have some statistics that are pretty Gaudy on a national level for that to work. So and I guess the teams may be capable of that, but I don't, I wouldn't bet on it. So so I think the easiest thing and this is where the bigs I think could could really make their biggest impact is they're not the most skilled players on offense, or at least if they are, they're never. They're not really going to be able to develop that this year because of the construct of the team. So the very least they can, they can play better defense and I think that we see inconsistency on the defensive side among the bigs.
Speaker 1:But again, so overall the the theme is movement and then I would say the next theme is consistency. You get those two things Because movements also not only you know offensive defense and those half court sets, but we saw against Stanford once Kobe was Sort of his demon, like self again. You saw the steals and which turned to transition, which turned to buckets the other way. So I'm a big fan of USC flying down the court after a steal, because usually good things happen.
Speaker 2:Agree. Now just to be clear. So you're telling me that if, if other teams like Stanford shoot 59% from three pointers, we're not going to win very many games?
Speaker 1:You know I spent a lot of time thinking about that, but I'm pretty sure now I know and I don't want to make too much of Stanford shooting 59%, because Clearly this is a really good shooting team. They've got I think they've got four players shooting 40% or better. These guys are, at least offensively, potentially a very good team as far as that like they're gonna come out and score points right. So, and I think there is a bit of overstatement about three-point shooting defense, where this idea that if you're in somebody's face or if you close out, necessarily that this is going to result, or this is the reason you know you didn't close out. So it was a three, it was a three-pointer, and sometimes that's true, but a lot of times, just like these guys are shooting well right and no matter where they're shooting and then Michael Jones was was just hitting everything I was about to say.
Speaker 2:Name a team that would have stopped my bat Michael Jones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's certainly not Arizona, right, and so it's like so. But the great thing is that, as well as they shot, they scored 79 points, which which is a Progress. Right, because the first two games is Oregon and Oregon State. We gave up 82 and 86. The last two games, cal, stanford, 74 and 79. So so it used to be USC's thing used to be keep teams below 70. I think if we keep teams below 80 this year, that should be our new goal. If we keep teams below 80, we're probably gonna. We're probably gonna win. We haven't. I don't think we've only lost. We've only lost two games, I think, where when the other team Scored below 80. Actually, no, there's one, two, yeah, there's been a few, but mostly in general, if we score above, if, if the other team doesn't score 80, usc, I think, except for one or two games, has generally won the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's To your point. You know how we. We managed kind of an easy win. I don't know if you caught this. The turnover margin 18 to 6 in our favor against. Stanford yeah, that's huge next level to your detail about the big men playing defense. Now, probably a lot of this is Kobe Double teaming digging down. The most turnovers for Stanford was actually Maxine ran out with five, yeah, so we made it tough on their big guys as much as anything else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there was good help defense in that. In that regard, that's definitely an area like we've been struggling with turnover and especially turnovers in key moments. So that was a season low six turnovers for USC. So it's interesting because you can say a Stamford scored a shot, 59% from three and shot very well overall, but they had a lot of turnovers and and they didn't play good defense either. So so when all these things get get added up, that's how you get a win, even though even though you had a bad defensive effort.
Speaker 1:So You're not gonna, you're not going to get six turnovers every game. But it's a start and I think we're definitely seeing Isaiah Collier starting to Starting to button things up a bit on the turnover front, which is very encouraging. I think in the last five games he's had there's the Oregon State game he had five turnovers, but against Alabama State one turnover, oregon, two turnovers, cal no turnovers and Stanford two turnovers and and so he is starting to turn the corner when it comes to Assist and turnovers. Of much of the year he had either more turnovers than assists or it was neck and neck. Right now he has 65 assists and 54 turnovers, so he's starting to put a little bit of distance between his assists and turnovers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to that point. I want to see him do it at Colorado. Colorado's kind of strolled on defense, yeah, and Colliers really, for the most part, turned it around. You know, no disrespect to the fine people at Alabama State, I don't think that's the toughest venue we played in his. His best games in that regard have been at home and I want to see him do it on the road. Colorado can be a tough place to play, so I want to see him do it there. One thing you probably would know this better than me, since you're more of an X and O's guys, it seems like To me it seems like this turn around has been where he's kind of. I guess he's not trying to create in the paint. If that makes sense, he'll create from others by moving the ball, but I think he got a Lot of his problems were trying to do the, the passes that were just physically too close to another man, usually a yeah yeah, and he seems to have gotten past that, or am I just?
Speaker 1:yeah, oh, absolutely. I think what happened was he had some. He had some things from high school Leftover that he was bringing to the table, right like the things he used to do that worked in high school, and he kept trying to do them for for significant stretches of the at a conference schedule and we saw this, you know, this Influx of turnovers as a result and but now I think you know so, a couple things happen. He was very aggressive coming in offensively and he scored a lot, but he was. But he was also too aggressive and and to set in his ways as to how he distributed the ball and that produced sloppy efforts. But what happened was he first buttoned up himself aggressively on offense, which is why you saw During the last, during this losing streak or during this, the slump that the team was in, he was less aggressive on offense.
Speaker 1:He wasn't shooting the three-point ball as much, he really wasn't trying to play, he was really limiting his bully ball play. Right, his bully ball play is what separates him. But I think there is some games early on where he was getting in foul trouble or he was. You know, he was getting called for offensive fouls a lot and he was generally playing out of control. So I think what he did was he sort of stepped back and said, okay, I'm gonna be less aggressive on offense until I kind of Can figure out what's going on. So he sort of backed off a bit and then I think he came into this weekend With the understanding that, okay, I think I, I think I can get back to playing aggressively again on offense and I think I have my, my point guard duties buttoned up in a sense right. So I think he was like, okay, let's try it, let's try, let's, let's take the Ferrari out for a spin, so to speak. Right, and that's kind of what he did. It gets Stanford.
Speaker 1:He really was aggressive, he going, you know, he felt he felt it from three-point range and he went out there. He was a three or four, I think, and he went out there and shot some threes. He was getting back there to bullying people and again it was it was a lot of it comes down to matchups, right. You come in and you see a guy, the guy across from me, and you think, oh, this guy, this guy actually really can't guard me. And so now you're like, okay, I'm gonna go do it.
Speaker 1:And I think in some of these games where he struggled, there are some guys that kind of could guard him and he was like huh, well, I don't really want to, don't really want to drive in this guy because he's really giving me trouble, and so so I think that the Stanford game gave him a chance to to get reinvigorated because of the matchups and how everything worked out for him. So I Don't know how the matchups gonna look for him for Washington State in Colorado, but I'm hoping that he continues his aggressive play but picks and chooses his spots to when to go off and when not to go off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be. It'll be interesting to see how much of this carries over, because I think I think Stanford's perimeter is a pretty obliging defense. Yeah, none of those guys are really locked down, not that they don't try it, just they're yeah, they're not great defenders, so Need to see how that carries over to this week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So we've talked about Cald Stanford, let's talk about Mark Samin minute. I want to know what you were angry about this weekend. All right, Well.
Speaker 2:I have. I have two questions in very, very, very different directions. So it's it's it's Too little Toodle plays here that we have. My first question is you know, bill Walton people will give him a hard time because he's a Bruin, but he is very effusive in his praise of of the school and the program. Now he does ask really weird things like what noise does the color cardinal make?
Speaker 1:I don't know if you caught that. My. My volume is generally turned down when Bill Walton is calling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay then you're a great person to ask of this. So I think that on the whole, he's a plus and my question is who's gonna benefit or be more beneficial for the for the program? Would it be Bill Walton and his goofy stuff, or or would it be a podcast that that just kind of cancels itself after? I don't know? We do poorly against Gonzaga. Just a hypothetical question. That's a good question.
Speaker 1:I think Bill Walton is definitely better for the program in that regard.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's kind of a sad state of commentary on Right.
Speaker 1:If you can't even be as good as Bill Walton, you know even Bill Walton still showing up right, but he's getting paid. So that's that is. That is a factor, but very fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny because I was actually over at my my wife's family's house and watching the game. So it was kind of a get-together. So that's what. That's actually the main reason the volume was down Generally. I would also kind of have it down earlier. It's funny when, when, when I watch the games where Walton is Is commentating, I don't listen. I've actually figured out how to tune out most commentators when I'm watching the game, but my wife watches and she'll actually listen to what they're saying and so she'll. They'll say something and I've I'm like not, it's like it sounds like the, the teacher and Charlie Brown to me right During the game. So I'm just not really listening. So it's, you know, rah, rah rah, rah and my wife here that she's like oh, what is he talking about?
Speaker 1:I'm like, you know, I don't know, I didn't hear what he said, you know, and so so, yeah, so it's, it's, it is gonna be nice. I think I'm not a. I'm not a, I don't hate Walton, but what I, what I don't like is is I think it's a lack of a sign of seriousness on the side of the broadcasting right, and so I'm gonna be very glad, moving to the big 10, that we're not gonna be Bill more Bill Walton on the telecasts. Great human, not a great broadcaster. Yeah, give me dumb, give me down the claim any day, absolutely.
Speaker 2:He's the one if we're doing a fantasy draft of who we hope carries over at the end of the game. Yeah, absolutely Before we had. Before we go ahead to our look at Washington state in Colorado.
Speaker 1:I want to look at the Pac-12 metrics that you came up with and have you one other question? Sorry, yeah, I just and this is my other part of the mean minute here- oh, I'm sorry, that's okay so.
Speaker 2:You might recall. I'm sure you recall when we had to sit out the Anthony Milton because of that Stupid FBI thing. Yeah, if you saw the Netflix documentary on that.
Speaker 2:There was actually proof that the Anthony Milton did not take money. That was put right in front of him. God bless the kid, wow. And yet we we did not get him. We were not able to play him that season. I bring this up because you might remember, when we played Colorado, as we were sitting in the Anthony Milton, one tad boil made a comment about how, basically, you know his program is clean but other programs cheat. Do you remember this? I do, yeah. So now that it's been proven that the Anthony Milton Did not take the money.
Speaker 2:Did that freaking jerk ever apologize for what he said? Of course not. Okay, thank you. I don't think he probably doesn't even realize it, right.
Speaker 1:He doesn't really care, because it was just a drive by shooting and you know in in his mind, right, he's doing a drive by verbal shooting about, about, about, you know, insinuating that USC's a cheating school. So yeah, he didn't, you know, because he didn't even say USC, right, so he's not even gonna, he's not gonna apologize for it. Right In his, well, just happened to be after he played us, right, right, just so happen to me, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, yeah it's funny Maybe that's the whole podcast another time in the offseason about that 2017-2018 team. What would have happened if the Anthony Milton had played that year? Because he was the team's best player, so, and and and that team was loaded and he was the team's best player, so it would have been really I and and he was my he's my favorite USC player of the infield era, so, so that was especially hard To go through not having him there and because he was actually I think he was the best player in the game. He was the best player in the game. He was the best player in the game. I was really excited to have him there and because he was actually a guy that I picked out Of high school as a guy I thought was gonna be really good, so I was really excited to see that come true during his freshman year and I think he would have been a you know all-packed 12 player as a sophomore.
Speaker 2:I had the actual pleasure of meeting him Before the last football game I ever attended at USC. His recruiting visit was with coach Tony Blant before the Utah game. And yeah, and I, um, I, I saw I recognized Blant, I didn't know who he was with and I said, hey, coach, you know, talk to him. And then he said, yeah, this is the anthony. Um, he's, he's, he's quite a baller. So really nice guy too.
Speaker 2:Very, you know, very genuine, not like hey, I'm too cool for you or anything, just a really good guy and you can just tell that, just, you know, I don't know guys like that, those that do everything, guys that I just personally love to to have on our team.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. He's turned out to be a pretty good pro as well. I've been very successful. He's Making a great living, so, uh, obviously I think the program is still very proud of him. So Good stuff. So, okay, let's talk about Now that we're four games into the pack 12, you've got some, some data to crunch. Let's talk about where the pack 12 teams Are arranged in your power rankings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so overall, Basically, how I'm calculating this is I'm saying, for each of the um, the conference games, Uh, what's each team's bpo? 100 offensive and defensively, versus the average for their opponent. To get that 100 plus metric, we're on offense, so higher number is better and on defense, a lower number is better. So we basically take the difference between their offense and the defense and that gives us a power ranking. I'm not gonna say it's a power rating because it doesn't really relate to points, but at least it kind of gives us a guide for you know who's best and by how much. So this is in the column. If you haven't read it. I've got this, this tabled out here. But you know, my top team is actually Oregon, which is really impressive. They've got the second best offense. They've got a pretty good defense. The thing that's amazing is that you know they're doing this about their two big men.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Great coaching job by Altman. The one thing I thought about after I saw them play on Saturday night. We've seen this from time to time, where you think a team's going so good it's like, oh my gosh, how good are we gonna be once we get, you know, player X back? Yes, Sometimes that's a little trickier once everything's established and chemistry's kind of there. Now Altman's a really good coach. He might be able to do it, probably more than anyone. But it's not just a plug and play. This'll be interesting to watch.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, and I was actually very, very impressed with Oregon when they played us. Shellstad, obviously a very good freshman oh my gosh, it's high on him coming in and I think just his perimeter play is really outstanding. He's very mature. So I don't want to say he's revelation, because I knew he was a good player, but I am sort of surprised he's been as good as he has been this early. I thought that he might have a bit more of an adjustment period.
Speaker 1:Cuisinard's playing pretty good. He's a good defensive player, very athletic and in general I feel like they've played very good defense Oregon has. And then the other thing that has really something that I didn't account for was their freshman big who is playing really well Kwame Evans, junior Kwame Evans, yeah, I saw him also in the All-Star games over the summer and sometimes those All-Star games aren't the best way to look at the player's skills and sometimes those All-Star games can also be very guard dominated, so but he has really developed and pretty good player and he's shooting threes. It's not something that I expected but I think he's. You know, I think long term he's gonna be a better player for them than Dante if he sticks around right, and obviously he won't have the same injury problems that Dante had. But yeah, this is what one of the surprises of the Pac-12 this year, I think, is sort of the development of these freshmen up at Oregon, because in recent years they haven't had great development.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very fair. Second best team. Not a surprise here. Arizona, you know, more heavily tilted towards their offense. Their defense is just about Pac-12 average, just a little bit better. You've got two extremes there, with that crazy game at Palo Alto where they gave up 100 and then they held Colorado to what like 50?
Speaker 1:50, yeah, oh my God, that's pretty wild. You know, it's like Arizona's a little bit like those, like those Wishbone teams of the 70s, where they every play they have to run the option right Cause that's just like their offense, and so they're always. They're scoring a lot, even when the game's already already decided right. So did Arizona need to beat Colorado by 47? They didn't. But I just don't think they can help themselves. They just, they're just gonna score.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're gonna score 90, no matter what right, and so then it's just a matter of how well the other team shoots.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't disagree with that.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, are these power rankings include the non-conference as well? Right?
Speaker 2:No, this is just within conference.
Speaker 1:So just the four just the okay Four games of conference, all right.
Speaker 2:You made a really good point coming into the season when you said, hey, I wanna see how this shakes out once we're in conference play, because it's just a different dynamic. So I like just having kind of the closed circuit so that you know we don't get extra points, cause we're better to, we're more able to blow out Alabama State than somebody else is, for example. I just I like the closed circuit of data here. Yep, third team, arizona State. You know that tremendous defense that I saw in the non-conference is carried over. Yeah, really good defense. Their offense is about average but you know, so far they're getting away with the clutch and grab. Yeah, undefeated, right.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 2:They're undefeated.
Speaker 1:They are undefeated, they're four and 0 in conference.
Speaker 1:A little bit of this is the function of the schedule, right, because they opened at Stanford and at Cal, which they won, two very close games.
Speaker 1:They beat Stanford by three, they beat Cal by two, and then they come back and host Utah and Colorado, right, so they had, they had the. You know, I'm not saying that the Stanford Cal trip is easy, but it's the easiest road trip in the conference, right, so they had. They started out with the easiest road trip and then they had, arguably you know, arguably the toughest duo outside themselves in Utah and Colorado, right, and they had them at home. So so I think it's going to be you know, obviously more data needs to come in and they're going up to Washington on Thursday and then they host USC and UCLA, so they they're basically playing four of their first, or they're playing a stretch of four home games and in five in the conference. So so I'm curious to see once there's an equal number of, I guess. I guess once we get to 10 games, I think that's where we're really going to see some interesting numbers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to that point I think you know they caught the best time Cal is going to improve. They run some good offense and they shoot the ball well.
Speaker 1:They really do, they really do, they shoot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were way behind Cal. I think if you're going to get that Cal team at, you know at Berkeley, I'd rather do it the first week of the season than the last. So that was that was fortunate. They caught Colorado, like you said, not just at home but kind of a slumping Colorado without Cody Williams, so that that really lined up for him too. So you make a good point on that. Next couple teams Stanford and Washington, washington one and three. So they're just they've had a little bit of bad luck. Stanford we've, we've. I think we're pretty familiar with what they've, what we've seen from them. Not a great defensive team, really good offensive team. They have the fourth best offense in the conference.
Speaker 1:And then go ahead. No, no, I was just going to say for Washington, in the same situation they've opened up at Colorado and Utah and tough game at Colorado lost by four, lost by Utah to Utah by five right. And then they host Oregon, a very hot Oregon team, and they lose by two right. So they played three pretty good teams in a row, then they, and then they handled Oregon State. So I still don't think Washington can be counted out as being a factor. I don't know, I'm not saying they're going to, you know, go on a tear or nothing, but but you can't sleep on Washington when you play him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree To your point. After 10 games let's revisit them for sure. Number six, our Trojans, with the third best offense in the conference and the second worst defense in the conference. Have you heard of this in another sport where USC has a really good offense but really needs to kind of pick it up on defense?
Speaker 1:That sounds big and familiar to me. It does sound. I sense a theme developing here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought we fired Alex Grinch, but that's a different podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so you know. I think that what is that? Usc is sixth in this power ranking. So through four games, usc is sixth, which is not where we would have hoped. But what's funny is, I think, that when we went through our Pac-12 preview, you had USC at three and one. At this point I had us at four. No, but it's not a huge stretch. If USC steals a win at Colorado possibly you never know Then they have a chance to get back closer to that 14 and six prediction that we, to get on track for that 14 and six prediction that we saw.
Speaker 2:You know, one thing I wanna point out and I'm curious if you would agree with me maybe, since I had us at three and one at this point it's easier for me to kind of frame it this way, if you. I think there's a lot of the context of the December slide in that horrible game at Oregon State.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:If you just kind of say, all right, we had one really crappy game and you just set aside the non-conference, this is not, you know, it's not like, oh my gosh, we're in horrible shape here. I wanna point out one thing too, and I'll probably dig into this in the column a little deeper that game at Oregon, or at Oregon, our offensive grade, which is basically kind of that offensive and defensive power rating that I've talked about for the team, so what you do on a game-by-game basis, our offensive game grade against Oregon was a 104.8, and the defensive grade was a 95.6, which is actually good. That was a sneaky good game. You know, If you kind of have that context to and say we played them good and then we just had an absolute bed crapper, yeah, I'm. I'm sneakily a little more bullish than Than I otherwise might be, just looking at two and two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. Organs a pretty good team and, and while they came out and Built up a big lead, usc did play hard the second half and did did make it competitive. So if you're looking for silver linings, I think those are great points you're making for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, you know I don't want to spend too much time on the bottom half of the of the conference. Just right behind us is is Utah. Just about the same ratings, although Not nearly the same Offenses us, nor as bad at defense.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this who's who's got the worst offense in the league? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:This isn't even close. Ucla is at a 79.7. This is just kind of remedial. It's yeah I mean, this is the first year I've done these stats, but that's just. You know, like I mentioned in the column, you think about this those the worst of Jay John's teams at Oregon State. That's kind of what they look like offensively. They have fixed their defense in short order. They have the best defensive power ratings. Now I think if you only have to play defense for like 20 possessions a game, it's a little easier, right, um right, but at least they've got, they've solved that. So there's a piece of Mick that's in there. But man, that offense is just a rough watch.
Speaker 1:I think it's. I mean, it's possible that they Can get things together, just like it's possible. You see, you can get things together. But I think the only thing right now that's sort of Busted worse than us sees, sees, it has been UCLA's, because that gamble on the euro, the euro gambit, has has really, has really failed at this point.
Speaker 2:So far, although I did see a graphic During their game against cow, where they have I think they have more than twice as many freshmen minutes this year than the next Next most packed 12 team.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean that. That explains it for sure, but I think they weren't. They were expecting these, these euros, to be, to be better. Freshmen is what I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, um, I don't know if they thought all five would take the song to develop, I guess. Right, yeah, absolutely, I mean some of these guys.
Speaker 1:They're not. They're barely playing some of these guys now, um, but uh, so those are the power rankings, um, after four very interesting numbers, um, and I'm curious to see how those will develop. Would you want to talk a little bit about are you? Are you anything more on that, or do you want to head into Washington state?
Speaker 2:Uh, just the last thing, colorado's last, right now, um, they actually have, um, the second worst offense. I think that turns around. I, they have one more road game before they catch us at home. I'm just a little concerned about the you know three game road stretch where they get the home cooking. They might have cody williams back by then, who's sure who's been really, really good and that can fix a lot of their problems. On offense, they shoot 40 percent from from three. So I don't know, just to kind of jump into the colorado preview here, yeah, that could be a tough match up for us Because I, I think we've kind of hit the point that we struggle, uh, I, a lot of teams enjoy playing, uh, shooting threes against us. I'll just put it that way, or whatever reason absolutely.
Speaker 1:It is interesting, though, that that colorado, which which looks so good, I wonder how much when you lose 97, 50, I wonder how much that affects your, your, uh, your analytics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, quite a bit They've, they've had. Yeah, that number, I think, just really makes light bend, as my old boss would say.
Speaker 1:Einstein who's?
Speaker 2:that he's the smartest Einstein. He was a philosophy major.
Speaker 1:Wow, interesting, so yeah okay, so those are the power rankings and uh, uh, let's talk a little bit about uh, the washington state in colorado, washington state, uh plays, uh in uh gaylin center. Uh, tomorrow night, wednesday night, 7 30 pm, it's going to be a fox sports one, telecast, which is, which is kind of nice, and then saturday at colorado, always a tough road trip. Uh, I don't think it's always a tough road trip because of the venue. I think it's A tough road trip just because of the, maybe because the altitude, but that was on espn at 7 pm. Um, what do you think about the matchups with washington state?
Speaker 2:Yeah, washington state actually has second to last um in the power rankings.
Speaker 2:They really struggle on defense. They have the worst, pretty much by far. Even, uh, two point three points worse than us. Um, you know, offensively, no real standouts here. Um, two guys that that I'd be interested to see. You know how we're gonna defend them. I mentioned one of them before in the preseason um Preview column, so I'm gonna butcher this. This gentleman's name, kimani hoinsu. Um, uh-huh, he's their most efficient offensive player. He actually played on the french under 18 national team, so there's some talent there. Bpo of 155.8, which is leads the, the team of the guys that that play a decent amount. Um, that's certainly not stoppable. Um, yeah, that's somebody that we can. We can have our way with what I pointed out in this week's column, which is interesting isaac jones, the point guard. His numbers are, um, or sorry, miles rice, the point guard. His numbers are almost identical to isaac alleyers. Now, I haven't seen washington state play a lot, I'm, but I'm I'm pretty sure that, uh, this guy's not another isaac alleyer. I don't know if you've seen him play.
Speaker 2:Well, it's rice for for wazoo? I haven't. Okay, I'm I'm pretty comfortable he's probably gotten these numbers through a different route than than collier has. Um, so we'll see about that. The other one that that that's kind of a concern for me defensively is isaac jones Bpo, 154.9. That's nice, um, you know he, he starts for them. Uh, looks like he's their best rebounder. So maybe he's the fully actualized version of kajani right, that I want to see, kind of similar bpo um big man.
Speaker 2:They're leading guy in beskar too, so it seems like they probably run their stuff through him. I'm guessing that. Um, who was the guy they had? Was it the shan jackson that was their big that departed. I believe so yeah it seems like they run a lot through him, so he's probably taking over that role oscar club, uh uh, has some pretty good numbers.
Speaker 1:I think, uh, they're not a not a good three-point shooting team. Um, it doesn't necessarily mean anything because they can. Um, if they have the ability, they could become one Uh against usc very easily. Uh, one name that a lot of children fans might recognize joseph yasufu.
Speaker 2:Had a hip injury.
Speaker 1:He's only played six games this year. Um, he was. He played against usc Uh Back in evan moblie's year when he was on drake, and then he was over at kansas and and then came over to washington state, so he hasn't been a huge factor. He's only ever been six points a game In those six starts. I think this is a game that is well within uh, the matchup wise works out really well to us because, Uh, they are. They are not a great uh perimeter team and that's our strength Uh, and they have some. You know, the oscar clubs are a big guy. He's a big, solid big. He's an australian. Uh, they got some some interior presence, but I don't think they have anybody who is going to be overwhelmingly Uh amazing against our big. So I think this is actually also a potential Uh good game for our big guys to step up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't see um of anybody that plays a ton of minutes. The only one that that really rebounds with a decent amount of Interest is this guy, rubin chinello. He started half their games. Um, seems to be kind of like the last guy in the rotation, so, um, that's the only thing I think. Otherwise we could probably take him on the boards right, yeah, definitely, um, and and then.
Speaker 1:So I think, I think you know they're at this stage, uh, in the season, there's no, uh, there's no automatic wins, but I would, I would have to think that USC has a really good advantage against washington state. Going into the game, barring Uh, barring them, uh, barring USC, shitting the bed at multiple levels, uh, this should be a win for the trojans. Which leads us to saturday's game in boulder. Uh, we talked a lot about colorado on the preview, obviously, and I think one of the things I mentioned was was that, um, with kj simpson obviously having a massive season?
Speaker 1:But I thought I was, you know, I thought that his numbers they were so outlandishly good, yeah, in the off-seat, in the outer conference schedule and they started out pretty well, um, in the first two games against washington and washington state as well. But he fell off the cliff against arizona, right, and in he, he played better against arizona state, but not at the level, not necessarily at the level that he had been playing at. So, um, I was just Thinking that, uh, I was hoping that by the time we played him he would be sort of on his reversion to the mean and, uh, kind of fingers crossed that that his reversion to the mean is is underway.
Speaker 2:You can thank me. I tried my hardest to jinx him and it looks like it's kind of worked. Um, through 11 games in the non-conference, his bp100 was over 68 and just four games later it's down to a 61. Now, 61 is great, but that just makes you wonder, gosh, what's happened in the increment? Um, it's, it's. It's that reversion that you're talking about, just a severe regression to the mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, he had eight turnovers. He had eight turnovers against arizona.
Speaker 2:That that had to happen. Yeah, when you see a bp that's that low You're, you're seeing a lot of turnovers just to drive that down, just miss shots alone. Don't do that. Yeah, you know. But tristan de silva is, you know, he's had just a A great career arc. I, I like his game. Uh, javon hadley actually is a more productive player offensively. Um, uh-huh. Cody williams, true freshman. Um, interesting that he didn't go to arizona. I think he was like a top five national recruit last year. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, he was. He was a big deal. A couple of the services flirted with having him as the number one overall recruit, but he didn't end up doing. I think there might have been one service that had him at number one for for a lot, for an extended period of time. Uh, super athlete? Uh, not the kind of guy who's who's a refined player yet he's. He's not necessarily Uh a great shooter, but he can score and he can just jump out of the gym and do all kinds of uh athletic things that most normal humans can't do. So he's, um, I don't know if he's going to be playing against usc, but but, uh, for usc's sake, I hope that, that he's fully healthy, but but wants to uh wait one more game before he plays again.
Speaker 2:Yeah it. It sounded like and maybe this is one of those things that happened to the walton broadcast that you, uh, you had tuned out. Um, it sounded like they were thinking they might get him back this week. Um, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:Um one guy that I think we have to look out for because he, because he fits the Profile, the guy that typically gives usc troubles, eddy lampkin. Right, he's 611, 300 pound center, uh, for colorado, and, jeez, he's averaging nine points and seven boards, and uh, so it's just One of these guys that is going to have to be accounted for. And then, uh, luco bryan, the guard is, uh, I feel like he. He did some things against us last year that were very frustrating.
Speaker 1:So uh they have, they have a, they have a bunch of guys that are they're that that. They're not necessarily, like the, the biggest talents, but they, they fit well, nicely together. So, um, but I'm hoping that Now that they got swept uh on the road, they are going through the same kind of soul searching that, uh, that usc had to go through, and maybe we can catch them on a slump.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna pull it up here. So they're at, this is gonna be interesting. They're at cow uh on 30 tomorrow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was a Wednesday Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that will be interesting. Um, in that you know Cal had a big win at ucla. Um, this is an interesting next step, um struggling offensive team for colorado on the road for the third straight game. Yeah, could set interesting context for, uh, for saturday's game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. It's gonna be a tough one up at boulder. Uc typically doesn't play well, although I think in recent years they they sort of Turned the corner a bit because colorado hasn't been as good. Um, so we will see if uc can Get that wash in the state game. It's good to be back up over 500 again, that's for sure. And they can get back over 500 again in conference play With the win against washington state and galen. So so I think we pretty much covered everything. Uh, anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2:Uh, no, that is it for me.
Speaker 1:So that'll do it for us on this latest episode of the dunce city podcast brought to you by uscbasketballcom. There's still a lot of basketball left to be played this season and we hope you come over to uscbasketballcom to discuss it. And, of course, if you are a real glutton for discussion of usc basketball, feel free to go to the duncecitypodcom Uh website to check out all our past episodes or any stream platform. So once again, on behalf of mark and myself, fight on everybody fight on everyone.