The Dunk City Podcast
USCBasketball.com's Chris Huston, Mark Backstrom and Sky Liam co-host the Dunk City Podcast, the only podcast devoted solely to USC Trojans basketball. Weekly during the season, intermittent during the offseason, the DCP is the "podcast of record" for Trojan hoops, featuring inside information, special guests and expert analysis.
The Dunk City Podcast
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Mark and Chris discuss the sudden re-emergence of USC's big three of Boogie Ellis, Kobe Johnson and Isaiah Collier as the trio scored a combined 69 vs. Colorado. They also discuss the rebounding emergency, whether the team is maybe a little out of shape this year, whether Oziyah Sellers should be playing more, and if the Trojans have a shot against UCLA.
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 wherever you stream podcasts. Look for clips on YouTube and TikTok as well. Please like, follow, listen and review. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
USC Basketball
Speaker 1Everyone knew going in , that this wasn't going to be a great rebounding team . Right , like it didn't it ? Just no one thought they'd be a horrible rebounding team . Right , but there was no expectation that it would be a great rebounding team . The idea was that was that the team needed to rebound well enough and the the three , the big three , would be such an offensive force that that , you know , this would compensate to some degree . Right , and this was a reasonable assumption . You know , usc wasn't ranked high in the preseason because people were like , oh , this is going to be a really good rebounding team . Now they're like that . They've got , like , you know , the number one point guard that come out of high school . They've got Boogie Ellis coming back , who's an all American level player , and they've got a great defensive player and Kobe Johnson with an emerging , emerging offensive game . Right , and yeah , and they have some bigs who are like , you know , have some potential , but they haven't done much , and so it'll be interesting to see . And but no one was like , yeah , they're going to , you know , they're going to need to you know , average 45 rebounds a game to be good no , and so it's like the whole season has been kind of been like that where it's like , once those , once that sort of like raison d'etre of the of the team , like the trio , once , that sort of like . Once those guys got hurt , everything just kind of collapsed .
Speaker 1Welcome to the Dunk City podcast . Welcome back to the Dunk City podcast brought to you by USC basketballcom Chris Houston . Here with Mark Baxter , the Trojans are coming off a split of a series at home against the mountain schools . Trojans beat Utah last Thursday 68 , 64 , and then fell to Colorado this past Saturday in an over double overtime thriller 90 to 89 . The Trojans will take on UCLA this coming Saturday at Polypavilion at 7 pm On ESPN . It was an interesting home stand and the Utah win was much needed after the the apocalypto , as we called it , at Stanford , and then the Colorado game , which I think is a game that a lot of people are going to be talking about for a while , at least in USC world , I thought . Even with the poor finish to the weekend , I thought , on balance , the home , the home stand , had more positives than negatives . What do you think , mark ?
Speaker 2Well , I was going to save this for the , for specifically the Colorado game . But I could say about the home stand , most , most games are kind of a Rorschach test , where you kind of see in it what your frame of reference is outside of that specific game , and I think that's kind of how you can see the home stand to yeah , nice , you know , nice in in that against Utah we kind of taste their own blood a little bit but still came back and held on , yeah , and then I don't know how to characterize the Colorado game that's . I think that's a little too deep for the introduction , but just , it was nice to see us Obviously not give up a huge leave but after giving that up and then looking dead in the water at the end of the first overtime , actually come back down by four with like , what a minute left . Yeah , so there was , you know , there was some guile , some gumption and some spine . But just as , as this season has kind of proven to have a theme , that's been it just not enough in all the correct moments .
Speaker 1Yeah , and , and when I say that on balance there were more positives than negatives , I mean by technically there was , you know , one win and one loss . So it's right there at 50 , 50 , right , bare minimum . So I'm just saying that that there were some things that I liked , that I liked that I liked that happened in the Colorado game , even though USC lost . And I'm looking for micro trends inside these mega trends that that are the USC season . The last five for USC has been USC plus 28 over Oregon State , lost to Cal up in Berkeley in overtime , got blown out by Stanford , went over Utah and then a loss to Colorado in double overtime . So I believe you are the record . You are no matter what , but nonetheless , if I'm looking for standards of improvement within the overall disaster of a season , this is a two and three record right , but very well could have easily have been four and one over that stretch of five . Right and very close .
Speaker 2So I'm looking for progress , right .
Speaker 1So . So that team goes four and one . We get a couple made free throws against Cal up in Berkeley , it's probably the same thing against Colorado . Those , those games turned to win , to wins , and now USC is , instead of 10 and 16 , is now 12 and 14 . Right , and it's still bad season . It's still bad season , but 12 and 14 makes you feel like you're getting closer to that , you know , getting above the dreaded Mendoza line or whatever that's called . We were going to be under 500 . Right , so . So that puts us within striking distance of that .
Speaker 1So so , if you're looking for reasons why this season could be , like you know , end on a better note , or you know , find some things that are improving , ideally you go four and one in that during that stretch , but USC played well enough in the two in two of the losses to where it could have easily been a win .
Speaker 1So so , just , you know they blew those games , right , but they had a chance to win , a legitimate chance to win that really could have just was pretty much down to to a coin , right .
Speaker 1So so , looking at that , and especially looking at certain portions of the Colorado game , it's clear now that Isaiah Collier is becoming a really good player .
Speaker 1This last game Boogie Ellis finally found his offense and even Kobe Johnson showed some things early on in the game that he hadn't shown in a long time and for a moment it looked like , you know , when USC is up by 16 over Colorado , who's not a great team , but they're . But they're not a bad team , but they're pretty solid team and they're horrible on the road , just like Utah which , by the way , ucla but Colorado comes back from 16 , but USC was up by 16 . Right , they were looking like a dominant team . They were looking like a team that was , you know , not going to be easy out in the pack 12 tournament , right . So this is all a long winded way of saying that there were some things in that Colorado game that I thought continued the kind of like overall positive trend of at least one of the best teams in the world . I thought continued the kind of like overall positive trend of at least improved play . That isn't necessarily showing up in the wind column just yet .
Speaker 2Yeah , one thing that comes to mind right away when you say that for the game our BP 100 was 56.9 , which was , if I do the math here , that is , 7.6 points better than Colorado's 49.3 . Wow , I don't have enough data cumulatively over years and years . Since this is the first season , I've really rolled this out . But I'd imagine that you have that much of a delta between the two teams in BP 100 and the win expectancy for USC would probably be 90% . That's just . That's a huge obstacle to overcome .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah it was definitely a rare circumstance , for sure .
Speaker 2And yet , and yet , on the other hand , you see , we were out rebounded . If you didn't read the column , it's worth it read If you're in , I guess , in the mood for some a little bit of a gallows humor . Out rebounded , 20 to 42 , which . You see , that , and you think , how was this game even close ? How did USC just not get absolutely skunked .
Speaker 2Just really excuse me , really , I guess how do you say this You're going to infer from this game ? Whatever your kind of frame of reference is , you know you can look at the board and say , yeah , we stink on the boards and that's it . Or you can say the offensive execution was about as good as any game we've seen in a long time against a decent road defense . So , rorschach , as I said , yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , and then obviously I'm looking for for signs of improvement , right ? So this is sort of like that's my Rorschach test is like . To me it doesn't really like I'm not really learning anything , like I already know . I know these players are known , are known commodities . This team is a known commodity , so I'm not learning anything new by their failures . Do you know what I mean ?
Speaker 1Like I'm the failures really confirm my priors , right , right . So when they put so , when they do play well , my priors are shaking up a bit and so I'm like , well , they're playing well , so let's see what this means . So that's sort of like what I'm looking for . I'm looking to see which players are playing well together and what combinations for how long and right you know what I mean against who . And ? And there are some , some you know , favorable trends . I'm not saying these trends are even close to being enough to to make the the season turn out well , but they are trends nonetheless and they could result in . I mean , I would expect I would be surprised if we weren't more competitive against UCLA than we the way more competitive than we were last time , even though it's that quality .
Speaker 2Yeah , no , we , I guess , to your point about shaking up the priors or just giving a new dimension that we haven't seen . I think we shook off the obviously narrative kind of for good in that once , once in overtime , I mean giving up a big lead like that is just like obviously giving up that 12 length lead .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And we got headed and then in overtime or down by four I apologize , I think it's like with them in the left and we came back to send it to a second OT .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2That's something that just didn't happen in January .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2Or even just on a lesser version . Just , you know we had a decent lead versus Utah and you know they came back on us . But we , we fought it out and got the nose down at the wire .
Speaker 1Yeah , so , yeah , so definitely there's fight in the team yet . So that's good to see . Some of these guys have have , you know , some games , a lot of games left in their careers . So they're going to improve over time . So it's good to see some of that improvement at some point in the season . And there's only USC has six games left on the year , there at UCLA , at Washington State , at Washington . Then they host Arizona State and Arizona and then they play , at bare minimum , the first game of the Pac-12 tournament . So right now USC is 10 and 16 . So if they want to finish 500 , this is , they have to win the rest of their games .
Speaker 2Sorry , and then one more Sorry . I was on mute there , yeah , well what they're 10 and 16 .
Speaker 1So if they win , oh right , that's funny .
Speaker 2They have to win their next seven .
Speaker 1They actually can't finish 500 .
Speaker 2Well they could . Yeah Well , they win their next seven and they lose , then they'll be 17 and 17 . Which I kind of like . You know numbers and setting odds . I'd probably set the line on that at about plus 10,000 , if that happening .
Speaker 1I'll put five bucks on that .
Speaker 2Five bucks . Ok , you're done . You know my Venmo right .
Speaker 1Yeah , exactly , oh , man . Ok , so I don't think I don't really want to go into too much detail about Utah and Colorado , but I would like to know let's get your metrics on what USC and their opponents did in those games .
Speaker 2Yeah , as I said , that just the delta between the two USC and Colorado is just ridiculous Almost 57 to just over 49 . That , just that speaks to me , that that's a win . And you know , colorado , bpl 165 . Against , or the against Colorado , boogie was the 66.4 . Wow , we will revisit that in question time , believe me . You know , as has become a habit , we , against Colorado , we just had two guys that are pretty good , become just absolute dominant forces , and KJ Simpson , bpo of sixty eight point seven , and Luke O'Brien who I think kind of torched us in Boulder 73.2 . It just yeah , it's just it's . It just seems to be just two guys that just kind of have great nights and we're awesome at facilitating that you know it's crazy it's a fish .
Speaker 2fish , she's a fish , she's Lee .
Speaker 1You know it's crazy is the big three had 69 points between the three of them and I think the last time . The only other time they'd had that many this year was against Stanford . That 93 79 home game against Stanford , 69 points . Like I , if you had told me that there'd be a game where those three scored 69 points and USC didn't win .
Speaker 2Yeah , I .
Speaker 1Mean . It just seems a little shocking .
Speaker 2Yeah , like .
Speaker 1You know and and and the other starters had eight and six . Yep , you know it wasn't like they were , it wasn't like there was just nobody else scoring . You know , I mean , eight and six isn't a lot but it's . You know it's decent for the fourth and fifth guys when the other guys are scoring 69 .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , and we can . I guess this would be a good time to get into it now . I think One of the reasons that we were so susceptible to give up a 16-point lead is that those , those three guards , played over the game 47 , 46 and 42 minutes . Yeah , I'm . You know this is kind of unofficially , the play-os isle is more a podcast . Yeah , and people four and Ronnie played 14 I'm . I'm pretty convinced that we would have hung on in regulation if maybe those were about 15 to 18 to 20 minutes each .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I agree . And you know Ronnie can play , Ronnie can defend . You know he would have helped on the defensive side if he played more Do you think the defense is a problem in the second half ? It was a problem .
Speaker 1It was also like Kind of like , what happened in the first game up at Colorado was you know Colorado was , you know they Simpson wasn't playing very well and then he just , you know , started started shooting , started scoring
USC Basketball Metrics and Lineups
Speaker 1. And Simpson's one of those guys when he's he's kind of like boogie Ellis is for USC when when there's really not much , you just can't really guard him . Although , interestingly enough , colorado did very well guarding boogie Ellis at a certain point they pretty much , you know , ran out on him and denied him the ball and that's why he wasn't able to get any opportunities .
Speaker 2Well , I don't know if you saw it , he was holding his hamstring In the second half and I think he was just not the same after that , because even I mean , he was just getting by guys before that too , and I think , right , you just kind of make him a , you know , a left-handed player , just taking that part of his game away , and he's just , he's not the same and nobody's gonna be the same .
Speaker 1Yeah , and they're just just a spot-up guy . That's true , but yeah so Colorado game double overtime loss very , very tough loss to to take , especially given USC was up 16 . So Continue with your look at the metrics . There you were saying that Colorado and USC had a Massive gap between the two .
Speaker 2Yeah , interestingly pretty much the same gap as we had in the in the Utah USC game 8.4 versus you know , over seven . Really these games shouldn't be that close If there's such a Delta between the two .
Speaker 2But yeah you know , as I mentioned in my column , the rebounding is giving us it's , it's , it's becoming really costly . I mean the yeah Kind of the it's . The bad news is the good news is the rebounding has cost us so many , so many games that you know the the incremental anguish of a loss at this point is a lot less Then , if we were fighting for first place in the conference .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , I mean the it's gotta be driving Andy infield crazy , because there are , there are plays where Vince it would chukwu is right there . Yeah , he's got position and he just can't corral the ball in some of these situations and , and you know , vince you a chukwu right now is is , as is the new kind of mystery man on the team where it's just like some games he looks like a world beater . In some games he looks like he's never been on a basketball court .
Speaker 1Yeah so it is very frustrating to watch . I'm sure it must be equally as frustrating to to coach and to play with . So yeah .
Speaker 2I can tell you I had a seat behind that , so this is my first time to go to Galen since COVID . No , I had a seat four rows behind the bench and can confirm firsthand that , yeah , he's frustrated . Yeah , good thing , I'll put it this way .
Speaker 1Good thing I'm with my buddy instead of my mom right any any other insights from a game like Just observations ?
Speaker 2you know the Right behind the bench , the , you can tell when a team is just kind of doesn't give a crap anymore and these guys are invested , the benches is lively and if I don't know , if if it's an act , these guys are great a actors . I'll tell you that they're , they're , they're in , they're bought in . I did , did go to founders before the game . Somebody asked the question that I don't know . I should have gotten their name and see if they wanted to be on the pod . They said why is nice Ozai sale sellers getting more minutes ? And Capco gave the talk this time . And you know as , as coaches , like investment bankers or , you know , ceos , on on .
Speaker 1Fundamentals , the fundamentals of the economy are strong .
Speaker 2Yeah , well , he had to put a positive spin and so he said hey , you know we're looking for , for we really value defense off the bench and brawny James really gives us that . So he kind of answered it back candidly , opaquely , but you , you understand the thought process , although you know again , if you saw that second half , as I said in a column a few weeks ago , he could be out there with his construction hat and handheld lighted beacons Waving people into the paint , and he wouldn't be any worse than we were in the second half defensively . I can't buy that . You know I'm yeah , I'm all for for giving a lot of credit and leeway , but just this one puzzles me . I don't get it .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think it really has to do with just kind of a maybe some degree of passivity . I don't think the issue is defense as much as it is just kind of like this sort of passivity . I think that's in his game . I think he's a really good player and I do wish he would . He would play more , but I think he's very . He plays very safe and I think he passes up too many shots .
Speaker 1Well , yeah , and I , I'm , I'm saying this is why I'm not like saying like this is . I'm not necessarily not believe . This is like kind of like what I think the coaches believe , you know . I mean Like they , they , they think that he passes up on too many shots . I you know , if he's the best three-point shooter on the team , he should be shooting three pointers and he consistently just passes him up . Yeah , and who knows if that's a confidence singer , he's just looking for a good shot .
Speaker 2Who knows if that's a confidence singer he's just looking for too perfect of an opportunity . I'm wondering if , because when he played more minutes he didn't have that problem . I'm wondering if he's kind of scared , and you see this all the time , especially with underclassmen . You know I'm off the bench , I'm gonna take a quick shot and I'll be on the bench really quickly . And maybe that that that's his fear , rather than just like not getting the perfect Look but he was averaging 12 points a game over five .
Speaker 2I mean he had a lot more minutes and that wasn't a concern . That's what I'm saying , like now that he's more of a spot guy . I think he's really just A conjecture here he might be worried about . Yep , take a bad shot and I'll be . I'll be back on the bench .
Speaker 1Maybe , so , maybe . So I mean , the only thing that really changed was the return of Collier . Yeah , and you know everyone else was still playing . You know , maybe boogie was a little bit , you know it wasn't as healthy , maybe that's , you know , another factor . But yeah boogie boogie didn't play well against Utah and Certainly USC could have used maybe more minutes from From Oziah , who I don't think . He barely got on the floor at the end right .
Speaker 2We will . They won that , yeah , in a bit , believe me , yeah . Question time .
Speaker 1Okay , so anything else you want to cover on those two , those two games .
Speaker 2Um , do you think the ?
Speaker 1Utah metrics .
Speaker 2Um , oh , I don't know if there's much again in the Utah , just kind of a lesser version of the Colorado game . I mean we had a handy margin by BPO plus , yeah , one handily the turnover battle as we did . This is interesting for the weekend . We won the turnover battle by a margin of 16 to 33 , which is as we've established the recipe for success because just our field goal defense is no bueno this season .
Speaker 1You know , yeah , that's one of the other the other positives that I thought you know USC Can hang its hat on a bit over the last you know stretch of games . Like if you look at the last seven games for USC , usc is at 814 , 86 , 1289 . Yeah , so that's , you know , five out of seven games Under under ten . Mm-hmm right and that's pretty good . And like the high is only 14 Right , so it's not like 20 or 19 or 18 , like there's the the the turnover pace For much of the season was was torrid .
Analysis of USC Men's Basketball Season
Speaker 2It was just unbearable . If that's when it was . I guess that's the thing too . This is not nearly as I mean . This is a . It's tough to take , but this is not a tough watch , as those games were yeah . Where we would just basically wouldn't even get a shot off 20 times a game ? Yeah , no it's watch basketball .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's wild . I mean it's wild because , like it's such a bizarre season because there's at various points of the year there's some things that are going really well and then at the same time something's going really badly and it doesn't . It doesn't like Usually it could flip-flop , right . You know it's like whack-a-mole . There's some yeah , early in the season it was , it was turnovers . Well , now turnovers are fixed and earlier this season , you know , rebounding wasn't as bad . Now Rebounding is like this . You know , major emergency at early this season there was like pretty good free throw shooting and then there was , you know , the free throws took a dive and then you know , I mean , is this like ? And you know , then there's a stretch where they played a pretty good defensive field goal percentage and then , and then the last few they've been horrible . So it's like they they're not able to like sort of find an identity of what they are like , because if they had , you know , like , for instance , earlier in the season , we I talked about them being a three-point shooting team and Because of the injuries primarily , they sort of got knocked off that that pathway and so and again , which is kind of another example of of when you are , you would .
Speaker 1Everyone knew going in that this wasn't gonna be a great rebounding team Right , like it didn't it ? Just no one thought they'd be a horrible rebounding team . Right , but there was no expectation that be , it would be a great rebounding team . The idea was that was that the team needed to rebound well enough and the the three , the big three would be such an offensive force that that , you know , this would compensate to some degree . Right , and this was a reasonable Assumption . You know , usc wasn't ranked high in the preseason Because people are like , oh , this is gonna be a really good rebounding team .
Speaker 1Now they're like that . They've got , like , you know , the number one point guard that come out of high school , they've got boogie Ellis coming back , who's an all-american level player , and they've got a great defensive player and Kobe Johnson with an emerging , emerging offensive game , right , and yeah , and they have some bigs who are like , you know , have some potential , but they haven't done much and so It'll be interesting to see . But no one was like , yeah , they're gonna , you know , they're gonna need to . You know , average 45 rebounds a game to be good , no , and so it's like the whole season has been kind of been like that , where it's like Once those , once that sort of like raise on detra of the of the team , like the trio , once that sort of like . Once those guys got hurt , everything just kind of collapsed .
Speaker 1Yeah you know , because there just was no id outside outside those three guys .
Speaker 2Exactly With an occasional you know Rodman game , sellers game , but yeah , nothing that you could rely on .
Speaker 1Yeah , you couldn't . These , these weren't the guys that the team was being relied to be built upon .
Speaker 2Yeah , I mean , and to your point about it being a reasonable assumption , you know , we've kind of done a sanity check and saying where we just Were we too much in , just the expectations of these three . You know the Colorado game was a good example . I mean , they played too many minutes and yet collectively their BPO 100 was a 62.7 . Yeah , that's that's nuts , that's crazy efficiency .
Speaker 1No , I think two things . One as it turns out , it ended up being a precarious notion to to rely on those three guys . Right , it seemed like a good idea at the time . I to me it like you look at that that those tree , that trio , you've seen them play , we they're . Two of them are proven commodities . The third one is coming out of high school about as proven as you can expect .
Speaker 1But a few things happened . You know , the he's , he's , he's has a hard time with the transition in some areas , like , like , turnovers , transitioning . And then the other two guys go through injuries and or , in the case of Kobe Johnson , a complete , you know , mental collapse on the offensive side of the ball Right . So it's like , and , and these are the three guys that are going to be the sort of the engine of your offense . And then , and then , conversely , or jointly , this defensive identity that had been so ingrained in recent Andy Enfield teams didn't show up , for whatever reason , even though , like , even though , like , almost all the players are the same as last year , except for your swapping Drew Peterson for Isaiah Collier and and Trey White for for DJ Rodman .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1Right , Otherwise I'd like .
Speaker 2I don't see any of those departed as like wow , that was the key to last year's defense .
Speaker 1Right , I mean Peterson's underrated defender . Right , he's got long arms and does a lot of good things , but it's like , and I think he's probably a better defender than Collier . He certainly knows what he's doing . But but man , if , if it just , I guess it just takes one guy , I don't think you can , I don't . I find it hard to believe that you can blame all of us , these defensive problems on Isaiah Collier's defense and just being that factor . Now , maybe , maybe you know , I assume that he has . I mean , he does have his struggles , he has issues with a certain assignments and maybe playing hard and at all times on both sides of the ball , and that's kind of typical of young guys .
Speaker 1So , but I find it just like the level of decline in the defense isn't explained by no by just Isaiah Collier not playing as well defensively as Drew Peterson did , you know , because certainly I think DJ Robin have played better defensively than Trey White did . You know so . So yeah , so it's just a weird . So those two things , the kind of the collapse of the , of the it of the team , and then on offense , and then just that defensive thing that was showing up , and so it's just I don't it's really , it's really a hard season that to analyze as well . In that regard , Absolutely .
Speaker 2Two more things , One about each game . We kind of got away with one with how much we had Rodman guarding Brendan Carlson . That I saw that and it made me really , really nervous . But for the game Carlson's BP 100 was only a thirty eight point six .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2It looked like something that was just waiting to to buy this in the but , but it didn't Good on . Good on Rodman for holding his own . It gets the guy who's probably about six inches taller than him .
Speaker 1It's got to be a good six inches and I think I think the way it worked out was that you know Carlson's more of a face up guy . He can , he can do some back to the basket stuff , but but it was mostly Rodman just sort of sticking with him down on the post right , wasn't that where he mostly got him . So I think they figured like , hey , if they're going to try to pound it in Carlson , we'll like we'll take . We'll kind of like take that and just let Robin use his quickness and savvy and just take our chances with that . Because I think you know the guy that always seems to be a problem every time I see him play for Utah is , you know , dave on Smith . Just the speed of that guy .
Speaker 1Yeah , you know but I don't think that . I think Carlson's enough of a known quantity for USC that they knew how to play him .
Speaker 2Got you Fair point , yeah . So one more thing . Just going back to the Colorado game . I kind of I don't know if I should phrase this as a question or a statement , so I'll phrase it as a statement and you can tell me how much you agree . I think that you'll agree . But I know that there's been some pushback . Objectively , there's no way that the three point defense we played against Colorado was even close to that of Stanford . We had guys in the area against Stanford In the second half against Colorado . It was just . It just seemed like they knew what to do . Just go here , go there , go inside , then come here , then kick it out to the top of the key , and there's Luke O'Brien for a beautiful look .
Speaker 1Well , there's a lot of , there's a lot of transition , there's a lot of transition .
Speaker 2Threes yeah , but we , just I would . I'm just going to argue objectively . The three point defense at Stanford was significantly better , to the point that you can stop one guy if it's your defensive focus , but you just get . You know we were . We were fortunate in that regard that Colorado Well , I don't know they hit 45 percent . Yeah , it's easier to see with the looks that they had . They should have lit us up like Stanford did and Stanford should have done what Colorado did from the three point line .
Speaker 1Well , well , you know , Utah shot 190 against USC from three point Utah was pretty good three point shooting team coming in . So so like did we just play great defense against Utah Three point ? Did we , like you know , play really bad against Stanford , then play really good against Utah , then play really bad against Colorado defensively ? You know what I mean .
Speaker 1Yeah , you know it's like . It's like it was the same team . It's just it's like to some extent . I mean , maybe you can have some marginally better defense on the three point line , but to some extent it's just like a lot of it's just going to be if they can make the shots , yep , yeah , even with a guy in your face , some of these guys are going to make the shots . Even if you're going to get a good run out of them , they're going to . They're going to make the shots if they're good shooters .
Speaker 2If you don't believe that , then watch the Cal game again .
Speaker 1Yeah , exactly , ok , all right , let's move on from those those games and go to our weekly game theory .
Speaker 2So I have . I have two theories totally , totally different one micro and one macro . I'll start with a micro
Discussion on USC Basketball Conditioning
Speaker 2and this . This could quickly devolve into two old guys talking about how awesome the transistor radio used to be when we played . I think it was in the 95 or 96 season . We played UMass . Umass had Marcus Campbell who was the best player in the nation UMass . I don't know if they're number one or top five . Do you remember this game ?
Speaker 1I don't remember the game , but I remember that it existed .
Speaker 2OK , so you know , Marcus Campbell was just the talk of college basketball that year . Yeah , and Campbell got hurt in the first half and Massachusetts then ran away with it and it seemed that we were just all geared up to we're going to stop Campbell and the other guys can maybe light us up and that's going to be it . Campbell , Campbell , Campbell . And we kind of had no idea what to do once he was out .
Speaker 2Yeah that's the background to this . It kind of and I'm bringing in a little bit of recent history here I think Andy Enfield and I'm putting a little bit of a supposition here I think he just got tired of Evan Batty and Eddie Lampkin Jr Just being a 300 pound guy to embarrass us and he said no more . And Lampkin had a tough time getting off shots , taking care of the ball . He just had a bad game all around and I don't think he played like in the last 10 or 12 minutes of the game .
Speaker 1Well , he's not good .
Speaker 2I think he wasn't good last night .
Speaker 1Or he's not good in general is what I'm trying to say . He's just not a good player .
Speaker 2He looked great against us and called in Boulder , and I think again . I think there's some Evan Batty flashbacks where he's just like no , no , 300 pound guy is going to do this again . We're not going to get 300 pounded again and I think that there might have been a little bit of loss of defensive purpose once that happened Because we just we were just so different and there's there's going to be fatigue in there , too Fair I think that's pretty fair .
Speaker 1Yeah , for sure , because , and also when you go up 16 , your game plan changes a little bit .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1You're not closing out as hard , or you're , you're , you're hoping that you can coast on this .
Speaker 1Play Right Because it's you know , if they score this time it's not going to kill you , you know , and that's where that lack of killer instinct comes into play , and being able to be fundamentally sound and like keep it together , yeah , but I , but I agree . I think that so many times you see it all the time like where the best player , like you said , marcus , marcus , can be out for that game or out for the first half , and it changes the complexion of the game , but it doesn't always go the way you think it will . Yeah .
Speaker 2I mean , your whole game plan is kind of just yeah .
Speaker 1Well , I mean , and , and , just like how , when USC didn't have Boogie and Collier in some of these games , they Boogie , collier and Morgan right . And in some of these games USC played pretty well . The first like in during stretches of the games . Like played , you know , better than they would have with those or bet they had they were playing better than they had been playing with the guys they lost .
Speaker 2Mm , hmm .
Speaker 1Right , so it's . It's just one of those things , necessity being the mother of invention . Yeah , yeah and sometimes you've got to invent and you just don't have the ability . Yeah , so very All right .
Speaker 2And then the macro point , and this is , um , this is not going to be as interesting as maybe just kind of a maybe controversial . I thought this during the UC Irvine game and the Long Beach game , Um , and then again in the Washington state game , um and yeah , quite a bit during the earlier part of pack 12 season . I don't think this is a well conditioned team .
Speaker 1Yeah , I agree with that . Ok , yeah , I think that . Um well , ironically , Isaiah Collier , I think , is in the best condition he's been in and this is why it's actually . That's why he's actually , I think , really playing so well , like he's quicker out there . That's what he came back yeah .
Speaker 2Yeah he he just especially like in November and early December he just by the end of the games he looked like he was really breathing hard man .
Speaker 1Yeah , he's one of those guys , he's . I think he's a sweater , right he's . So yeah , I think you're right and then . And then you have boogie with his his injuries and Kobe had his injuries and it seemed like he took a while for him to get back in shape and I would say the Biggs I don't see any discernible difference With with that , but I think the guards- Definitely had fitness issues . Brawny had some fitness issues coming back because he obviously he hadn't been playing .
Speaker 1Yeah , understandable , collier , who's kind of one of those guys were where he can . I think he's the guy who carries , still carries some baby fat and boogie with his injuries , kobe with his injuries and , and , just in , jen , and you know , I don't think maybe I think that Ozai sellers looks fat , you know , quicker this year than his last year , but he's still not , like , you know , super quick . Now , I think there's something to that . I would agree with that that the stamina of this team , the kind of tenacious , relentless defense that we've been seeing the last few years in these a lot of times , like especially in the half court , sets Yep , we used to be able to , you know , go full 40 seconds of like just intense defense and we can go like we can go like 20 seconds now , you know , and then it's like hopefully that's enough time , but it's usually not . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2And that lines up with you know we both mentioned this that you know , when do we really seem to have our , our , our , our worst struggles ? It's , it's in that last kind of segment and a half of the first half where we're kind of gasping for the wire , waiting for the break .
Speaker 1That's a great point , really a good point . And it's interesting because , if you look at where some of these , this conditioning might have had a real effect on the outcome of the season . Because there is the , the UC Irvine game being an example early on , where USC had all those guys out and the backups had to play , and had to play more minutes than they ever played before , and end up being a loss to a pretty solid team . Oklahoma is a , you know , very close loss right there . You know a little bit of better . You know , if you play a little bit harder in that game because you have better stamina , instead of a two point loss at the buzzer , that's , that's a win . Right , you lose the Long Beach State in overtime . Yeah .
Speaker 1You know that , that that could be a win .
Speaker 2We've got the last two overtime games , last two games .
Speaker 1Yeah , so I mean on on the season there's . There's now what three , three overtime losses , A loss at the buzzer .
Speaker 2Mm , hmm .
Speaker 1Right . And then you know pretty much most of the other games have been . I've been not heartbreaking losses right , like they've been , they've been lost , so so . So theoretically , usc could have , could have won four more games If a couple extra things go their way . And you're looking at you know 14 and 12 right now . So still not good . But you know , maybe some of those games go your way than some of those other games don't . You don't let them get away as much . So anyway , if ifs and buts were fruits and nuts , it'd be , Christmas every day , yep .
Team Struggles With Dribble Handoffs
Speaker 1Let's go on to question time .
Speaker 2I'm going to just do one simple question here first . So my buddy I went to actually he graduated from SC . He'll see a few SC games a year but he grew up a huge Kansas fan . His dad went to Kansas , so he's he hasn't missed a Kansas game since I know how long . And he was surprised by this and I've kind of taken it for granted and it kind of slapped the reality back into me . So I'm going to ask you a question and I know my answer , but I'm curious if you what your opinion is . Have you seen a team ever struggle so much with a freaking dribble handoff as we do ?
Speaker 1Lately it's , lately it's been a problem .
Speaker 2Lately . Why do you mean like this season ? Yeah ?
Speaker 1probably that's a good question . It just sticks hard to me . It's hard to say I've never seen a team .
Speaker 2Just struggle so much with that . That's like your safety .
Speaker 1To be fair , to be fair . We , you know , we watch every USC game . I don't watch every cop and state game Well yep , ok , yeah .
Speaker 2So I'm going to ask you for a context in cop and state You've probably watched a lot of Pac-12 right in a Pac-12 context We've got to be just , if not the worst . Just we can't be above like the 10th percentile .
Speaker 1There's a strange , there's some issues with our . Our guards have this propensity to to , to sort of be pretty blasé in these types of exchanges . So yeah , I think that's a good question . Yeah , I'm not sure . I think this is just . I think it's more of a sort of like outgrowth of kind of the overall issue .
Speaker 2Did the like . I called it a while ago the level two play where they're , they're , they're engaged , but not mentally checked in .
Speaker 1Yeah , exactly , Very much . Yeah , OK , yeah . So I would say this year no , I mean honestly mostly because I mainly watch USC . So no , I'm not seeing a team this year .
Speaker 2Better context . Yeah , I can't remember any USC team coming close in a lot of the you know yeah it's not like every team ran into this degree , but it's just , it's just a fundamental thing . Just like you know what we can't ? We just can't execute that screen pass . It's a screen pass , that's . That's the easy thing , yeah .
Speaker 1Thank you , Mr Speaker . Can I join the Prime Minister comments .
Speaker 2Now I've got a series of questions here and I'm going to give a little , a little background on it . So this doesn't seem like I'm crapping on anybody .
Speaker 1OK .
Speaker 2I was the . I was very early to point out how much Boogie had improved at the beginning of this season Said , clearly , the guy has worked . He his numbers are way up , he looks way better . God bless the guy . He just clearly put in the time and he's a much better player .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2Then he gets hurt , ok , and he's going into the Utah game . He is not the same guy , ok , and this is strictly . This is strictly about the Utah game of another question that makes a little bigger context , but OK , the Utah game . You might remember he actually missed the front end of one and one Fray in the game that Utah gave Utah a chance to actually tie or win .
Speaker 1Yes .
Speaker 2Question one . Question one Did Utah and as you mentioned , he had been struggling a lot that game , as he had been since he's come back from the injury Did Utah want Boogie on the line for that opportunity ?
Analyzing USC Basketball Player Performance
Speaker 2I ?
Speaker 1can't . Did they foul him on purpose on that play ?
Speaker 2They more or less yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , at that point he was two or four . Did he miss both , or did he he missed the ?
Speaker 2front end .
Speaker 1He had a front end of a one on one . Right , he missed it . Yeah , so he was . He was two out of four coming into that , into that play . Yep , I mean , out of all the guards on the on the court that night , he was the only one who had missed a free throw for USC . Collier was three or three , kobe hadn't shot any , robyn was two of two and Bronnie was two of two . So , yeah , I mean , unless they are able to get at Josh Morgan , who I don't think was in the game . No , we had five guards in at that point .
Speaker 2Right At that point .
Speaker 1Then , yeah , I think I think that was the guy they did want to want to foul .
Speaker 2Do you think ? Question two do you think they defended it to a lot of to allow him to get the ball so they could put him on the line ?
Speaker 1Potentially I'd have to look at the play again . But yeah , but there's a good chance in that situation that that he's going to get the ball anyway . Yeah .
Speaker 2OK , and and again , this is , you know , my , my , my gripe is if this guy's not 100% and the free throws are kind of a leading tell about whether he's on his game or not , because he's , he's our best free throw shooter , I think last season Right .
Speaker 1I think Kobe was .
Speaker 2OK , yeah , he was pretty good . Both right there around 80% . Yeah , so Boogie played 35 minutes in a regulation game . Does USC run away with the Utah game if Osaya Sellers gets Boogie's minutes instead ? Boogie was four , 14 from the field , one of nine from three , two or five from the line . Three turnovers .
Speaker 1So I'm going to say maybe , but . But I will say this in Boogie's defense Boogie was four , 14 from the field , one of nine from three point range , two or five from free throw , but he had three rebounds , he had three assists , he had a block shot and four steals .
Speaker 2Yep .
Speaker 1So he did some other things that helped the team .
Speaker 2He absolutely did and he and he played .
Speaker 1You know , he played defense for 35 minutes . I don't know how , you know , I don't remember that game in particular how well he played , but I don't recall him being , you know , particularly problematic on defense , that game . And so I would say that Osaya Sellers , while he might have , he might have scored 18 points in that game , he might not have had any rebounds or assists or blocks or steals , because because right now he doesn't bring any of that other stuff . So I don't know if I don't know if USC could run away with the game without those other things , if it's just a matter of just , you know , having better shooting and better and more points .
Speaker 1I think it's an open question , I think it's possible but I think that I think that there's definitely because I don't know how many of those steals that Boogie Ellis made turn into points , whether it was block shot , you know he had obviously had three assists , so he facilitated . If you plays and and yeah , osaya Sellers , I think what he said he got his first rebound recently as coach and field joked but right now Osaya unfortunately isn't bringing a lot to the table outside of his shooting and I think that's why maybe that's why he has been playing , which is that if he's not going to , he's going to pass up shots and he doesn't bring anything else to table , then then you're not really you're not really being helped out a whole lot right like USC seems to like they like stat stuffers , right , they like guys who fill on those who fill on those score sheets , yep .
Speaker 2Down . The problem is the Anthony Melton . Yeah , guys like that .
Speaker 1Yeah , kobe Johnson , back you know back in the day , so yeah , for a junior . Yeah , but yeah , I think that I think maybe that's that would be the question I would have . Again pretty agnostic on the issue overall , though , but Thank you , mr Speaker . Can I join the Prime Minister in his good case ? I think I think you can argue both sides . Yeah , I do too .
Speaker 2Okay , very fair . Now taking a step back and taking a step way back , just to set the stage . You host this podcast . I am the co-host , right ? Yes , okay , now considering the Colorado game , I think you're going to be the co-host now considering the Colorado game . How dumb is your co-host for asking these questions about Boogie in the Utah game ? What scale , one to 10 ? I might give myself a 12 . I think , yeah , I , I was . I was ready to just to burn the house down and then Boogie just shoved it right in my face against Colorado and I've never been happier , except for the . It ended in the L .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2But that's right .
Speaker 1Kind of did , kind of tell you , you know , tell you what time it was .
Speaker 2Watch , watch this kid on Filipino heritage night , no less , or Filipino pride night , I don't know if you caught that .
Speaker 1I mean honestly , I was , I was pretty much ready to like you , I was pretty much ready to to move out the starting lot at myself . I was not expecting him to have the kind of game he had against Colorado .
Speaker 2No , last week . So OK , yours dumb as me , we both had him in the Chinese Band . It's a third , that's right yeah .
Speaker 2We were off the bench off the bench , yeah , yeah , I mean , and God bless him for that was just . He was just amazing to watch the Colorado fan in front of me and you know he , he knew , he knew Colorado but not us . And halfway through the first half he's looking like my God , this number five , are you kidding ? He was just like in shock . Yeah , he was this good like before he got hurt . You should have seen him before he got hurt .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , it's wild because it's like you know , one of the fun things about that game was getting to see Boogie , collier and Kobe do their thing again . It might be the last time that they all like fire from all cylinders together , yeah . So it was sort of a glimpse that you know that stretch when USC went up and led by 16 .
Speaker 1It was like it was like we sort of had an outer body experience to like you know that alternate Earth to where the USC 23 24 team is like at actually living up to his expectations you know , on Earth , three or four , and you know that's what it would have been like that you know that sweet five minute swipe , sweet five minutes of utter domination , you know is like what it would have been writ large if things had gone well . Yeah so yeah , oh well , dems the brakes .
Speaker 2Yeah , the model of the 24 season , exactly .
Speaker 1Okay , so those are our questions , and now let's move on to our next segment , which is Mark .
Speaker 2Ah , with the echo too
USC Basketball Rivalry Game Discussion
Speaker 2. So , as I said , this was my first trip to Galen since COVID , which was very nice . I like the changes they've made to it . It's kind of a shame that I haven't been there since , but I've moved a little southward , so the games are not as close as they used to be for me . One change that I was not really stoked about we talked about this in the preseason and now it's apparently a real thing where I said why is the DJ telling people to stand before USC scores the first basket of each half ? Yeah , now he doesn't even have to say it . Now people are just doing it organically . It's taken root and it's really not a positive development . I'm extremely chagrined , yeah . So I don't even know who to blame at this point . I almost can't blame the DJ . It's whoever's responsible for making sure that he was on the tracks failed .
Speaker 2And it's a fate of complaint now . I mean , that's who we are as a fan base for home games .
Speaker 1Oh , yeah , yeah , I just know .
Speaker 2This is as disheartening as the game itself . In the end , this is really tough to take .
Speaker 1Yeah , this is like the issue with USC basketball the fan mentality and the complete , utter lack of the sort of simpatico one with the universe type connection with basketball that so many other basketball schools have , where it's like they know when to cheer , they know when to get loud , instinctively , and at USC it's like what the game started . Yeah .
Speaker 2Helen . In Boston they'll call them the pink socks fans , because it'll be typically the ladies that have a pink red socks hat on .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2And they'll ask where are they booing Kevin Euclis or things like that . Instead of they don't know , they're saying Euclis . I think we have a good number of pink socks fans in our base and I'm glad they're there . It's just a little unfortunate that as we've kind of grown the fan base which we have , it's great there were more fans that game than we would have had at basically any game seven years ago , except for UCLA , and that's I love it . I just I didn't dream that we would draw that well in , just in a crummy season .
Speaker 1It looked like a good crowd .
Speaker 2It was , but they feel obligated to stand before USC scores the first basket of each half .
Speaker 1So well , maybe they can just start doing it like just to protest , protest the team's play . We're going to stand the entire That'd be funny , like like let's , let's protest the team . Let's stand the entire game and yell as loud as we can at the team and protest how bad they are .
Speaker 2Oh , I thought you meant like I'm going to protest , like you're . This guy is getting the paint without any problems . I'm going to stand until you actually , like you know , keep them out of the paint for just once defense .
Speaker 1Yeah , I was just thinking away ways to fool people into cheering .
Speaker 2Well , that was it . It just doesn't really work .
Speaker 1No , all right . So next Saturday the Trojans take on the Bruins at Polypavilion . Ucla beat USC 6550 back at Galen about a month ago . This is last chance to probably get a good win on the road , because the Trojans to go up to Washington State and Washington the week after . It's always a tough trip . But I think that USC has been playing better in Polypavilion the last few years than they have historically so , and UCLA just lost to Utah . So this is not by any means an unbeatable UCLA team .
Speaker 2Agree . You know , in the column I put out the numbers . Basically , I've found it most useful to just do breakdowns between home and how teams are performing on home and away . For example , I had us beating Utah . I actually had us also beating Colorado , which we did for about 30 minutes . It's just , teams are really different on the road than home this year and it's going to be a tough task . Our offense just has stunk on the road . Now I think it'll be interesting to see if there's any carryover . There's a couple . There's interesting dynamic . We have the worst road offense in the conference , except for Oregon State . Pardon me , Team BPO plus were 100 as average . On the road we're 90.8 . Going against the best home defense in the Pac-12 , UCLA's defensive BPO plus at home is 83.9 . That's tough . Now those numbers alone would just make me think that we don't have a chance . But with how well we played offensively against Colorado , I would be interested to see if there's any carryover . If so , how much ? And it can be for more than just the first 14 minutes , the first half .
Speaker 1Yeah , well , I think it's good that having lost to Utah sort of takes that streak that they had and just sort of burst that quickly makes them double think , question themselves a little bit . Go into the USC game . Hey , by the way , usc I forgot to note this earlier USC is no longer in last place in the conference .
Speaker 2Ah , that's right .
Speaker 1We are in 11th place . There you go Way ahead of Oregon State .
Speaker 2Are we OK ? I guess we don't have that first round by just yet .
Speaker 1Yeah , no exactly . And Washington is actually within reach . Washington is 6th and 9th , so Washington's two games ahead . So if USC beats UCLA and does well on the road up in the Washington's , then it can conceivably catch Washington . But not that I would count on it . But anyway , there's got to be something to go for here , all right .
Speaker 1So yeah , that UCLA game always tough to win in Pauley . That's not a great UCLA team . They are 14 and 12 overall in the year . They are 9 and 6 in conference . But that was a tough loss to Utah at home for them . So they're going to be sort of in a tough situation because they play USC , which could potentially go either way , because it's a rivalry game and the Bruins aren't great and USC is mercurial . But then they go play Washington State , which is going to be tough up there and Washington as well is going to be tough .
Speaker 1So the Bruins could very well find themselves in a little bit of a tailspin here potentially if they don't sort of get control of the situation . So that's going to be their motivation against USC to really kind of right the ship because they have a chance to . They're not going to go to the NCAA tournament unless they when the PAK 12 tournament . They're not going to go to the NCAA this year , just like USC , but they have a chance to finish maybe third in the conference . I would say a legitimate shot if they finish strong , and this will be good for them to finish the year out . So they have something to play for . And this was this level that UCLA is at , which is still not great . It's something that USC could have had within their grasp at some point where the season's disappointing , but you show some growth , consistent growth , within it , and so that is one thing that UCLA has been able to do that USC has not been able to do .
Speaker 2Yeah , yep .
Speaker 1So , anyway , anything else you want to cover ? We've talked about the games over the weekend and the upcoming game . We've talked about all the things I need to be talked about , I think .
Speaker 2How about your favorite , just in 30 seconds each ? How about our favorite memory about UCLA game ?
Speaker 1I'll go first . That's a good one , go ahead .
Speaker 2Yeah , my senior season was the 91-92 season and we caught UCLA at home and I just remember somebody telling me and I feel bad because he's such a good announcer somebody told me Don McClain's girlfriend just broke out to me he's going to have a bad game . I believe we lost that game . I think we actually . That was the season where the road team won both . I think we split , if I remember correctly .
Speaker 1No , no , the 91 , that was Harold Miner's year , the big year , ok yeah yeah , yeah , yeah , we swept them .
Speaker 1We actually beat them up at Poly . We held , I think we were up 19 at one point and they came storming back and I think we ended up winning by two or three . But and then , you know , it was funny , we had beaten them in Poly and I think I feel like Indiana had beaten , or no , I'm saying Michigan had beat Ohio State at Ohio State and we played UCLA at the sports arena the same night as Michigan played Ohio State again , or something , and it was billed as , like you know , like a revenge tour for the , for the for the better you know the quote unquote better team you say it was going to get their revenge and Ohio State was going to get their revenge .
Speaker 1I think it was Ohio State , Michigan , or it might have been Indiana . It might have been Indiana , Michigan , One of the , or it was some combination of teams . And anyway , point being is is that USC swept and the team that was also supposed to be avenged , get their revenge upon , was also also was able to sweep . So it was like this little narrative that ESPN had created that that didn't come to fruition .
Speaker 2So that first or last time we've seen that happen yeah exactly .
Speaker 1So that part , so that just hearing about not McLean's girlfriend was your favorite memory from USC UCLA game .
Speaker 2It's such a college thing , yeah , and it's . It's going back to not knowing when to stand at the beginning of the game . It kind of goes with a little bit of experience . But yeah , I remember it was just that was a full house , if I remember correctly as well .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean that absolutely , just huge matchups . I think the memory that I have of USC , ucla , gosh , I mean there's so many Most of my memories are the best memories at the sports arena , with some of those I think , like the like that baby team that went to lead eight , there was a really good game in the sports arena where they beat the Bruins
USC Basketball Rivalry Moments
Speaker 1.
Speaker 2Yeah , the Bruins it's about to mention . He had like 30 that game I remember . Yeah , he just went off .
Speaker 1Yeah , and there is . There was a stretch where baby did pretty well . It was against Steve , steve Lavin on the other side , and so , yeah , that group played really well against the Bruins . I remember just just being really happy with how well they played and and beat a probably a more overall , more talented UCLA team , but that was pretty memorable . Of course , everyone remembers the Harold Miner between the legs dunked down the lane against UCLA at the sports arena Probably the most famous USC highlight against UCLA and then even going back to infer that in 1984 , quadruple overtime game against UCLA that USC won .
Speaker 1In fact it's interesting , that year USC won a double overtime game against UCLA and a quadruple overtime game against UCLA Jeez . So I remember watching both of those as an eighth grader . So very memorable moments in that rivalry . Cool , all right . Well , mark , if that is it , I'd like to thank everybody for listening to this week's episode . We have a few more episodes in the season left to go and we're looking forward to discussing Trojan basketball with you in the future and you hope . If you want to keep discussing it , just go to USCBasketballcom where there are all kinds of interesting discussions right now . So , mark , I will say fight on and I will leave it up to you to decide what to say next .
Speaker 2As always , everyone fight on and beat the Bruins .
