Mark and Chris discuss the losses to WSU and Colorado and ask the following questions: Are the bigs back? Who should be getting more playing time? How do we balance the need for player development for next year with the need to salvage wins this year?
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.
Mark and Chris discuss the losses to WSU and Colorado and ask the following questions: Are the bigs back? Who should be getting more playing time? How do we balance the need for player development for next year with the need to salvage wins this year?
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. Okay, welcome back to the Dunk City podcast brought to you by USCBasketballcom. I'm Chris Houston here with Mark Baxter. Usc's basketball slide is continuing and the Trojans are coming off two losses First to Washington State at home on the 10th and then on Saturday night at Colorado 68-58 loss on the road in Boulder. Usc now falls to 8-9 and 2-4 in conference play. Mark, how's it going? How are you doing? Are you holding up with all the warm weather in California, because a lot of the rest of the country is bristling under the snow?
Speaker 2:It was a chilly 59 degrees yesterday when I got to Santa Anita, so I'm just there with the rest of you all just freezing my butt off. I feel you.
Speaker 1:What a soldier.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So what were your initial impressions of where USCBasketball stands and what you think the rest of the season holds?
Speaker 2:Well, that saying where they say be careful what you wish for because you might get it. When we wanted that unorthodox starting five a couple of weeks ago, we're getting close to getting it Not really what we wanted. Yeah, this has just been frustration beyond belief and not quite beyond words yet, but I might run out of words unless there's at least something to mix this up a little bit. It's just frustrating to see the same thing over again and again. For those who haven't read my column yet, it just went up Parallels between this USC team and a pretty well known racehorse that raced in Southern California about a decade ago. Well, I think that we have about the same winning percentage too. Another thing is being one below 500 in college basketball is not quite the same as being one below 500 in horse racing, right?
Speaker 1:So yeah, the horse is going to make the tournament.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very well said yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, you know, what's interesting though Sort of the I don't know what it is, it's like the salt in the wound of this type of season is that some of these losses always turn out to have a bit of a twist, or there's some sort of thing that happens later on. That puts things in the context. So USC a couple of weeks ago why not a couple of weeks earlier in the month hosted Cal and Stanford. The Trojans played OK against Cal and I thought Cal actually looked pretty dangerous, and then Stanford was obviously a bit of a barn burner every game, probably the best game USC played all year. But then they come and host Washington State on Wednesday, last Wednesday, and come out completely flat. And then, you know, at this point it seems like, wow, this is really, this was really just a stinker of a game, and I'm not taking anything away from that being a stinker. But then Washington State goes and beats Arizona, right, and so it doesn't make you feel good about the loss, but it does make you think that it's not that this, look, this team is not good. But that game was less about just being bad and and maybe a lot about Washington State being pretty good, because Isaac Jones had was just named packed while player of the week. He scored a lot against Arizona as well. And then the Colorado game was interesting because USC is missing three starters and the first half of the game was, I'd say, one of the top three halves of basketball. Usc's played all year.
Speaker 1:And look, obviously there's some things that go into those types of things where you often get, when you get on Orthodox lineups going against teams that maybe haven't seen these players, and then there's also the rallying effect which is usually like just this adrenaline that these underman teams can go through and get them to like get off to great starts. But then it's always hard to hold and that's kind of what happened against Colorado, where just that novelty of these players playing together and the kind of the great feeling they had in the first half just couldn't be sustained. But to me it's just interesting that that USC played as well as it did at Colorado, given the players that were out. So that makes you feel different about the game, as if it would just be a loss with with everybody on board and then the Washington state, of course, then beating Arizona, and then just the general chaos and college basketball and the Pac-12 doesn't make, doesn't take the sting out of it anymore, but it just. It can't help you cope, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just been a really weird three weeks in and then it's just been a really weird season. It's, it's. I guess the one thing is not that that predictability is fun, but man, this has been completely unpredictable, except for how good Oregon has been since they established themselves. But that was, you know, pretty unexpected and seeing as they were down to big men out, now Dante's come back, but just there's hard to see carry over from week to week, you know, and we're seeing probably the biggest example of it with our team.
Speaker 2:But you're just seeing it across across the conference for the most part, except yeah, did you get that?
Speaker 1:Did you think that Arizona would lose two games to Washington state and Stanford in the conference so far through five games, that they'd already have two losses and right now they are solidly in fourth place? Or I should? Yeah, they're in fourth place right now in the conference. Now, obviously there's a long way to go. It's only one fourth of the way through. So but it's just funny because a lot of these teams that we thought were going to be good this year USC, ucla, arizona is obviously good this year but, but we thought they were going to be even better after the first sort of the first half of the non conference play and they're sort of fading a bit. They're 1214 and you know they're not so far being the dominant team. Everyone thought they would be in league play. So there's lots of issues going on there with various teams and and USC is unfortunately in a worse boat than most of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, to answer your question, and I didn't see Arizona with two losses Although I did, I did say they'd have a tough time at Stanford. I do know a couple people on Twitter that did not expect them to have two losses so far this season. Yeah, I don't know if you remember that little exchange. I should probably check in with them and see how they're doing, he said sarcastically yeah, exactly, so, okay, so USC is now In, let's see.
Speaker 1:I guess they would be in seventh place or tied for see, they'd be one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, tied for seventh right now with Cal and UCLA. Ucla and USC seem to be sort of circling each other on this descent into the season from hell. So it's gonna be. It might be a race to the bottom when the two teams play first, one to 50 wins. But you know, I do want to say some things about the Colorado game.
Speaker 1:I barely remember the Washington State game at this point because it was such a Dreadful game, one of the worst games USC's played. And then on top of that you lose Isaiah Collier To a contusion on his thumb, and now he's out four to six weeks. If, if, if we're lucky, he's, it's on the short end of it and he comes back and he can contribute. But if we're not lucky, then there's a chance he doesn't really play any meaningful games again for USC. So he might, maybe he might get back in time for the very last game or two or the Pac-12 tourney. But there's a possibility that he he may not play a whole lot more for USC. So that was hard to, that was hard to deal with right and then. And then I sort of tuned into the Colorado game just out of just like a lurid curiosity and and Not expecting a whole lot.
Speaker 1:But I did see some things that were pretty encouraging. Actually, vince Iwachuku looked, I Thought, just looked as good as he's looked since his freshman year. In the first half he ended up with 10.7 boards it's just the weight, you know, it's not always what you do, but but how you do things right and so he just seemed like a totally different player. He seemed aggressive, assertive, his hands were good, he showed great footwork. He didn't look tentative. He was able to convert some Plays that we'd seen him do last year and he he hadn't. He hadn't been able to do that so far this year. And so if he finally showed it and it was really encouraging Kajani right Also, I thought came in and just seemed really focused and motivated and showed good hands like he had. He had a really good grasp on the ball for the first time in a while, and so, and then airton page came in and I thought he looked legitimate not that he hasn't had legitimate looks before, but he looked pretty confident. He looked like he was definitely Playing without any kind of hesitation, so it was just good to see those three guys. And then, of course, I was I sellers, like you mentioned. Having such a great, such a great game showed he can carry the load, looks like he's, he's a confident shooter right now.
Speaker 1:So I'm hoping the team can can get some good positives out of these, out of these performances, and try to build on those going forward. Because Right now you're playing for getting guys ready, I think, for next year. You're getting to get guys experience, looking to get development, and if the issue with development is either not getting enough reps, not getting enough minutes, or Because the ball is being dominated by by this backcourt, well, a portion of that backcourt is now gone for a while. So so you're definitely going to see potentially more focus on the big. So there's more because if they're, if they're like, I feel like they have more motivation to keep, keep playing hard Not that they didn't be, they shouldn't have had that before, but if they didn't happen before now, I think they would Because, hey, if they can show it that they can be relied upon, they're gonna get more opportunities. So so hopefully that could be something that that they can develop a bit and and build upon for next year, and Then, you know, sneak a few wins in here and there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of responses to what you said. I think the bigger difference with Vince this game versus the Colorado game versus prior, I think Number one this is it just seemed like he had a more favorable matchup. He just not a lot of resistance when he got the ball down low, that's true, the big guy for for Colorado is just brutally bad, but it's not.
Speaker 1:Like you know, Vince was having trouble against air.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that's that's. The other thing too is this was the first time I've really seen him. You mentioned the footwork and just so much of being a big man is just having your feet under you and being balanced. You know, I swear there's the correlation between just just being balanced and having your feet under you and and your your shop. You know your field of percentage is a big man. Yeah, it's gotta be just just, you know, extremely strong and he looked he looked good, he looked like he looked.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say before and I'm sorry to interrupt you, but before I wanted to say this, before I forgot I was gonna mention that that Vince play had been playing like a man who's like four inches shorter. Right, he had been playing like he's not seven foot. Yeah, I'm playing like he's six, seven, right, like, like the way he would he would carry himself down low and the way he would like be playing players defensively and the way he would he would try to, you know, establish position. It was like he was six, seven.
Speaker 1:And it's finally like he. It finally dawned on him hey, I'm actually seven foot, so I connect and I'm pretty athletic and I can, you know, and I'm strong, and if I just like remember that I'm seven foot, I can actually, and then, just like you know, use my footwork and use what skill I have, then then I'm gonna be successful. And that's what it looked like in that first half, because he just there's some plays where I think he, I think he missed some stuff and he fought for a rebound and like he was fighting for rebound, he was just doing stuff that I knew he was capable of but he just hadn't been doing this year. Carry on, carry on, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I think to that point would we're kind of going with that too, is I think that realization Just lets that game slow down for him and he just seems like it in much. He seemed like he was a much less of a hurry. Yes, absolutely, and it's just like, and maybe this is the kind of point of inflection on His career where it's just like, okay, and you know, that doesn't mean it's perfect from here on out.
Speaker 1:But well, that would be great. I mean, that would be like it Would be a lot easier if USC could establish if, look, if this, this, this is a lost season, but there are still ways you can salvage elements this season. And that is like if the fence Iwachuku finishes the year out strong, if you average just 12 and eight right, if you finished 12,. If you average 12 and eight to the last 10 games right, or something like that. I would be like one of those things you can assuming he came back from the next year, you can look at that performance and feel good about yourself going into next year, right.
Speaker 2:And same with.
Speaker 1:Katania Raleigh. So there's a lot of like, there's a lot of, there's like, so many things available for these bigs to get out of this if they can just keep stringing along good stacking games and if they can get to the end of the year and they can tilt the construction of the team back over in favor of the bigs again. Right, if?
Speaker 1:because, the back court hasn't performed like they're supposed to perform. Right when the bigs were the center of attention, when USC was a big, dominated team, usc won a lot of games and they went to the elite eight. But since the team has become a more guard oriented team, it's been struggling. So these bigs can be like, hey, you know, let's start going inside out instead of outside in, and if they can back it up with some good play, the coaches might listen and start just going back to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate the honesty, but this is a lost season. It makes it kind of a poor salesman for the podcast, just to be honest here.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean I think if it's not a lost podcast for sure, you know it's no, yeah, very well said. But I think that just because if it really was a lost season in the sense that it wasn't worth talking about, then we just wouldn't do any more podcasts, yeah, but I think that there are still some things to talk about about player development and about which players are stepping up and which players don't look like they fit. I think these are all things that are really interesting to watch, regardless of record.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that gets me to. I think you know you attribute to the good start, the good first half in Colorado, in Boulder, to, you know, the novelty and the adrenaline. Yeah, I'm gonna just ask you a question Do you think that maybe there was maybe just too much deference to Collier and Boogie and that possibly just kind of led to a little bit of a lesson full effort by some of the others?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's a really astute way to look at it.
Speaker 1:I think that if you're trying to figure out what was the issue with USC's underachievement this year and you're trying to look for answers, I think you're gonna run into a dead end. If you're trying to go like oh, andy Enfield didn't teach them to play defense this year, blah, blah, blah, because that's like he didn't just forget how to do that stuff. Right, people react different ways, and when it came to okay, we're now going to be this double point guard offense and we're gonna play that outside end game and really be guard dominated. One of the risks you run in that type of situation is that the other players don't really feel like they're part of the mix, and so it could be that, like you said, if you're not getting shots and if the other, like the ball, is being dominated by like five guys before you get a chance, and like if you get one shot, you better make it, because if you don't make it you might get pulled, or people will be like, oh, that guy sucks. It's a sound theory, though, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, yeah, I just at this point. That's kind of what this is kind of. What happens in the second half of games is these kind of things.
Speaker 1:Well, what's actually going on here?
Speaker 2:that might explain it other than just this season. No, yeah.
Speaker 1:And there is. Obviously they came out in the first half and without those guys playing they did pretty well and the defense was really good in the first half. Now Colorado was also shooting really poorly. Some of that was due to our defense, but some of it was just they were just missing a bunch of bunnies. Yeah, some of that was gonna balance out, I'm sure, but I don't think it was like the worst loss. It does make you think well, if we had Boogie and Collier and Morgan, would USC have won that game, which is I would say they probably would have, because Colorado did come in? I think I don't think it was a matter of them playing poorly because they didn't think USC was good, because missing those guys. I think they just were still in a funk from their own problems they'd been having and USC probably had a really good opportunity to beat them and it was really not having Boogie. I think if USC had had Boogie they might actually won the game.
Speaker 2:You know I can't disagree with that. I'm gonna say, and this is not something I really anticipated while it happened, but, boy, over the last two games. So last game Javon Hadley had a BPO 75.0 and he had nine rebounds. You know, we saw just the devastation that was Isaac Jones in the game before that His BPO was 67.8, he had 11 rebounds. I am just really curious what happens there. If Josh Morgan is in the game, I don't think he shuts him down completely, but I don't know if both those guys just absolutely just pick up blowtorch to us, like we saw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's one of those frustrating things about the season that you can't control. At this very juicy time to play Colorado, we weren't full strength and if there's all kinds of what ifs in the season, right. But you win that Colorado game and now you've stolen back a road loss. So that kind of balances out that road loss or the home loss to Washington State a bit. But again, I think that was probably when USC still had a sliver of hope that it could salvage the season in the conference sense. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:So now USC must go to Arizona on Wednesday night and then to Arizona State on Saturday night. Arizona, like we mentioned, has been having its own issues of late. I think they've actually they have lost two of their last four and three of their last six.
Speaker 2:They lost to.
Speaker 1:Florida Atlantic in the very last game of the Atta Conference and since then they are now three and two in league. So they're three and three in the last six. So that's not for Arizona, given what they had been expecting and given the schedule they played. They played Duke played Michigan State, also having a disappointing year. They played Wisconsin and Purdue and Alabama and FAU. So that was a pretty tough non-conference slate. But wow, they've really just struggled once they got into conference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they don't seem like. I don't know to your point that. You brought it up during the preview. You made the good point and let's see what happens once we get in the conference play here, just to see how much of whatever we saw in the non-conference really carries over. You seemed a lot more skeptical of it. So far it's proven right. I just again to the point that we made earlier. It's just been a weird season in the Pac-12. And I think they've been just a big part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, Isaac Jones had 24 points and 13 rebounds against Arizona, right, and it's like when he had that game against USC I was like, oh, this is another example of those bigs just getting torched by a guy who hadn't really done much, and he did it against Arizona. So it's just like you said. You just it's really hard to predict things, and so for those out there who are Mad when people predict things that turn out, just remember that I don't think anybody's getting a lot of this stuff right. Sometimes you just cannot predict stuff the, the.
Speaker 2:I mean obviously just aside from just you know the struggles that you a C is having right now. If there's one thing that just really concerns me, it's just the kind of natural rhythm of of life in the in the pack 12, and we saw it earlier where, after, after, arizona lost at Palo Alto. So what did they be? Arizona Bible like 94 to 50 or something.
Speaker 1:Colorado 97 97, 50 Arizona. There's three wins in league have been by 20, by 1921 and 47. That's right, so they're. So they're either. You know they're either losing or really killing teams, so not a whole lot in between that is unreal, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he just you know To say that that we have to be near perfect and that one is, I think, kind of a fair statement. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you never like your chances going into Tucson. Yeah, this is a weird. This is a weird Arizona team. This is a weird year. I Assume boogie Ellis will be back for the game. He's had, I think, enough time to recover in with the thing about college basketball. Guys can go off and Go crazy. Usc is probably gonna have a little bit of a different focus in this game because, like we mentioned, with the big men playing a little bit better last game, perhaps they can now give Arizona more of a threat down low and Kind of hamper Arizona's ability to really lock us out in the backcourt. So you just never know how these matchups are gonna are gonna fall. You never know which players gonna go off. But yeah, I would say the chances are very narrow. Beating Very slim of beating Arizona in Tucson. Yeah, and then we've got that.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you notice this. On Saturday the the Arizona stake game. I believe it's at 11 am Our time.
Speaker 1:It is. It's a 2 pm East Coast, thank goodness for me on the East Coast. So that's good, that's a but, that's one of those things for you. Well, you know, you have to just lay out the partying that night, I guess I okay, fair. It's just one night. You can get back the next night, on the Sunday.
Speaker 2:And just wait and just waste a great trip to Tempe in Scottsdale. Come on man, it's a better rough season.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good point. So Arizona State was. It was a great example of just how predictions go awry, because nobody really predicted Arizona State to be doing very well. Right now they are second in conference With a four and one record and their overall record is 10 and six, so doing better than most people thought. They lost a lot of experience from last year and it had seemed like Bobby Hurley's Program was sort of tread and water a bit, but now they look like they're doing pretty good so far this year. And it's of course, always playing them down there and with, with the, with the Hurley isms and the and just the. Just these guys, just like the dirt. They're always the dirtiest team in the conference. It's gonna be, I'm sure, just like wrestling with a pig. So it's gonna be. You know, everyone's gonna get muddy. We very, very hot, very uncomfortable out there. So hopefully it'd be nice to get a road win, but I'm not counting on you on either game coming our way.
Speaker 2:Yeah I this is kind of far fetched, but I think there's. I Don't think it's impossible. My hope is that UCLA has Improved their defense quite a bit over the last two weeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my hope is that just, maybe, just just UCLA gets in their heads and just has ASU just Questing themselves. On offense. I'm giving us a chance so that if we get to 70, 75 points, we might have a chance and they just, their offense is just, I Don't know the word for it, it's just, I think unstructured is just a kind word, it's just yeah, improvisational, maybe it's a really kind word, yeah, um, you know it's, it's. They just seem like the most of any team just to kind of just drop a dud at any point in time out of nowhere offensively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's really funny if you look at the, arizona just dominates the pack 12 rankings, all the stats, and Arizona's state is very low. And you know who else is very low and a lot of stats is Oregon and who's the number one and two teams in In the conference, it's Oregon and Arizona state. Now Oregon's middling on a lot but they're, for example, field goal percentage, defense, number 11. Oregon Teams are shooting very well against them, but they're five and oh and they're. They're not exactly. You know. They're middle of the pack with field goal percentage. They're real middle of the pack. They're like 10th in free throw percentage. They're. They're middle of the pack with scoring defense, middle of the pack with scoring offense. They're. They're middle of the pack with three points, like three pointers they're. They're literally like middle of the pack with almost everything, or in the last, the bottom half of the pack 12 and almost every category and they're and they're leading the league. So so much for these stats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's interesting. I'm good I have Oregon so clearly the best team by the, by the power ratings. I just got those then today because the Sunday games Like it's not even close, and then between there you've got like the next group before Utah, stanford, arizona, arizona, state. Those teams have kind of shuffled around but it's, it's interesting and Maybe just the lack of a big man just kind of well. Kwame Evans did good, though he did really well, although he's not, he wasn't really an interior guy against us. Seem seems like more of a stretch five I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's really, he's really started to improve and I think that I think that it just goes to show you how these stats, if they're putting different contexts, they don't mean as much. So, if you, that's why the analytics are so much better, because it just, yeah, finds you know the meaning of these stats, because, yeah, maybe being in the middle of the pack and everything is is, is good if you, if you, but you aren't bad at anything, maybe just being pretty solid and everything is a good way to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's a crazy number that that's gonna just I still find this hard to believe in their mind numbers. So when we have a contained Data set, like just the conference games, it's easy to get Comparability. And I'm confident when I give an offensive and defensive game grade and pretty clearly the the worst offensive game grade that Oregon had was against USC. It didn't seem like it at the time, although that you know we had that spirit at second half, at least the early part of it. Besides that, there their offense has just been on fire and maybe it's just a point where you know You're just so much better at offensive efficiency than everybody else, even though maybe doesn't show up in in other stats.
Speaker 1:That just you know everything else just kind of takes a backseat to it.
Speaker 2:As Bill Walton says, offense wins championships.
Speaker 1:He does like to say that, doesn't he? He's right, I think he's right about that in the end. But well, it's gonna be a tough, a tough road trip. Usc could very well be looking at Dropping to 8 and 11. Is that what they would be? After that, I think it's swept by the Arizona schools. So yeah, and then after that the Trojans will come back with UCLA the following Saturday.
Speaker 1:So there's only three a home game. Yep, there's only three games In the next two weeks for the Trojans. We'll see where USC finishes up. It'd be nice to try to salvage enough to get into the top half of the conference and Maybe get a decent seed in the in the conference title, get title attorney Conference tourney and then, you know, maybe you get hot in the tourney. That's the path, if there is one yeah, so do you have a marks mean minute?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be mean to the co-host and just say thank you with a question that's unrehearsed here, sure. So, given as we've talked about quite a bit the state of the season, yeah, do you, if not explicitly, because it's kind of hard to do, but maybe just kind of implicitly. Do you kind of tell Isaiah call your hate, don't hurry back. And you kind of tell boogie, hey, don't hurry back. And just just To put it nicely, really put a focus on what you have left on this team, also Beneficially Letting the, the players that are you're hoping come back, feel more, feel sufficiently engaged and see their opportunities that would lie for them on the team next year.
Speaker 1:Well, I think maybe in an ideal world you could probably do that.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I Don't know.
Speaker 1:I think some of these guys really want to play Boogie came back already and I think you you know he wants to play, but Maybe Collier it would be like, yeah, whatever. I think that that can backfire for you, because if you kind of take that approach, it's so hard to tell if guys are gonna hit the portal or not afterwards. Right, so you can, you can invest a lot of time in some guys during this process and they just end up going somewhere else. So I think you, I think you kind of have to just stick with the guys you have and try to make the best of what you can, and and I don't know if there's a if, if you can, I don't know if you can tell someone I mean, unless they, just unless there's like a mutual decision, but I got a sense that I kind of have a sense that those guys would, would rather, they would think that they would, you know, want to help the team. This is kind of what I would think. So it's gonna be hard to pull that kind of thing off.
Speaker 2:What do you think would be better for the program?
Speaker 1:well. That's a good question because there is some value in the program for Isaiah Collier to to come back and Perform well if Isaiah Collier and some becoming a good player in the NBA and some of that kid that the kids know. I think you like to keep your associations strong With some of these players you're playing so that you know yeah, not enmity, right and so I'm not saying separating from the team.
Speaker 2:No maybe it's just a question of look what are you gonna do for the rest of the season? That's gonna improve your draft stock right?
Speaker 1:No, it's a good these are versus diminish it right. These are all like valid points, but I think that there's also like how the program looks, doing that because word gets around, I'm sure, and then you know it's like you, you want to. You also can't. Like you know you don't want us to like lose every game the rest of the way out, right, like no what what you know I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's like you do want to develop your guys, but but boogie Alice is a really good player and you know, you know, and so and Isaiah Collier were a really good player. So it could be, it could very well be that that they were the problem. I don't think that. But if they were the problem, then Then you know, you could argue that it's the team is gonna balance out better and be better. But what if the team isn't better than maybe that wasn't the thing. So I'm just, I Just I don't really. I don't really think, wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:prefer to know that. Now I'm not. You make a good point. I'm not saying that they're the problem. That's, that's silly. But I would say that this team is like the leader to say we're not gonna lose this game and I I don't know what you're losing in that regard by not having them. And maybe you can develop that in somebody that can you know, that actually has the ability to take over a game in one way or another. And maybe I'm just looking way down the line, but you know who carried us in the first half at Colorado. You know that's not the first time that guy's really lit it up when given the opportunity. And if I could, if I can either develop him and make sure that he's starting next year and he's gonna be fully engaged and he knows that he is going to be the leader in the backcourt next season Versus, you know, not get him the opportunities and risk that he might go to the portal. I Definitely keep him engaged. You know the backcourt's kind of crowded.
Speaker 1:Well, it's tough with him. It's tough with him because it's, it's, it's sort. You really have to have a sit down with those I sellers, I think. If you're the coach, and ask him, look, how happy, are you happy here, you know? Do you think that that are you? Are you looking to go to the portal? Or or do you want to stay here and stick it out? Right, what do you think? You know, because if you do go and and you're Given, you're starting Oziah and he's and he's doing really well, then that's the kind of stuff. Maybe he, maybe he wants to go to the portal because now he's a hot name, right, and maybe, if you don't play him enough, he wants to go to the portal because he doesn't get enough minutes. So, like you, if you don't, if he ends up going to the portal, you're not gonna get that development right. So, yeah, then I say it's a qualified yes then. So it's like yes, if, if you want to develop him and you and you know you're gonna keep him, then do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean sorry for the tough question, but we're kind of.
Speaker 1:These are good questions and and I think that you just have to just get the players that you have on the team and get them to play as well as they can and try to get guys who are Going to be coming back next year, you think, as many opportunities as possible so that that they can be a season as possible without sacrificing the quality as much quality play as you can during this season.
Speaker 1:Right, because because if there's whatever, if there's 15 games left or whatever it is, you don't want to go one in 14 if, because then you have a lot of people wanting to leave, leave the program or you get you might lose your job if you do that, right? So Just never know, right, I don't think I would not fire infill and I don't think he's gonna get fired, but you know, someone could just be like, who knows, maybe Jen Cohen wakes up on the wrong side of the bed that day and decides to fire him, right? So, and he's gonna want to have Some, get some of the wins that that he can, I think, and so if that's the case, he's still gonna want to play boogie as much as he can, because because Boogie will get him some won't help him for next year, but he will help him for this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah the fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, you know, just to refer back to my column Towards the end there, I just I did a little split on on brawny first three pack 12 games this season and the most recent three His BPO 100. It went from a 69.7 in the first three games toa 17.7 in the last three and his car went from a positive 9.7 to a negative 4.1.
Speaker 2:And this is not the crap on the kid. This happens to every freshman, like I said in the column. But I guess a couple questions. You know they're they're related. If boogie cannot play, do you start him in kind of the more extreme version of that is does. Does he get the Harrison Hornery one game? Walk about and just get time to think about it.
Speaker 1:No, no, I think he's. I actually think he's. He's just not shooting well these last three games. Like he's still play, he's still doing things right on the floor, right, like he's not turning the ball over, he's playing good defense, he's getting steals and some assists. Like he's just not shoot. Like he's just not shooting well, like he's gone ice cold shooting. So I still think that like there's value in In having him out there and he can, as long as he's not necessarily like you know you're at this point he probably needs to work his way back into shooting His get a shooting field back. He's probably gonna have to make some dunks or layups to try to just Get the seal off the rim for him, you know. So he can feel it feels better again.
Speaker 1:So, no, I think you got to keep playing brawny, because he's he's just, you know, he plays the. He plays like everyone is a cliche by now, but he plays the right way. He's a good teammate, yeah, and he's not, and he's not like a Like, he's not a, he's not a liability out there, right, he's, he's out there. He's actually like I think he's positively contributing. He's not making a shot right now, so that's a problem, but everything else he's doing is is fine, he's playing defense and he's getting the balls and making some smart plays and that kind of thing. So I think he is, I think he's got to be starting. I would say, start him with boogie and and Kobe and Kobe, interesting, interesting.
Speaker 2:Um, maybe we go the other way and kind of on the, on the. On the theme of the last question, do you basically force free Bonnie James and say, guess what? You're playing 36 minutes a night now? Um, and just Push him through the freshman wall and just haven't get through these. You know, these issues accelerate the process. Maybe that's, um, maybe that's the way, because I mean, do you think he's coming back next?
Speaker 1:season, that's you know. Another question, right, it's just, who knows? I don't think anybody. Anybody who claims to know what's gonna happen with him Doesn't know they're lying, okay. And also, I don't think Ronnie and James may not know right now yeah. I don't think they're even thinking about that. It's like you know what I mean Like there's there's all kinds of stuff he can do. He can. Obviously he's got many options. Come on, he's played nine college games now.
Speaker 2:He should know Right exactly.
Speaker 1:But I think actually, you know, let me backtrack on that I think he actually should not be starting. Uh, I think I would actually. I mean, you start boogie and and kobe and, uh, sellers, at this point Is what I would do, and then I would bring brony off the bench. But but, yeah, have him be like the first guy at the bench, and then I actually think that they're now it's. They're now better. They should try to go to a conventional lineup. They should probably start Kajani and vince.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, um, our, our page and vince, or uh, page and morgan, something like that. It just depends on if. If vince is going to keep playing like this, then then maybe you can play a traditional power forward next to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, exactly, and I think that's you know, I think that's how it was drawn up a couple years ago when you, when you get both him and kajani together, it's like okay, yeah, really complimentary skill set between those two. Yeah yeah, exactly. Oh, also just going back to the brawny thing, getting some open looks. You know, easy, easy looks. The line for that one's getting pretty long now it seems like. Seems like everybody needs a couple of those, without the shooting. It's been the last couple games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, um, it's, it's, it's flummoxing. You have USC had really Three or four pretty good shooting games in a row, especially like, especially those oregon state, cal and stanford. I think USC was shooting 51 over that stretch and on three from three pointers they'd been shooting, like you know, over 40 the last three games before washington stage. And say then, because washington state, absolutely ice cold, and uh, against colorado, another ice cold game, 29 from three, 36 percent overall. They did shoot free throws pretty well 82, 9 of 11, but uh, but yeah, um, just weird Bad shoot. You know these the the peaks and valleys of these shooting performances. It's either like it's feast or famine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, it's, it's, it's collectively sinkers from 29 percent over the last week, from three that's just frustrating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 11 of 38 and obviously not having boogie. I'm sure it was a big factor that. And then uh, and brahney's struggles from three are right now. Yeah dragging down the team average. So for the team, interestingly enough, the team is shooting 36 percent from three right now. So that's a pretty good number for a team. So All right, is there anything else we want to cover that we haven't covered?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think that's everything. Um, I feel a little better now. Thank you, doctor.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I'm, uh, right now I've got my eyes firmly focused on the future. I'm looking at player development. I'm looking at players playing hard and getting more confidence and just generally trying to Keep an eye on how the team is evolving as the year goes on, how they handle the tough year, how they handle the adversity, how the program handles it. That's the kind of stuff I'm going to be checking out as the year goes on. Any last words, mark um.
Speaker 2:Only this, that's something that is often said.
Speaker 1:That is often said on the way to, to tussan, by the way.
Speaker 2:Any last words, I think yeah, exactly, um, as just as always, fight on fight on.