Chris and Mark discuss USC's games against Oregon and Oregon State. The Trojans showed some life and snapped a six-game skid with the victory over the Beavers. Can they build on that and keep improving? Will the return of Isaiah Collier make a difference down the stretch? How long should Kobe Johnson sit on the bench?
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 games against Oregon and Oregon State. The Trojans showed some life and snapped a six-game skid with the victory over the Beavers. Can they build on that and keep improving? Will the return of Isaiah Collier make a difference down the stretch? How long should Kobe Johnson sit on the bench?
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 backstabbing for the first and final round of life and the second for the OLS, and the fifth and the second it is on the Trojan Tundra. Usc is on to the sweet 16. Okay, welcome back to the Dunk City podcast brought to you by uscbasketballcom. I'm your co-host, chris Houston, with my co-host, mark Baxterham. Usc, for the first time and it seems like ages is coming off a victory.
Speaker 1:Trojans beat Oregon State on Saturday 82 to 54 in Galen. That was an all around team effort. This came on the heels of a sixth straight loss on February 1st, thursday, against Oregon, which was just a nine point loss and a little bit of a. You know there's no such thing as moral victories, but maybe, given what happened against Oregon State, you can sort of see a little bit of the corner turning there. And then next week, or I should say coming up on Wednesday, usc will travel up to the bay and take on California. That is at 8pm up at House Pavilion and that will be on the PAC 12 network, and then on Saturday at Stanford at 7pm that will be on ESPNU, which means, mark, that I don't think there will be any Bill Walton.
Speaker 2:I don't know, he might be on that ESPNU broadcast. We'll see. That means you might be able to listen, though. Huh, not just a video only.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe you never know who they dread, who they dredge up, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, I think ESPNU usually has like an Adrian Branch over the Corey, the Corey gentlemen that played at Arizona in the 90s, I believe, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:He's not bad, is it, corey Simon?
Speaker 2:No, no, you're thinking of Miles Simon, it's Corey. Oh, yeah, he wears a bow tie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I remember him. Now I can't remember.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what his name was, he's good and insightful and he gets excited, but not at crazy things like Mr Walton does.
Speaker 1:Before I forget, I want to talk about the broadcaster who I do think is maybe the most talented young broadcaster I've heard in a while, and that is Ernie Kent's son, jordan Kent, who is a fantastic play by play guy and because he has a basketball background, he's potentially also someone who can really ask good questions of his color analyst and who maybe chip in as a color guy himself. I mean, theoretically he can do the whole game without any help.
Speaker 2:Maybe like a 2020s version of Chick Heron, but a little more polished. What a voice that guy has too. Huh.
Speaker 1:Got a great voice. He is incredible with the speed of his calls and it's interesting because most of the time athletes take a while before they go and become color analysts or they start out as color analysts and they're usually not very good at first. I don't know a whole lot about Jordan Kent's background, but he must have majored in communications or broadcast journalism because he sounds so polished and he goes right into the play by play role instead of the color analyst. So very impressive talent in that world. So with that out of the way, let's talk a little bit about this 82-54 win and a little bit about the loss to Oregon, which was 78-69.
Speaker 2:Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:So the thing that really struck me about the Oregon game was the first half, when everything you wrote in your most recent column I should say the column before this last one talking about spurts of death. It happened almost on schedule because USC played very well, I think, for the first 16-17 minutes of the first half, and then Oregon went on a run and it was like they went into the halftime with a nice cushion and they just kept USC never closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could almost just feel it coming, couldn't you?
Speaker 1:as well. Yeah maybe the players could feel it coming, because it's almost like they willed it into existence.
Speaker 1:But, that Oregon game was interesting for a few reasons. One, arrington Page got his second start of the season. It was the first kind of major shakeup in the starting lineup in a while. So you saw Arrington Page starting in place of DJ Rodman and you saw Ozai Sellers, who had been starting recently but he firmly is in the starting lineup now and he came through with one of his finest games as far as just shooting efficiency and whatnot. And then you had Copey Johnson starting what might be his last starting game at USC this season anyway, and he went 1-9, and 0-6 from a three-point range. And this was seemingly the final straw for Andy Enfield and he just had to make a change and that's what we saw going into Oregon State. But tell me your thoughts on Oregon, mark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little closer than a 9-point final margin might indicate the BPO 100, just a difference of 52.8 to 51.1, which feels a little closer than a 3-plus possession game, even though it was a frustrating loss and the opponent BPO was just too high. Aside from what you mentioned, other good performances that gave glimmers of hope DJ Rodman had a BPO 166.7, bronny James 74, and in just 15 minutes. Unfortunately, I think we'll have to come back to this about Vince's minutes. But Vince had a BPO of exactly 100, which is second this season, only that crazy Ozai game that we saw recently. Yeah, I'm not getting to get into this a little bit. Vince was kind of singled out post Oregon game in the presser by Enfield for not rebounding and he must be just and maybe I got to pay attention to this. He must be a detrimental, not not blocking out, because he got 10.7 rebounds per 40 against Oregon. I know that's not the be all end, all stat, but he's been consistently really good on the boards.
Speaker 2:Like I said, maybe he's just letting you know, maybe he's just grabbing because he's so big, but he's just not boxing out and letting others get rebounds. I don't know. I don't know how to put the thought together, Right Well?
Speaker 1:I think, you know, 10.7 rebounds per 40 is a good, obviously a great efficiency number. But obviously there are times when people who really do average 11 rebounds per game in a season perhaps, are going to have games where they're per 40 rebounding is ridiculous, right. So I think that they're looking for a few more of those types of games from Vince, right. So like we'd like a little more volume rebounding, and I think it's also just it's not just if you can get the rebound, or Vince can get the rebound, it's also he has to body his man. So, yeah, a teammate can get the rebound A lot of times. That's a big part of it as well. So, you know, for me it's like if I'm watching the game and I see Vince not get the rebound, but I see that he tipped the ball out or he contributed to the rebound, then that's, that's all good. But yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1:I think it was good that Andy called people out a bit, because God knows he's he's been, he's given everybody a fair shot, I think. I don't think there's anybody in the roster who can say, oh, I should have played more if I had played. If only I had played more than this, right, and there's nobody. Everyone has gotten their shot. I mean, maybe the only person who could, who could make some kind of complaint about that, or maybe Ozai Sellers, maybe Kejani, but I think until recently, kejani just hasn't been able to be consistent and Ozai, to be fair, hasn't hadn't been able to really show what he can do.
Speaker 1:Now, in cut, to kind of justify, enfield his recent, his recent explosion or his recent improvement, his recent showing of confidence has resulted in more minutes. So I think it's pretty simple equation here If you go out on the floor and you produce, you're going to play and and maybe to the team's detriment he will. If you prove yourself, he will let you keep playing so that you can get out of that. You know, if you're not playing well, he'll let you play until you can get out of it, and I think he let Kobe go as far as he can take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, but.
Speaker 1:Kobe again two of 15 in his last last four from three point Right, and just if you're not, and he wasn't playing good defense. So if you're not playing good defense and you're not and you're not shooting, well then what do you bring into the table? And I think we've been talking about the need to to to bench Kobe, not in like a, you know, not in like a punitive fashion, but just, hey, take a step back, watch the game for a while. You know, you obviously puts a lot of pressure on himself. This is, I think he really wanted to get to the league this year and so he really needed to show his offense and then, mentally, when things went down, it was hard for him to call back. So but I think that that Enfield has done a good job of managing minutes and our opportunities, at least for the team this year.
Speaker 2:Agree, agree, the. It had to be done and I hate to say that in that, I'm kind of wondering now, does that mean that you know, are we past that? This is Kobe's team phase Of this season?
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing. If the team is going to do anything this year, that then the team must be pride from Kobe's dead cold hands. Sorry to use that analogy, but no, he can't be the guy anymore. He can't be the guy who's he hasn't. He isn't the guy. He has seated that role as being sort of the, the alpha male of the team, the, the face of the team. And I know there's great players in Boogie and Isaiah Collier.
Speaker 1:But Kobe Johnson was sort of like the engine of the team, as we talked about. So yeah, so we've taken the engine out and right now we're sort of we're running on, we're running on solar, so you know, we don't have a combustion engine, we're just kind of just kind of floating around. We got solar sales, but yeah. So I think that it had to be done, because, if, because you don't want to do it at the start of next year, right, and, and I think, the great. So one of the benefits of it's like stupid silver lining, right, but one of the silver linings of a team having to rotten year is that you can do this kind of thing, right, kobe Johnson can't say, oh, coach man, what the heck, what I should be like he can't be sitting on the bench feeling like he should be playing.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, because he's because when you go to for your last, when you just are, when you're shooting 36% and 26% from three and not playing good defense, when you're not playing very well and you're given the chance over and over and over again to revive yourself and you don't do it, then what ground do you have to stand on? I just don't think. Maybe you know, when the season's over, you might think, well, maybe I, if I would have had a better season if X, if coach had done this. But he can't say coach never gave me a shot. So I think and same with DJ Rodman, right, so he didn't start again and he played better, right. So it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like none of these guys who are being sort of like given a backseat to the rest of the team as far as minutes ago, had any reason to feel resentment about it Like they. They can look in the mirror and say, yeah, this was on me. So that's kind of one of the benefits to having a really rotten season is that you can. You can finally make, you might be able to make personnel changes in lineups and in playing time in ways you couldn't if the team was doing really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's like if, if USC was, you know, 18 and two or whatever, whatever, whatever the tally is, and Kobe Johnson was having a, really you know, was shooting 35% and just somehow they had done it with him playing poorly. You, you know you don't change him in the lineup necessarily because maybe you like what he, you know, the chemistry you have or something right, or maybe you don't want to create resentment. So so, yeah, so when, when you're, when you're crappy, you can do some of these things.
Speaker 2:Or, as somebody wrote last week, it's only when you lost everything that you're free to do anything.
Speaker 1:So, so wise, so so, yeah. So Oregon USC definitely showed some things in that game, but to me it was just like they just it was like they didn't know how to win and it sounds like I hate. I'm like a huge hater of those types of cliches in sports.
Speaker 1:But it was like they're going through the motions and no matter and they just sort of like we're spinning their wheels and Oregon just kind of like. I feel like the USC was so detached from the game that they just couldn't kind of grab onto Oregon and so, but I feel like they got a taste of it. Maybe that's why they thought, okay, maybe we can finally get over the hump against Oregon State.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Oregon game was make. Let's put it this way, the Oregon game, if this is a word, seemed very microcosmic of the season to date and looking forward to the next game, maybe the Oregon State game was a little foreboding and microcosmic what's to come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think foreboding is maybe the right not the right word maybe foreshadowing.
Speaker 2:There you go, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm a CPA and I'm a English major.
Speaker 1:It's okay. So there's some people on the message boards who are talking about that. We shouldn't get too excited about this game and I'm definitely not crowing about it for sure. But I don't think there's too many 30 point victories for USC basketball in Congress, probably even with these really good teams we've had in recent years. Right, I know there have been like some 20 point blowouts. I know this is 28 technically, but I don't think I've seen a USC team dominated team in the conference in quite a while like this. So it was kind of nice to see. And again, let's not forget this Oregon State team did beat Arizona. They're the 11th place team, but I don't think they're very bad. I think they're a dangerous team.
Speaker 2:In fairness, they're not the same on the road versus home. They have pretty violent splits, to the fairness of those on the boards that are making that point. But having said that, winning that game by that margin is what basically the best teams in the conference will do.
Speaker 1:Right, it's not really something you want to set your clock to, it's not something you should expect. You don't really want to think that this is going to happen every time and it certainly almost certainly will not happen every time. But, yeah, can it foreshadow some success in the future? I think it's certainly possible. You're seeing, we saw some player combinations that we're going to see a lot more of going forward and we're going to see a lot more of probably next year.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the cool things about the game was that there were three players I thought who really stood out. Obviously Sellers. He's now five of his last six and double figures. He had 12 points in that game. He's averaging 11.5 in his last six. He's shooting 52 percent field goals, 66 percent, three point on 25 minutes a game during these last six games.
Speaker 1:So he is right now the most confident USC player on the roster. He's he's really like he's just kind of working like a chef out there, just really really kind of being very deliberate. I don't get the sense that he's ever in a super hurry. He takes really. He has really kind of like conservative shot selection. I've complained about this and but you know like I'm curious if, if he shot more than six or seven times a game, if he up that to 11 or 12, how his efficiency would look. But he's definitely a player we're going to see a lot more of this year and next year. And then Johnny Wright had a good probably his best game as a Trojan against Oregon State 12 points, five boards he's averaging seven and a half points in his last four, along with four rebounds, shooting 57 percent. And then Aronson Page if you combine the Oregon Oregon State game together, he played 29 minutes combined against those schools and in those 29 minutes, 10 points, five boards, three assists, five blocks.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's. That's a super sub right there man.
Speaker 1:I know he's starting, but yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's that's awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know he fouled out in 10 minutes against Oregon State. It was a lot of those files were just really bad, bad calls. But you're going to see a lot of that happen with with young bigs. But he's really showing and to that, you know, to that, to that end, talking about these young guys, it's, it's really good to see the animation of the bench in that game and just them having a good time. You didn't see people sulking, which you worry is going to happen when you have a team that's had a bad year.
Speaker 2:Are you saying that maybe some people might have given up on the season, like kind of like we see on the boards? That would be the inclination to your point, that you would just, you would just see like God, let's get this over with. But man, they were like seriously engaged.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, you know.
Speaker 2:I was happy for a lot.
Speaker 1:Fight on is, you know, is considered a suggestion, not a command, you know.
Speaker 2:Um yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting that it's like a turning of the page, so to speak, sellers Kejani page. And you see, like the three guys who played the most in the last couple years Kobe and Boogie and Morgan Now Morgan not so much as the other two, but Kobe and Boogie have. I mean, kobe's obviously had a huge fall off this year, but Boogie has fallen off a lot too. His last four he's averaging 12.2. He's shooting 32.6 from the field. Still shouldn't pretty good from three point lamb, but he's not. I mean, it could be that he's just at this point. He's now been hurt twice this year. Yeah, and it could just be. You know the minute, you know mother nature and the bumps and bruises have taken their toll and he's just not the same guy. It's kind of interesting not to see him not be the focus of the game and to see other players step up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's interesting about Boogie too, even though he had a poor shooting night, but you have three assists as a as a positive and you have no turnovers. To really drag down your numbers. His BP 100 for the game was 60, which is actually above his total for last season. So even if you're not shooting well, if you just don't turn the ball over a lot and you just help out a couple of times, you're still a serious you know, seriously additive to the team.
Speaker 1:No absolutely, Because here's the thing Boogie, it's. Boogie is a role. Boogie is fine as a role player too, Like I mean, I mean he's only shooting 12, I mean he's only scoring 12.2 points per game the last four but he's still averaging 17 on the year, Right so? But as long as he's not scoring three or five, right then you can get by with him scoring 12 for a few games. So, yeah, so, yeah, so he's not like hurting the team in that regard, and credit to Don McLean for pointing out- I don't know if he caught this kind of later in the broadcast.
Speaker 2:He said he's not going to score. He said he's impressive. Boogie just wasn't trying to get cheap points. You know, as the game wore on and it was getting more out of control.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's just like a great point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he said that actually. He thinks that plays well with the Scouts to, because the Scouts pick up on that Right, right, pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so nice to get that winnings Street, or the losing streak, snapped. Usc is now nine and 13 on the season and three and eight in Pac-12 play. I think USC is now tied with Oregon State for last place in the conference, but it's better than being last in the conference by yourself. The Trojans will take on Cal and Stanford coming up this week. Now that we've talked about Oregon Oregon State, I wanna go into our next segment, called game theory, in which you come up with a theory about this game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this game, the Oregon game, specifically with how engaged the team was and nobody wants to hear a CPA just read off numbers on a podcast. So look at my column. Okay, wow, all right, by popular demand. Bpo for the last three games. Now there is a lot made during the Oregon State broadcast about how that was our third game, that we were holding opponents under 40%, but there's other parts to that too. I've made this point a couple of times, especially when it comes to three-point. Opponents shouldn't be three-pointers. You have to defend without fouling and you have to turn your opponent over. So even though we held UCLA to 35% in that home game, their BPO was still 50.7. Oregon they shot 36.9%, but they didn't really turn the ball over. They got to the line a lot and so their BPO was 52.8%. Oregon State the field goal percentage was in line about 35%, but they got to the line fewer times. We turned them over a lot more 14.5% versus the prior two. Averaged about, it looks like 7%.
Speaker 2:So, we doubled the turnover percentage defensively, so that resulted in driving Oregon State's BPO of 100 down to under 40, which is like that's elite. That's kind of like we were hoping to see it our best coming in the end of the season.
Speaker 1:Well, that's interesting because what you're saying here, the numbers you're describing, are very much like what you just talked about with Boogie Ellis, where even if you shoot a low field goal percentage, if you don't turn the ball over a lot, it really helps you. And these are just great numbers. And I want to say that, for those of you listening, you should go to uscbasketballcom and go to the Buck Metrics page. Mark has a couple of categories which he follows, or I should say he ranks the players with these scores and you can go into further detail on the website. But it's turned out you really you can't necessarily predict specific things, but you can really see trends. You can really see they tend to be. I mean, I shouldn't say that They've been pretty descriptive, I should say of what teams are doing.
Speaker 1:So everyone should check that out and, as always, thanks for watching and I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for watching.
Speaker 2:And I'll see you guys next time and I'll see you guys next time. And they just kind of figured all right. Kobe starting, he's just kind of got a defensive end and we can maybe just kind of give it an effort, but not the effort capital T, capital E, and maybe with him on the bench there was this more sense of an urgency to play just more engaged defense. Because that's what we got and that's what we hadn't seen since about the Seaton Hall game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that there is. I would say I would mostly agree with that. I think that it's potential. Potentially Kobe is maybe he's a better off ball defender than he is a ball defender on ball defender. So I think that he plays better team defense than he does individual defense, if that makes any sense Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so he's good at coming in the double team, you know getting his hands in the lane anticipating passes and stuff like that. But when it's when he's up on a guy, he's not really, he's not really like as elite as he is in the other facet and yeah, he's not a close shut you down like Stace Bozeman, not allowing Jason Kidd to bring up the ball kind of defender, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know exactly exactly. Yeah, I'm Stace Bozeman, I'm gonna, I'll take that, please. Thank you. I think that so when Kobe plays not so good in his defense which is mostly, you know, team defense it's more likely to affect the team because he's not closing out on players or he's not switching fast enough or he's not getting back, not getting back on runouts and whatnot. So I think that it's the type of defender that he is that makes him especially detrimental when he's not playing good defense. And also, like you said, they rely on him to sort of be this the engine of that defense to spark them, and so perhaps they're just so used to Kobe doing that that they just sort of, like you said, they deferred to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and as I flesh that out a little bit too, just you know if I'm not an awesome defender, but I have Kobe as a helper and I have Josh as a rim protector. Yeah, how hard do I really have to try?
Speaker 1:That's me. Yeah, maybe you think that maybe you're used to seeing this in practice and you're used to struggling against it in practice, and then you get to the game and you're like, oh, they're gonna struggle against it too, and so maybe they do something completely different and you're just not ready for it. Now that's just obviously.
Speaker 1:I don't think any of these things are conscious but I can definitely see this sort of you wouldn't, when the game is like you know the 37th minute and you're really tired, you play a lot of minutes and you're digging down to stop a team on a possession and you're hoping that Kobe will defend his guy so that you don't have to defend yours, that kind of thing. It could be something like that and because Kobe's not playing at the level that he's used to, we're seeing a larger breakdown. I think to some extent it's similar to Josh as well, because he's again leading the PEC 12 in black shots. But I think his man-to-man, or say his post-defense, outside of the rim protection, it has been, I don't think, as good as it was last year. So he seems to have regressed a little bit from last year in that regard.
Speaker 1:I thought he had really good stretches of defensive you know, guarding players last year and he was put on the all-pack 12 defensive team, I don't think not only for his blocks. I think he was also a good post-defender, a low post-defender. So yeah, I think to some extent you're right, because when you depend on those types of players to sort of carry you on defense, when they don't come through on the nights, they don't come through your defense is gonna suffer a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for games at a time. Basically, it seemed like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really did seem like that. Okay, so that was your game theory. I think it's a pretty good theory. Now we're gonna go to our next segment, which is question time, Just like the House of Lords or the House of Parliament with the British Prime Minister. I will now stand up and the opposing party will now regale me with queries.
Speaker 2:All right, mr Prime Minister, I have three questions for you. Go on. The first question is you might have seen in my column this week, the USC had superior ball movement against Oregon State. Let me pull up the numbers here, mr Prime Minister. Um, they had. Usc had 22 assists on 30 made baskets, mr Prime Minister, creating a lot of easy looks, making 65.8% of two-point attempts. Mr Prime Minister, once Isaiah Collier comes back, will the pieces fit? Will we have the same ball movement or will we get bogged down?
Speaker 1:I think they will. I think the pieces will fit because I think we know a lot more about a lot more of the team right Then we did when Collier was starting. We know that Osai Sellers is now a confident, young, blossoming player. We know what we have with Barney James. We know he's going through some struggles shooting, but we know that gosh, he's a really good passer and he's actually facilitating a lot lately. He's 13 assists in the last two games and he's had a couple other games where he's had five or six assists and not necessarily in 40 minutes or nothing like that.
Speaker 1:You've got Arrington Page, who I think is starting to show signs of ascension, and Kejani Wright and Mitsunih Wachuku, who are much more developed than they were early in the season. And look at Kejani it's like he had a turnaround jumper in this game against Oregon State. He showed some things like it's almost like it was almost all confidence related with him and the worry that on a team with so many big scores that the pressure was on to not screw things up by trying to score. And it turns out he's got a pretty decent low post game. It's there. He just doesn't get a chance to use it much, but with Oregon he was great. Oregon State were up 20 or whatever. Hey, he's gonna try a couple of these shots and they went in. He was five of six in the game, also have five boards and some blocked shots. So you know he played really good defense. So we now know what we have with a few more of these guys and they're trending. They tend to be trending upward and the veterans are trending downward, but the young guys are trending upward.
Speaker 1:So I think if Isaiah Collier comes back he's been watching this whole time, right, he's hungry to play. He's looking at the situation. He's like okay, great, I've got Oziah. You know, if I get tired, bronny can come and spell me for a few minutes. Arrington is starting to come along. I can start to. You know, I could. You know, I now know that I can trust him a little more. Kejani, right, looks like I can trust him a little more. Vince is, you know, starting to be more trustworthy. So I think that with Isaiah he's less of a kind of a priority right now because the team is a little bit more developed like up and down the roster than it was early in the year.
Speaker 1:Early in the year it was basically these three superstar guards and you know, and the road crew, you know kind of thing. It was Peter Paul and Mary, and then you know, and then the backup singers and the roadies. So Peter Paul and Mary, for you young kids out, there was a 1960s folk group best known for their song Tough the Magic Dragon, anyway. So yeah, I think Isaiah comes back and you know, I'm not saying it's gonna be puppy dogs and ice cream, but I do think that there's a chance for the team to go on a nice little run in that conference tournament. That's gotta be what they're telling the players hey, the season's been very disappointing but it's not over. We've got a shot to let's get better so that when we hit that conference tournament we've got a real shot. And that's like I think that's a real tangible goal for the team to shoot towards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, my uh Next question. I agree and I share your optimism. The only thing is, as I pointed out in my column about the Brony coaster. Now he's got more experience at this level than Brony does. You're still gonna have those ups and downs, so I don't know. And with two freshmen handling the ball that could get really interesting. Well, let's see. For the most part, I agree with you.
Speaker 1:Well, to be clear, I'm not saying I don't think if USC doesn't do well with Collier in the lineup, I don't think it's necessarily because that he upset the apple cart. You know what I mean? Because this would imply that, yeah, yeah, yeah, very true.
Speaker 1:This would imply that the lineup that he's entering will have been doing really well Right. Like I don't know if the teams, like I don't know if they're gonna do well the rest of the year, I don't necessarily think that USC's about to go on a tear. So if USC is sort of limps to the finish line, like in kind of mid, say what, they got nine games left, I think let's say they went well, that's gonna be generous. Say they go five and four Right, then it's not like you're really upsetting much by bringing. You know you're not risking anything right Now. If they would go nine and O, then you might be like, oh then right, maybe we have to worry about that. Maybe we have to worry about what Collier will do, because this team's playing so well as is, so I don't think it's gonna be an issue. Okay.
Speaker 2:Definitely something to keep an eye on, though I'm very interested to see how that plays out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm actually really curious to see when he actually comes back. I think that we had, I think, february 15th versus Utah seems to be a possibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard any buzz about him starting. I mean, I think that they said four to six weeks and he got hurt against Washington State, which was January 10th. So February 10th is the Stanford game. So in theory, at the earliest, he could come back against Stanford. Indeed, Enfield said on Monday that it's possible that Isaiah could come back this weekend and if not this weekend, probably next week. Yeah, yeah, so any who all right. So do you have any more questions for the Prime Minister?
Speaker 2:Yes, question number two of three, mr Prime Minister. So I made what, looking back now, was a brilliant point when I compared this team to a resource named Obviously, who, if he didn't read the column, dear listener, would make a living out of just running out to huge leads and then desperately hanging on at the end and if obviously ever got looked in the eye, he would just kind of fade to fourth or fifth place. So was the Oregon State game? Was this only just that big wire to wire win by Obviously? Is this team capable of getting looked in the eye and coming back, or is that to be determined?
Speaker 1:To be determined, I think.
Speaker 2:That's what they're doing. That's it okay, easy, thank you, I can't disagree with that. Yeah, I guess that's the one thing, just to put a little perspective on that, to maybe just decide a little bit with the haters on the message board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know they hate us because they ain't us. Yeah, no, I think that there's a long way to go and I think it's all to be determined at this point.
Speaker 2:Okay, third question of three. Okay, the effort was clearly there against Oregon State. We don't know, was it precipitated specifically by having Kobe not start? Was it basically the blossoming of, maybe now Super Sub DJ Rodman? But the performance was there literally across all five positions for the whole game there. My question is when things aren't so rosy, does USC now have the on court presence to keep others accountable, as that was one of the problems that we had?
Speaker 1:I think so. At this point I don't think you can get any worse Right? So I think we're gonna find out very quickly if this lineup that we've been fielding in this homestand is going to carry over to this coming weekend with Cal and Stanford. So I think that it's almost like a beginning. It's like the second season has begun. You know the first sort of main rotation or main group of starters. They pretty much had their run in the first half and it was a disaster.
Speaker 1:And I think Andy's like okay, that core group of players Boogie Collier, kobe, rodman, morgan, these guys are had their go. And I'm not saying like, obviously Collier he doesn't have because of injury, but I think he's like, look, I've got to do something. I just can't keep playing these guys and having the same result. So I think that the leadership will come as these guys get the chance to show what they can do. And I think there's other guys who are potential leaders on that team. I mean, I don't know what the interior of that team is like, but I feel like people lead by example a little bit. On that second group of players, like Kejani Wright and Ozai Sellers, I feel like they may not be the most vocal guys, but maybe they're just. Maybe we don't need vocal guys, maybe we need just just passionless but efficient and passionless but efficient and and you know calculating basketball players, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's just Just a team of actuaries, if you will.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, there's so many ways to for a roster to be constructed and some players, some teams have fully like a very emotional roster and some teams, the players never crack a smile, so so.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, fair, yeah, I need to see it. Going back to horse racing, one of my passions too. Some of the some horses are called bicycle horses because the jockey can't just sit and push them at the end, they have to like ride them like a bicycle out of the gate. And this team kind of feels to me like a bicycle team where, basically, except until the Oregon State game, and maybe you know, until the Oregon State game, from maybe the end of the season hall game, they seem to be a bicycle team where they just had to be, you know, on top of by the coaches or else it would slip. It just felt like that. So into that void, I don't know who who goes, but to your point, maybe maybe the team of actuaries can get it done without that on court presence, just if it's a different group of actuaries.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly, I mean the thing is you can't have, you can't have all hotheads and you can't have all actuaries, right, you gotta have. You can get away with, you know, having one or two on kind of balance it out, right. So it's all about the balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fair, just not that he's a USC player, but I'm just. I'm to kind of test this story a little bit. I'm guessing you, like me, would not put Kerr-Cresa late of Arizona in the actuary column. Is that a fair?
Speaker 1:statement. Yeah, that was very fair. Yeah, very fair. Most of the I'd say under Enfield USC's had a good mix of hotheads and cold-blooded types.
Speaker 2:Okay, right, yeah, I agree yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think, for example, nick Rikosovic right.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Would be the extreme hothead level player. But then you have Jordan McLaughlin and Jonah Matthews kind of guys right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anthony Melton very reserved. Just go out, do your job, do it great. It's not saying they don't show any emotion, but that's not what they're all. They don't need the emotion to pump themselves up right.
Speaker 2:Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, it's funny because Enfield did mention Rikosovic in that post-Oregon game presser and he also mentioned Chavez Goodwin, another guy I wouldn't call him, well don't know about a hothead, but yeah, very emotional like bring everybody up kind of guy. I mean nobody's in next class when it comes to that. He's just a different kind of animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know it's funny when you think about watching this team on television and kind of. And I see them on social media and I kind of have like a guess as to what these guys are like. And over the years, Enfield's teams have tended to be, above all, pretty laid back.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like they've all been very. I feel like they've all been pretty, like they like to have fun and kind of be silly, but they're very laid back and to me, like Dennis Rodman or DJ Rodman is his tone and the vibes he carries is very laid back. Right, it's definitely very like Orange County Beach you know the Guna Beach style vibes with with DJ Rodman. So I don't know if that's kind of like for some reason, like the vibe that is sort of taken over the team, the level of intensity, especially on defense not being there. Maybe this is kind of, you know, maybe this is one reason for it, just like the good time vibe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, well, yeah, maybe, maybe he's been the same. He's been the secret tone setter, because he just got after it over the weekend on the boards and he was just a different, different. Not just a different level of play, but it almost like a different style of play, yeah, and like just doing a lot of the dirty work that his dad used to do. And I kind of expected before I first saw him play, you know, in Pullman and he it's been a Dennis Rodman tribute act over the last couple of games, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, some of this is a product of competition and situations, but it really shows that he's someone who I don't know if he's a self motivator or you know he someone needs to motivate him from externally, but he's definitely a guy that shows he can do things if he really, really pushes himself. So you just hope that guys can keep pushing themselves more than they have been. So yeah, anyway, ok, yeah, that's it for our question time. Now we're going to do our Mark's mean minute. Take it away.
Speaker 2:All right, I this might just sound like old manueling at the at the clouds thing, but bear with me, folks there's it'll be a little bit of a tie eventually to hoops here. If you ran a shop, chris, and you charged eight dollars for a little ziplock bag of Oreo cookies and five dollars for a small bottle of the Sony water, you would have to be making a real serious profit, wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:I think I'd probably be at an airport, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, you would. And if you had that kind of margin, wouldn't you think you'd be able to pay to have those self-checkout machines work?
Speaker 1:Yes, it seems like it.
Speaker 2:But no, yeah, who could not make that happen? Our friends at that Harry Reid Airport, good job guys.
Speaker 1:It's amazing.
Speaker 2:All that margin and you have one long line with some overwhelmed lady having to take everybody's credit card because yourself check out. Things are both broken, because eight dollars is not enough for a little zip bag of Oreo cookies. Really good job.
Speaker 1:Don't you? Don't? You have to just pull the, pull the arm on the side and and the in the Oreos come out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, not at the end of the trip. At the end of the trip, you don't want to do that anymore. You're just looking for something to get in your stomach and get on the plane.
Speaker 1:Right, I yeah. Well, I think the problem was the Oreos in the beginning, I think something. Somebody was telling you that you shouldn't be eating those Oreos.
Speaker 2:Maybe that was it. Yeah, it was a sign from the nutrition gods. Just don't do it, you know, it's just just wait to get on the plane.
Speaker 1:It's. It's funny, you know, I I hadn't thought I hadn't read about it recently, but I did hear one time that there's like some weird regulation that accounts for the, the prices in airports. Hmm, like something to do with the bidding that takes place in order to, to to get a space at the airport, something along those lines and like maybe guaranteeing, like certain levels of pay. That or kind of like. Because it's so competitive the bid, you know like the costs are higher to get in.
Speaker 2:OK, I kind of think that.
Speaker 1:But there's a that may not exactly be exactly it, but I remember reading about it and it doesn't make it any any better, but it did make a little more sense as to why. I think the one that really doesn't make any sense is movie theaters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's just pure larceny. Yeah, yeah, just a quick point that will get out of the the weeds of the travel hour here. Portland International awesome airport. They actually have a I guess it's a city ordinance that if you are going to have a restaurant at the airport it has to be the same prices as your regular restaurant in the city.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So you don't have like a California pizza kitchen that costs you know, charges you 30 bucks for a little one person pizza. Wow, and it's the same quality.
Speaker 1:It's awesome, yeah Well that's great, you know, it's so funny. It's like it airports make me so hungry. I just get so hungry. It's like airports and hospitals. I walk into a hospital, I'm like where's the cafeteria? Oh something about cafeteria. Poor guy, I'm about cafeteria fries. It's very comforting.
Speaker 2:And then uh, okay, yeah, and then it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like I feel like I should, you know. It's like if you're not sitting down having something to eat and watching people at the airport, then it just feels like you know when you're just missing out.
Speaker 2:Basically the trip. So, it's yeah, yeah. That's how I felt, that's why I got the the Oreos. I just I could not have the Oreos. And people, people watch, as the whole trip would have been shot.
Speaker 1:Um, it makes total sense to me.
Speaker 2:So equally as inept in terms of, um, creating margin into a proper, properly functioning checkout machines would be, um, don't know who said this, so I won't. I won't personally name and shame the person, but um, I'll just say the same level of understanding, comprehension. Ineptitude is a word. I don't know if aptitude is a word, yeah, on a scale of 1 to 100, what do you think would be the likelihood of the Boston Celtics general manager wanting to coach at the University of Southern California?
Speaker 1:The Boston Celtics general manager.
Speaker 2:Yes, also known as Brad Stevens.
Speaker 1:He's not the coach anymore, then no, he's a. Gm. Okay, that shows you how much I follow the NBA. What are the odds.
Speaker 2:The chance Scale of 1 to 100. What's the likelihood that he would say, yeah, I'm fine here. This is not for me. I'd rather coach at USC than be the general manager of you know, I guess like one of the top five teams in the NBA.
Speaker 1:Sounds like you're leaning towards 98, 99. Well first of all, how much is he making? 10 million a year.
Speaker 2:He makes a lot of money. Yeah, as a GM, I think it's like in the high. What would that be? The high seven digits, wow.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean I would say under 5%. I mean it's like. I mean there are scenarios which you could rationalize why he might do it. You know desire to get back into coaching, plus, you know, huge payday, plus, blah, blah, blah. Right, but it's just, I feel like if he's going to get back into college, he doesn't want to go somewhere and not like USC needs to be built. But if he wants to win national titles and college basketball, then he's going to go somewhere where he's a lot closer to a national title than USC is. Yeah, yeah, but tell me, tell me what was behind this?
Speaker 2:Oh, just you know, I was catching up on the boards and you know the people are saying well, let's, let's fire this guy. Well, tell me who's. You know who would be better? And one gentleman said well, brad Stevens, for example.
Speaker 1:Why not Red Arba?
Speaker 2:Exactly. Well, he's. You know, I don't think he's available.
Speaker 1:He's under contract. Yes, no, I saw some of those threads and some of them are. Some of them are pretty funny. The names that some people have brought forth there was one, okay, so yeah, brad Stevens. Tommy Lloyd right, tommy Lloyd is going to leave Arizona and come to USC. Jay Wright I mean, I mean you just have to like Jay Wright, okay, now, then they get really funny. Penny Hardaway Penny Hardaway is not a good coach, you know. Sean Miller Like if Sean Miller can't get it done at Arizona and by get it done, I mean, like you know, live up to what Arizona should be able to do, then not Arizona. Jerome Tang you know would be good, but it's not like, you know, it's not like he's. He's like this top five coach in college basketball or some kind of guy who's going to get you. You know who's going to get you, you know you get him. You'll be like oh yeah, we're going to the, we're going to go to the final four of this guy, you know he's a resume of like 50 games as a head coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean Porter Porter Moser, right. I mean some of these, some of these suggestions. It's like, yeah, look, some of these guys. I'm not arguing that some of these guys aren't better basketball coaches than Andy Enfield, okay, but there are all kinds of things that go into firing a coach, right, and you have to look at the aggregate sort of outcome that you're facing. It's not just as simple.
Speaker 1:As you know, this coach is gone. A new coach is coming in Right, You've got a situation of new coach is gone. You know you lose your recruiting class probably, Right, you lose guys. You know you're probably going to be really bad, really bad right away and you have to rebuild everything. Right, and you've got sort of the controversy that this creates. You've got the media buzz about. You know why did they fire this guy? To bring in this guy who's who's not much better, right? You know it's like if you're going to fire Andy Enfield and bring in someone who is like just marginally better, or Kyle Smith, who's a good coach, but like if you're, you're going to fight. You're going to like tear down what Andy Enfield did in 11 seasons after a really bad season to get Kyle Smith or Porter Porter Moser.
Speaker 1:You know it's like. It's like if the, when someone gets stabbed, when you stab someone and you pull out the knife, that's when you start bleeding. It's like the. You got to figure out if the knife's in. You can't just like pull the knife out. You got to be very careful how you do it and you know if you start bleeding you better have something to stop the bleeding. And so it's like there's. There are no coaches that exist out there. Who, who, who, who? You look at them and say, yeah, usc is going to go to a final four with this guy for sure. Right, cause there's very few coaches who are currently coaching have been to a final four. And it's just like it's just like it's. I'm not saying that that that Andy Enfield's perfect or that there might not be a legitimate case to replace them with someone. I'm just saying that if you're going to replace them with someone, it really should be like a high level, higher, higher level, higher than Porter Moser or Kyle Smith or Jerome Tang.
Speaker 2:You know, you know get and, and if you, if you think Brad Stevens is available, then just remove yourself from that discussion, because you're you're not helping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the beard from from Mississippi. You know he's a great coach, oh man, he's a great coach, but but you can't, you can't get him. No, Right, you can't get Chris Beard because he's he's a problem. You know, just like you can't get Kelvin Samson when you you USC, you can't hire Kelvin Samson because he's had problems, right.
Speaker 1:So, like there's a bunch of really good coaches who, like if they were at USC, I would say like if Kelvin Samson was at USC or if Chris Beard was at USC, I'd be like, oh yeah, we're going to the final four, like quick. You know, without a doubt, these guys are better coaches than Andy Enfield, they're better coaches than almost they might be the two best coaches in the country, right, and. But it's like we're not going to get them because they have checkered pasts and, after what USC basketball has been through, we're not going to go through that again. So we're not getting those, we're not getting those kind of guys and we're not getting the superstars or coaching. You know Bill Self and you know those guys are not, are not coming to USC.
Speaker 2:Brad.
Speaker 1:Stevens is not coming to USC. So what you're talking about is is basically dismantling the current program in order to get someone who, who is marginally better, who probably hasn't been that much more successful than any Enfield has, if if at all, right. So so I'm saying is, and there you know, I'm not saying that if Andy Enfield is replaced, that the person who replaces him can't be successful or that he won't be certainly can be. I'm just saying that people are just like, ah, bad season, fire the coach. Like you can't just fire your way to to, just, you know, solving your problems Right Now.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit different than a football, because football coaching is.
Speaker 1:I think coaching is a lot bigger, bigger factor. And and when you get cases like Lane Kiffin at USC, you kind of need to fire Lane Kiffin as soon as you can, because he's just sort of a cancer, you know, on the program and you're not at that point when, when Kiffin was there, usc wasn't that far removed from extraordinary levels of success. So there are situations where you can fire your way to success if you, if you get the right hire, but USC doesn't, isn't really in this sort of like emergency situation where it really must get Jerome Tang, or else you know. So, so, yeah. So I think that Andy Enfield, I think he's not going to get fired, he's going to get another chance, and maybe even another chance after that, because, honestly, next season was going to be a rebuilding season, no matter what for USC, and it's also the first year in the big 10. So, to be honest, he really needs two more years after this one, and if he's not getting things done, then he would probably need to go.
Speaker 2:I'll get off my soapbox. Don't see it happen, to know yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't see him what.
Speaker 2:I don't see that that. That being the case, that, like in three years from now, he just you know, he's just lost it and then he's let go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think that'll happen. I think, if I think, three years from now, in year two in the big 10, usc is going to be pretty good. And I think if I think there's actual reasons for that most of all because the recruiting classes of 25 and 26 are very strong in in Southern California. So I suspect USC is going to do very well in the recruiting classes and I think the cavalry is coming in the next couple of years. It was a pretty good class coming in for next season, but not as good as it was this past season.
Speaker 1:But, as we know, sometimes the recruiting rankings don't always pan out. So, getting off my soapbox a bit on that topic, but I do think that until we know who's actually going to be on the roster next year and who's going to be on the roster of some of the teams we're going to play, it's kind of pointless and it's just really just like just this huge downer to be talking about. Oh well, next year USC is going to finish last in the big 10. Right, you don't know. And things are going to change in the months after the season and then we'll actually have a lot more to go off of, if you want to go off of things after that, then I think you're going to have a lot more credence to what you're saying, if you're saying that USC is not going to do very well next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, particularly in basketball. It's a new team every year, as they say.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and one player can make a huge difference. Okay, let's turn our attention to Wednesday and Saturday's games against Cal and Stanford. The Trojans play up at hospital At I think it's 8pm. Is it At hospital? They'll be on the pack 12 network on Wednesday, so that'll be tomorrow night by the time you're hearing this. Cal is one of those teams that I think is much improved, I feel like ever since they brought on their new coach, mark Mattson. They really looked like a different team than they have in the past few years, when they pretty much have been in the basement of the pack 12 year in and year out. They don't have a great record, but they have played really well against teams that are pretty good at times. They beat Colorado. They beat Stanford, who is one of the best teams in the conference so far. They beat Arizona State in Tempe. We're talking about Cal going to the desert and splitting. I mean, there was a time when Cal going to the desert just automatic losses in recent years, right.
Speaker 2:They split in LA also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they split. In LA. They beat Santa Clara earlier in the year. They beat as far as common opponents. They beat Cal State, Bakersfield as well, and then they beat UCLA and they beat Washington State at Haas in overtime. So they've beaten some good teams. I'm not going to say they're this great team. They have the exact same record as USC, but they're a little bit better on the conference at five and six. So when you look at this team, I see a just kind of they're like a better Oregon State in the sense that they're. It's not showing up in the overall record, but you can't really sleep on them, especially at home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, agree, you know. First my eyes and then my numbers. My eyes when Cal played us, I was impressed. They run good offense and they get good shots and they can shoot the ball well. You know, I thought their numbers would be a little more impressive offensively and, granted, that was a pretty. I guess if you're facing that USC team it can be a fun team to play when you're on offense. So maybe that had something to do with it, although they did well against a good UCLA defense as well. That you know, later that week.
Speaker 2:So interested to see if that was operational, I think they're probably better than my numbers. Have them offensively. And going to my numbers on defense, this is interesting. You know, early in the season they seem to be struggling a lot on defense, but they are actually much better at home than on the road defensively, which is that fact to itself is not really surprising, but they're actually, they're actually at home. They are as good as your average Pac 12 team. You know average game grade of 95.2. And that's literally what the average Pac 12 defense does at home. So it's not like we can just, you know, figure the world of all out there and have 83 points on the board by the end of the game in Berkeley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And they've got a star player, a merging star, in Jalen Tyson. He's averaging 20 points per game, 7.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists. He is in the running for a Pac 12 player of the year, and he came from Texas Tech and before that Texas, so this is his third school in three years, but he finally found the right fit, or at least he found a team that will allow him to get his scoring in. So and then? One thing that's interesting to me is Fardaz Amak. He averages 15 points and 10.6 boards, but I'm not impressed by him at all. I think we handled him pretty well Last time, our bigs did, and if our bigs can handle him well last time, they should be able to do it again this time. But I do worry about stopping Jalen Tyson. I think that this looks like a potential high scoring game is what I would kind of lean towards. What do you think on the analytics side of things?
Speaker 2:I would agree with that, except for how good you know I guess I'm going to say good, but I'm going to say how competent Surprisingly competent, it might be the best term to describe it Cal's defense is at home. Yeah, um, and if that's surprising me, I could see maybe, um, a USC team who had a great game and a half, let's say, in the last week, might overlook that defense and just think, um, yeah, we're just going to keep on, keep on rolling and and and just light it up here. Um, and my concern would be maybe they kind of get out of the great habits that they showed Saturday against Oregon State, just with that kind of you know that level of perceived level of opponent, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know USC does, one has, does have one small advantage going into this weekend, which is a very, very small advantage, and it's only an advantage relative, uh, to USC's overall advantages, uh, that possesses, which aren't very many and aren't very good. Um, cal and Stanford are the only teams that USC is playing who they've already beat this year. Ah, so if you're looking at mental reasons why the team might not show up, it's not going to be because they don't think they can beat these guys.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, To some extent they might think I mean Stanford's having a good year For Stanford and and they're in, they're tied for fifth. So there's six and five, but they're only two games out of first and I don't think anybody thought that Stanford, uh, through 11 games would be, would be two games out of first place, and they're they're tied with UCLA, Colorado and Utah. And then, of course, I don't think anybody had Washington state in second place on their bingo card either. But, uh, I do think that for USC, every little bit of mental and sort of help helps, helps. So the fact that they know that they beat Cal and Stanford, I think gives them a little bit uh of an edge mentally, Doesn't mean that it's going to result in a in a victory, because mental edges can quickly melt away when they are met by the reality of the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I could see that. Um. Just to correct you on one thing you said nobody expected this from Stanford. I think. I think somebody who co-host this podcast with you said hey, stanford has surprisingly good um metrics coming into the conference season. Oh yeah. Remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I was um conveniently surprisingly high on them Conveniently. I don't remember that.
Speaker 2:Uh, okay, well, okay, no, I actually I'll remember that. No, I do remember, no, they they.
Speaker 1:uh well, I guess what I'm saying is is like sometimes teams are have good metrics, but it doesn't necessarily translate over, because yeah, no, I'm just.
Speaker 2:I believe me. I didn't see any PAC 12, um predictions that. That said, hey, Stanford's going to finish, you know, third or fourth.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, nobody had that. That's how to follow.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, just the thing that sticks out to me from a metric standpoint is this is crazy. Uh, I like to clearly use the home road splits. Um, in PAC 12 play, there is no offense at home better than the Stanford Cardinal Um game grade. Average game grade of almost 113. Wow, um crazily, they have um the worst home defense or defense except for USC. So this could be the game that just gets out of control. Um on the on the scoreboard, with maybe both teams in in well into the eighties.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it was very much like the game. One game they did play which was, I think, usc's not. It's not the second highest. The highest point total in conference play this year was the 93 79 victory over Stanford which, until um, this last game against Oregon State, was USC's last victory. Uh, it was also the last time. I think that, uh, one of the last times that the team was at full strength. Uh, but this Stanford team, the thing is, they're just, they're just filled with shooters. I mean Michael Jones, michael Jones is just a ridiculous shooter. Um, yeah, uh, uh, renaud Ray node has has played really well. Um, recently, uh, he played really well against, uh, against Arizona. He had 29 points. Um, he was five to six from three point. He's, he's seven foot one.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's going to drive you nuts. If you've got, if your big men is Bolo and this guy's out there training threes, you're just. It's a helpless feeling, I think, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean he's, he's, he's seven foot one and he's French, you know, and he's still shot five, five, three points.
Speaker 2:So, uh, um yeah, jones was actually one of those reasons I was really high on Stanford coming in. Just his, his, his efficiency was just off the charts. I think he, his BPO for the season was like in the mid sixties uh, through non-conference play.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, just kind of kind of like I don't know correct me, because you're more of an X and O guy or just you kind of know this part of the game better Kind of reminds me of maybe, a Jackson Shellstead a bit, just kind of like how he gets to spots and shoots.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe from a shooting, maybe from, like a shooting ability standpoint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I think physically they don't really have anything in common Like no yeah. Different positions and they you know, uh, shellstead is a potential NBA player. I think um.
Speaker 2:I think maybe from like a shot selection, where I don't see Shellstead and I think, boy, that was a bad decision.
Speaker 1:Oh, fair enough. Yeah, that could be, that's.
Speaker 2:Every time he gets a ball it's like oh geez, here we go, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, he's he's 10 of he's 10 of his last 18 three pointers. He had a really nice trip in the desert.
Speaker 1:He was he had five, three pointers against Arizona, five, three pointers against Arizona state, just, and some of these were just like long range bombs, right. So they've, just, they've got a bunch of guys who can, who can, shoot, uh, three pointers, I mean they're. They're shooting 39% for the season, which is 10th in the country, right? And and get this in conference play. In conference play, stanford is shooting 43.6% from three point lead. Oh my gosh, which is how?
Speaker 2:is that possible, which is insane.
Speaker 1:It's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which of course is is first, uh, first in the conference, and and they're only give it up 34.1 in conference play from three, which is third of the conference. So they're doing pretty good at uh preventing other teams uh from scoring uh from three point land.
Speaker 2:So because they practice against an awesome shooting team every day. Point that that 43.6%. This is nuts. I think you see light on the whole season from the floor. To end three pointers is shooting just 44.1%, not much better than that? Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, I mean the only the only kind of thing us besides the fact that USC knows they can beat Stanford although it might not have Isaiah Collier in this game like it did last game, and he was a really big factor in USC's win I think that USC probably has a bit of a athletic advantage against Stanford, which is kind of always been the case when they play. So sometimes USC, even when Stanford's really good USC has always been able to kind of play tough just because of the athletic factor. Um, so that could be a factor in this game. But overall I think these are both games that USC is more likely than not to lose, although if USC does get Collier back it could make a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um one thing, just kind of a weird note. I don't know if you've noticed this too. Stanford coach. Yeah, this is my point played at Cal.
Speaker 1:With Jason Kidd yeah and um with Jason. Murray we have very. He was on a very good Cal team.
Speaker 2:The Cal coach played at Stanford. Don't know how that works out. And then, to only almost make this complete, you have um Troy Taylor, the Stanford coach played football at Cal. Um, we just need, we just need a Cal to fire um Wilcox, I don't know, and bring I don't know who they would. They'd have to bring in, uh, john, john Owe.
Speaker 1:John Owe, or uh, david Shaw. He played there.
Speaker 2:That's right, he did play there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be amazing. That would be. That would be some great trivia right there. Can we just do it for the trivia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like buy outs, Nobody cares, Just you know it's worth the trivia That'd be a really funny um press conference where they're like so.
Speaker 1:David Shaw. Why did you take the Cal head coaching job? And he's like well, if you look at Cal basketball I'm not sure. If you look at Cal basketball, they're coached by Mark Madsen, and if you look at Stanford basketball, they're coached by Jared Haas, and if you look at Stanford football, they're coached by Troy Taylor. So I'm a big fan of trivia and trivia guy big fan of trivia, so I thought it'd be really cool if if a Stanford player was also the coach at Cal.
Speaker 2:I like Sean, I think he would have given me the proper recognition. I'm sure the answer would have started with well, as Buck Metrix pointed out so ably on the podcast.
Speaker 1:You know um, that kind of that kind of little trivia, question or stat is the kind of thing that could make a career for David.
Speaker 2:Shaw.
Speaker 1:No, for the person who comes up with it. Ah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll be on ESPN with the bear. It was now with Fox now.
Speaker 1:Now don't, don't you know? What'll happen is ESPN will take it and steal it and not credit it anymore. Yeah, that's what they're doing. Yeah, that's what they're known for doing Um okay.
Speaker 1:So we looked at Cal and Stanford.
Speaker 1:I think it's going to be tough, some tough games, although if USC does well on those games, at least plays well and keeps developing the players that have been developing, I think you can, they can come away with some positives.
Speaker 1:Uh, if not necessarily victories, this could be sort of a continuation of, potentially, of this Oregon State win, if USC can build off that win and get a couple of wins here on the road, which is a lot to ask for, because even good USC basketball things probably split on this trip potentially in recent years. Uh, I think I think in recent years they've, they've maybe swept half the time, and split half the time is what I would say Like during this good run by infield that they've, they've generally, uh, it's either been, it's either you know, because sometimes both of the teams are really bad and USC just you know, but Cause I remember, if you go back to the teams that that beat the Stanford team, that beat uh USC up there on the last second shot by Davis Um, and then you on the half court shot, remember the the, they beat McLaughlin and SC.
Speaker 2:My wife remembers that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how bad that one was there at Maples, and then, um, there's just been a couple other times and Cal Cal, I think, has had a lot more trouble beating USC up there, but I know Stanford has every once in a while been able to do that. So USC, I think um is, uh, it's just a real tough task for them, especially when you're, when they're not that good to be able to sweep. So, um, yeah, I don't, we'll see what happens as usual. And uh, do you have anything else you want to add, mark, besides uh, the suggestion of the USC slogan?
Speaker 2:Um, no, just uh. Yeah, as you, as we say. You know, bear in mind, this is not the Wiking Jones cow bears. Um, so put on your seatbelt for this one. This could be a little tougher than you expect.
Speaker 1:I know, um, the dirty golden bears can be awfully tough. Yep, all right, everybody, that'll do it for this week's episode of the Dunk City podcast. Thanks for listening. We will be back next week when USC comes back home, uh, to Gailan, and we'll take on, I think, the Mountain Schools uh, utah and Colorado. Until then, I'm Chris, and that is Mark, and fight on.
Speaker 2:Fight on everyone.