Mark and Chris discuss USC's win over UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, how the Trojans are playing better ball of late, what USC's record might've been without injury and bad luck, what Kobe Johnson's role might be on the team next year and a look ahead at the coming trip to the Pacific Northwest.
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Mark and Chris discuss USC's win over UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, how the Trojans are playing better ball of late, what USC's record might've been without injury and bad luck, what Kobe Johnson's role might be on the team next year and a look ahead at the coming trip to the Pacific Northwest.
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. Welcome back to another episode of the Dunk City podcast brought to you by USCBasketballcom. February is coming to a close. March is approaching. That means the season is coming to a close and March madness is around the corner, so it's a very wistful time of year Pro Trojan fans. I'm Chris Houston here with Mark Baxter. Mark, how's it going over there?
Speaker 2:Very well, thank you. How are you?
Speaker 1:Pretty good after this past weekend's loan game, which was a win for USC Basketball.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, did we win.
Speaker 1:We did win USC beat USC beat UCLA 62 to 56 in polypavilion, moving Andy Enfield's record against McCronen to seven and four. The Trojans moved to 11 and 16 and five and 11 in the conference and it was a much needed win. After the Trojans had been playing well, or at least to a level of. What I said was they went from a team playing like a team in the cellar to playing more like a mid-level pack 12 team, which you know got them three and three over the last six, but of course two of those games were losses in overtime. So, point being, the Trojans have been playing better recently and they kind of finally put it all together against UCLA in what could be potentially the last kind of hurrah for the Trojans in the sense that doing anything that people can look on as being special this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, unless there's a run that I guess I'd say is less than certain in the pack 12 tournament.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've got a path for us, but it involves Oregon State.
Speaker 1:finishing sixth that's not going to happen. No, no, you know, potentially USC could also be at Arizona. I guess that could also be a special happening. If were it to happen, certainly I wouldn't be surprised if USC won all of its games or lost all of its games. This is sort of the team that we're dealing with as far as just consistency levels and not knowing what team you're going to get, but I do think the overall trend last six games as far as quality of play is definitely better. What you say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Really. No doubt about that. If I pulled the game log here, our margin of BPO advantage has really kind of. The good news is the bad news. Our margin of advantage has really been sustained these last three games, even though we lost to Colorado consistently in that plus six or seven BPO, which should be a pretty handy win. Unfortunately, this is not a recording. Those rebounds tend to get in the way and make these things a little more interesting than they should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but like you said in your column today, usc wasn't killed on the boards against UCLA, so that enabled the Trojans to keep that part of the game close and not to be too much of a disadvantage. And of course, the overall toughness the end-to-end field and also McCronin was a key factor, especially with the Bigs down low standing up to a Dembona, not necessarily stopping him, but just really making it hard on him. So kudos to our big guys for coming through in that regard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. So USC will bask in this glow of the win over UCLA for a few days and then go up to the Palouse to take on Washington State. On Thursday Trojans will tip off against the Cougars at 7.30 pm on the Pact 12 Network and then on Saturday the Trojans will travel over to Seattle to play the Huskies and that will be on CBS at 1 pm Pacific Time. And then there are two home games after that Arizona State and Arizona and then on to Vegas for the Pact 12 tournament. So that UCLA game kind of an interesting game for the Trojans, in that USC pretty much controlled things the entire way, didn't necessarily dominate the entire way but I think led for like 99% of the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they did, although they did have that I don't know if I'd say it's predictable, but unsurprising gasp of an end to the first half that's all too common this season. Yeah, that was not the most fun part of the game but, like I said, nor was the most surprising and a couple of things on that. You know pretty impressive to give up that entire 14 point lead just as the first half ended in the come out and score, I think, 10 straight. Yeah, that was. That's a different kind of look and character than what we've seen from this team for most of this season, you know, and what we really. This didn't start technically that you see a run, but this, I think, probably precipitated it, I guess I would say, or maybe accelerated it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, when I had this is kind of season, it's been folks when I had that column on the spurt of death, I mentioned that usually it starts with an innocent looking kind of you know careless turnover or something and I count missing two free throws as kind of a I'm just you know kind of a careless turnover and Boogie actually missed two and right after that you see they finished the half on the 13 to one run. Yeah, not a coincidence, I'd say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like those missed free throws are not only bad because you don't get the points, but they seem demoralizing, like you know, boogie. Boogie is like your senior, your senior captain, and he's up there and he's missing them free throws. It's got to be a little demoralizing when you're out there on the court and you come up empty on on the opportunity. So yeah, but luckily with Boogie he had a great game nine of 18 from the field, three of seven, 24 points, five rebounds, two assists. He really put, you know, launched a few daggers, played 37 minutes Getting round me back to form. He now has 54 points, his last two games combined.
Speaker 1:Isaiah Collier didn't have a flashy game but he played solid enough 11 points, three boards, four assists, three steals. Colby Johnson showed up when the time was right, wasn't kind of noxiously putting himself into the game very much, only shot seven times, which you know seems to be about the right number for him 10 points, three rebounds, two assists and four big steals. So definitely the big three came through again with some timely plays and the kind of plays that UCLA just couldn't solve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know to the extent that they couldn't overcome that because of our defense slash, poor shooting on their part. I think it's probably some of both. You know we had 12 steals to their six. So to the extent that we were able to overcome the rebounding disadvantage with, you know, winning that battle I think was the most important thing, and then clearly we caught him on, I think, a pretty bad shooting night for everybody that I guess, to put it generally, didn't take shots from inside the paint. Yeah Well, the key to the game for USC defensively was probably ensuring that Dylan.
Speaker 1:Andrews had a poor game. He was 0 for seven, didn't score a point, had five turnovers Really a forgettable game for Dylan Andrews and he's a really good player. He's really good at shooting. He's a really good player. He's a really good player. He's a really forgettable game for Dylan Andrews and he's a really good player. He's really fast, really hard to contain. So once he gets going he's one of those guys who can really hurt you. So I think kind of taking him away as a threat made a huge difference. And just seeing Adey Mara getting, you know, shooting seven field goals he did pretty well, I mean three of them. But you know he's the kind of the guy you want to see shooting. You don't want to see Sebastian Mack shooting or Dylan Andrews. So definitely a poor shooting night for the Bruins and the Trojans really played some good sustained defense for long stretches of the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, Andrews actually had the worst buscar of any player in the entire game. Negative 3.3 for the game. Yeah, that'll happen, we would go over 70 to turn the ball over five times. That's yeah, that's a tough one, yeah that's a tough one. The 29% turnover rate. I mean, that's on that level of what was it that? What was the game where Collier just was really struggling? Was it Oklahoma?
Speaker 1:One of those, I think, yeah, Oklahoma, he was really having a hard time.
Speaker 2:That level of just turning it over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then can we just talk about. I mean, there's some you know, I'm kind of assuming that you might talk about this in your mean minute. But man, these referees in this game, this play, with Arrington Page getting fouled and falling on a dem bono and getting called for a technical foul. That's some wild shit, man.
Speaker 1:There's just, you know I was like wow, and you know it's like that's kind of like how it's always been at Pauley. They protect UCLA and they give all kinds of crazy calls. So whenever you're beating UCLA at Pauley, it's almost like you know USC one by six, but it's almost like they won in double figures, right, because you're playing against the refs too. And Pauley, that's without a doubt.
Speaker 2:You know it's a dem bono.
Speaker 1:You know he has that spin move, but every time he does it he's hooking you. You know it's like, but they never call it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've, just I've even more so this season. I've just kind of given up on the referees. Just, I don't know. I've got a Twitter buddy who's a Purdue alum and he said you don't know you were in for. And I all I can say is you don't know where I've been, pal, I've. I've seen the worst when it comes to refereeing. There's nothing can hold a candle. But I've been through here. That's a fan. Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I just being a Pac 10, being a fan of a Pac 10, pac 12 team is, it's just really a crazy experience. So anyway, man, I tell you anything. Any other comments on the USC SLA game. Obviously, big win for Andy Enfield, the 216th in his career has done very well against UCLA of late. You can see some big issues with UCLA's roster just not a great roster and a lot of those European guys. There was a gamble, but you can see that just a lot. They're just not ready to play and this credit to UCLA to some extent for getting the roster. He does have to play because a lot of the guys are just really young. But but yeah, this is not a tournament team by any means.
Speaker 2:Ucla, no, it's kind of funny that they were being mentioned as a possible one when they went on that on that little run. A few more notes on my end. You know, actually, kobe Johnson, higher BPO 100 for the game than Boogie. 56.8 for Kobe. Huh, one of his best games, yeah, and quite a while, and I think to your point, just staying within himself and more. We'll come back to that in, I think, in game theory, our leading rebounder per 40 minutes. I might give you five guesses. I don't know if you get this. You want to take two guesses.
Speaker 1:Team, I'm just kidding. I'll say the leading rebounder per 40 minutes. I will say it was probably. I will say it was probably Brony James it was yes, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 2:Um it just I don't know. Just rebounding remains a concern. Slash point of chagrin Um but again it's it's.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily like kind of like you said, it's it's what the but what matters is how many rebounds USC gets. I think like they have to be good enough, but not like they don't have to win every rebounding battle. In fact, I think the first, the first 24 games of the year, usc either tied or won the rebounding battle, and 14 of them.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm, right.
Speaker 1:That's what's so funny. It's like people are like, oh, this is a horrible rebounding team. Well, maybe you're right, but they, but they, they're not going to rebound at every game. They've actually outrebounding other teams more every game, you know? Um, they're just, you're just not seeing them put up big margins when they do and then when they don't get when, then when they don't get it or they don't outrebound the other team, they're getting killed in the boards. Yeah Right, so that creates this gap. Yeah, Fair.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely no.
Speaker 2:I agree. I would um kind of wonder about the teams that we did outrebound so handily in the beginning of the year at this point. Yeah, it's kind of a be an interesting case study. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you, if you go, if you go back and look at you know the head to heads it's like you know, we out rebounded Bakersfield, out rebounded Irvine, out rebounded Brown, out rebounded Eastern Washington, long Beach State. We actually out rebounded Auburn, out rebounded Alabama State, tied with Oregon, tied with Cal, out rebounded Stanford, out rebounded Colorado, out rebounded ASU. Uh, tied with Oregon, out rebounded Oregon State. And then now to that point that was when I was talking about, I think and then the last five games we have been out rebounded every time and and, and that's where you have like these truly grotesque numbers like 47, 22 in Colorado, 54, 27 California, 4, 41, 25 Stanford, and that has real. And then there was earlier, there was a 43, 29 UCLA.
Speaker 1:If you go back and look at the, the season up to that point, let's say the the first UCLA game, so that's one, two, three, four, five, six. That's eight games ago, right? So look at the season, going back eight games, and you look at like the total number of rebounds between the two sides, it's basically, it's basically I mean I'm just doing back in the end but I think the rebounding number was basically the same, like USC was not getting out rebounded on the season Did not have a negative rebound number right Like so, in other words, like I just literally just ran it and it wasn't until, wasn't until the game at.
Speaker 2:Stanford. This is kind of a crazy stat. Not until game 24, where we're actually negative for the season, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then the season One. One more thing about UCLA, and then one more metrics just to quantify a point that you had made earlier. Just for the game we held, we actually held UCLA to a negative point. Eight Bouscar, nice, a sub Rico less than Rico. Very fitting, I think you coined that a pharnem and Mr Farnem did the game on Saturday, did he not? He did a fine job too, he did, I liked him. He was so good. I'm just I'm gonna miss these guys. They're all so good. He made a great point like we had a late possession. He said didn't like that from USC, they didn't move the ball, you know from side to side across the court.
Speaker 2:It's like he didn't have to be goofy. He just you get in and out with a really solid points like man Yep. That would have made such a big difference. It just you know, just make them work, work more on defense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's got great. He's got great tone and yep, and like he, he's not a buffoon and I think, I don't know, that's in reference to well, no, Unlike some other UCLA Former UCLA players who are now announcers. But he is kind of in the Dom MacLean school where I think you know he does his homework. Yeah he's serious, but he's also, like you know, in touch with what's going on. And he's pretty humble about his his time at UCLA.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So okay, are we ready to go to some game theory? Definitely am.
Speaker 2:Go for it. You've got one too, so should we alternate here? Yeah, who wants to go first? I'll go first, and so okay too so sure this is the kind of season it's been. I made a note in the first half when Arrington Page was going for rebound he actually just threw I think it was bona down to the floor at one point. Do you remember this foul?
Speaker 1:Vaguely, I don't. I mean, I don't know if you really did, he really throw him, or did it was?
Speaker 2:it was beyond a shove, I'd put it that way. It was pretty, it was pretty aggressive and I put my notes. That's my favorite foul of this season. I think that we finally got that. I want somebody to push somebody. Moment finally from a big man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely I think. And you have to do that with bono too, because he's a bully, right, he gets and he gets deference he gets. He gets shack like I wouldn't say he gets shack like deference, right, you breathe on him too hard and you get a foul. So yeah, I agree, that was definitely a great moment for Arrington Page.
Speaker 2:I think it's. It's set the stage, maybe a bit much. I don't know if, if if listeners really countered up the fouls. I Did a pretty solid recap in the column today. Yeah, I'll just try to catch it here real quick. So Vince fouled out in 24 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Joshua Morgan 4000, just eight minutes, which is an amazing pace, and he's prolific the most timid one among them was air of the bigs was Arrington Page, with 3,012 minutes, which is quite a pace on that. On his own, that that's that's 10 per game just by himself, and he was. He was holding down the average.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be fair to Joshua, a couple of those fouls were just horseshit. For instance, the very the foul, the third foul I think he took with about 15 seconds into the second half. Mm-hmm where it was. Just basically, like you know, bona was setting up on the low blocks and Morgan was was just sort of you know, fighting him for position, and it was just like oh foul, you know is yeah he happened to touch Bona, so it's like they called a foul.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there was a couple of those, and of course I think there was another foul where you probably blocked a shot and they called and they called it and but those guys were also fat, those guys also foul a lot too. So especially, I think especially Vincent page, they tend to foul.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and I think once you get on the radar, you're you're gonna get more scrutiny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true for sure.
Speaker 2:All right, so that's your little point, that's my first one, yeah, just my favorite foul this season really set the tone defensively better and worse nice, all right.
Speaker 1:So I've been thinking, a kind of wanting to do a little thought exercise here, about kind of the extent, like kind of what is the the true Record of this team, in the sense that, like, if you, right now, usc is 11 and 16 and 5 and 11 and conference, if you, if you take three, there are three factors that that determine, three main factors that determine USC's record.
Speaker 1:One is sort of like a variable that that we don't really know. The second one is injuries and the third is bad luck, right? So to some extent we know like USC's, according to Ken Palm, one of the unluckiest teams in the country, so they've had their share of bad luck this year and also we know they've had their share of injuries. Now I don't think we can blame the there's no way we're blaming the entirety of the season on injuries or bad luck. But if you take the elements of the season that could be rectified by if we had had good luck and no injuries, I'm positing that if you look at the schedule, we start 9 and 2 instead of 6 and 5, because without the injuries we beat. You see, irvine Right, and I think that with a little bit of good luck we beat.
Speaker 1:We don't lose to Oklahoma at the buzzer and with a little bit of good luck, you beat Long Beach State.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm right so those over time right right no overtime.
Speaker 1:So now it's that a six and five, you're nine and two to start. You know in your in the preseason now there there were definitely a lot of games that during the stretch of the conference, especially early on, where the games weren't necessary close, usc was losing by 1015, you know somewhere in that range. But if you go nine and two in the preseason you don't have the injuries and you're feeling a little more confident and you don't have the bad luck. Maybe some of those games you don't come out as flat. I'm just sort of positing that right now, instead of 11 and 16, bare minimum, I think this is like a 16 and 11 team that we can explain With sort of like knowing about the injuries and knowing about the bad luck, like realistically, this should be no worse than a 16 and 11 team without those things, right.
Speaker 1:And then at 16 and 11 you start to think, well, maybe a couple of those games they don't come out so flat because they don't feel so bad about themselves, because they're mentally fragile and you know, with they, with the accumulative effect of not having the guys injured, they start playing a little bit better.
Speaker 1:So maybe instead of 16, 11, they're really 18 and 9 and Now you're getting to like you know how many of those nine games can be reduced but you know are attributable to Just the way that you know the roster is made up or just you know chemistry or all that. So If USC was 18 and 9, which is a seven point seven game swing, you can argue that seven games were lost due to injuries and bad luck. Usc's 18 and 9. It's probably a very disappointing season still Because it's a bubble team at that point and people are still up in arms, but it doesn't feel like the disaster that it feels like today. And again, going back to that fine line between, you know, decent season and a bad season, I think that when you actually go back and look at it, the injuries and the bad luck, over time, losses and all that did definitely take a toll.
Speaker 2:I Think I can buy a good amount of that. Going back to your, you know I kind of poo pooed the whole. Well, injuries have really done us in and we'll come back to a specific part of this. But you know, from the Colorado at game at Colorado, through hosting Oregon, our BPO for those games was a minus six point seven and that's basically after we. You know, we're without Collier.
Speaker 2:Yeah for an entire game. You know, in in the Six games since then our BP 100 is actually cumulatively in those six games a positive 4.4, even with that horrendous whole rendus Stanford game, yeah, where you know we were, we were outmanned by, we lost. We had a negative margin of 18. So as as bad as we, as good as we were against Oregon State, we were bad at Stanford and still, you know, over the last six were a positive 4.4 margin, which is, you know, not gonna win the conference, but I think that's, that's pretty much in line with maybe an 18 and 9 or, you know, 17 and 10 ish season. I definitely buy that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it. Again, this is not to make excuses for how the season has turned out, because there's that third variable which could be. It could be coaching, it could be individual player Abilities, not, you know, not working out, it could be the wrong chemistry. There's all other that could be the big, that's probably the biggest factor in it. But it's foolish to say that injuries are not a factor or that, you know, to some extent bad luck was not a factor and and the reason we know it's a factor is because it's actually, it's actually ranked by Ken Palm. You know, we know that's it is considered a factor in In games to some extent. But if you go and look down the schedule, you can see key points to where injuries just really sort of took its toll.
Speaker 1:Obviously the UC Irvine game was was entirely due to injury. Now you could argue that USG should have won those games despite injury. Okay, but looking back now you see that, for better, for worse, that's just not the case. Now you can have a really good team, you can still be a really good team. That nonetheless, when it suffers injuries, just isn't as good, right and and that's a flaw on a team, but it doesn't mean the team Is like should be thought of less because they lost due to injury. Right. So that UC Irvine game would be a win. The Oklahoma game, I mean, that game could have gone either way and I think that, if you know, if Vince hadn't been as injured as he was and was maybe back a little bit more by that game, he had come two games earlier. But he was. I think he was on a minutes restriction, he still didn't have brawny. I still think at that point Kobe Johnson was Not fully healthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah and, and then you know the Gonzaga game probably still would have been a loss, but then they probably they would have beat Long Beach State, but Gonzaga would have been the first, would have been that could have been the first loss of the season. And Then you know they probably lose to Auburn still. But you know you're looking at nine and two coming out of out of the preseason and you don't have those embarrassing kind of confidence shattering losses that happened because of injuries and the team. The team was healthy and started out two and two in conference play. Now that's not a great start, but but it's not a start.
Speaker 1:That was, you know, unable to be to be improved upon right, and then USC, then USC sweeps Cal and Stanford at home and Then has Washington State and that's when Collier Breaks his thumb Toward the end of that game, when the game was still in doubt. I'm pretty sure I think there was. You know it was gonna be a long shot, but the game was still competitive when he came out mm-hmm and then USC loses six in a row.
Speaker 1:So and then, and then, after you finish that six game streak, you then have this these past six games where USC Goes goes three and three, but really should have been five and one. So yeah, if you mark those points, and and also, boogie was was hurt during those stretches too. Oh yeah, and and Morgan right, so so you had.
Speaker 1:Now again you can go back to the argument that it's Andy Enfield's job to to win these games anyway, and, and you're probably right, Yep but we can still explain what like if we can say that that USC was a good team when healthy but not good enough to win with its backups.
Speaker 1:Okay, you can take into account, you can take into account how, how that would depict the team right, like you would. You would say, okay, that's not necessarily a good team, it doesn't have the depth, but you know, if they, if they don't get hurt, they're, they're tough to deal with. It's like when USC beat Boston College and back in the 01 and Robert Hutchinson had to come into the game and close it out. You know if, if he hadn't closed it out and USC a loss that game, the takeaway would have been well, usc just lost his point late. You know their, their starter fouled out and their backup wasn't as good, but no one would have said, no one would have blamed the. The I Mean I guess they could have blamed the coaching staff for not having a better backup point card. You know what I mean. But usually the point of being is that coaches usually don't get huge blame for not having incredible backups.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So unless you're coaching at Kentucky.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that's true. That's true. That's true. No, very true. But yeah, point being is that if you go back and look and I don't think it's revisionist history to look back and see, just With the stipulation that this is a team that is, that can't sustain injuries, especially to To the engine of its offense, that backcourt. So when it does that it's, you know, it's like a, it's like the dragon and the hobbit, you know. It's like it has that little, that little patch, you know. Or if you, it's like it's impregnable. But if you kick, if you stick it right there, like you know the, the exhaust shafts in the in the Star Wars and the Death Star, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's like you can have a really good roster, but but if those guys get hurt, then you can blow the whole thing up. So, and that's pretty much, pretty much what happened I'm obviously there's other factors, but I think they seem to be mostly an outgrowth of that. Once you had injuries and realizing that, wow, we can't win. We can't win when we're not a hundred percent, and the sort of like the the psychological impact impact that it had on the team after that and I think because, you know, if we're trying to explain what happened this season, because everyone's wondering what happened, I don't think it's as simple.
Speaker 1:As you know, the coach suddenly became a bad coach. I don't think it's that at all. I think it's these things that happen that are sometimes hard to manage, and and and. So it was a challenge and it didn't go well.
Speaker 2:Well, and back to your earlier point about the luck, even with all the injuries that we have sustained, just going off the raw numbers, our BPO 100 for the season is a 49.2 and defensively it's a 48.2. That that's not a team. That should be 11 and 16, just raw. That should be closer to like 14 and 13,. Right, you know, anecdotally, you know you can we have three overtime games that we've lost. I can't think of any games where you say, boy, we were lucky to win that one, but we were, you know, there there were four, just three overtime games, and that to Oklahoma, to your point. We're just like man, just that's a tough one to lose, right? Well, that's that, you know. That's the thing is that's the thing is.
Speaker 1:That is that if most of these games are pretty cut and dry this year, like we've either like beat teams pretty well, you know with some comfort if you go look up and down the scores.
Speaker 2:I don't think we've.
Speaker 1:I think the only game that we've won by less than less than eight points is the Utah game. I'm sorry, yeah, you see Utah and UCLA right, but the UCLA game was really nine points. They hit a meaningless three-point shot. But you go look at a whole the other wins it's like 13 points over case-date. You know, 26 points over Bakersfield, 11 over Brown, eight over Seton Hall 20, 28 over Eastern Washington, 20 over Alabama State, eight over Cal, 14 over Stanford. You know those aren't close. You know you can't look at it and say, well, sure, you're saying they could have won these games, but you could have lost these games. No, it's like every other game was either USC lost by 10 points or USC won by 10 points.
Speaker 1:And so then you had these, these outlier games, where it was a coin flip. You have the, you have the, the three overtime games, and then you have the, the lost game with the buzzer against against Oklahoma. Yeah, so so, yeah, so it's. It's just interesting how close, even at 1116, just kind of the, the, the domino effect that happened with some of these injuries and and you know, and maybe it goes back to program attitude and having more mental resilience, and that's something that that it can either. I don't know if that's something you can Create via coach and program, or it's just a matter of like these are the guys I recruited and and, as it turns out, they weren't able to weather this type of adversity as well as we'd hoped, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's kind of one of the secrets, right, I mean don't just say hey, be mentally tough, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't know if they're mentally and you can, you can get someone out of out of high school and think, yeah, this kid seems really mentally tough, he seems is gonna be a gamer, and then you and then you play him and and Maybe he's not much of a game, as much of a gamer as you thought he would be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if my coach is saying like well, we talked about being mentally tough this week, I've got huge concerns about the coach. I'll just put it that way. He just you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you do it, but that's not it, yeah. So anyway. So that was sort of my look at At why the season is how it is and just kind of using an exercise to see like what is sort of the true, the true nature of this team. And to some extent you are what you are, but there's no doubt about it that injuries and and some bad luck played a part in it and I Just think it's a better, it's a good way to try to understand what happened.
Speaker 2:I yeah, very fair. Um, all right, my other game theory. This is gonna be in a totally different direction. Okay, I, I and I don't know why game theory comes down to Boogie every week. I and this is a complete 180 from what I've said, like the last two weeks here, but it's interesting, I think. I think there's a case to be made here. I Think that playing through the injury, as much as I derided it, I think it helped Boogie, because I was joking that he, like he had to develop an old man game that he didn't need before. Right, and I think he's, he's really appreciated how to change gears and how to play when he doesn't have that advantage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you're, you're really right about that and he also, I think, got his sort of got his mojo back as far as getting to the hole, because he's not. He's not faster than Dylan Andrews, but but he is like bigger and stronger.
Speaker 1:Right now and he's sort of like was able to use his body to create separation from Andrews, especially when he was driving left. And it's funny, it's like I really don't. I think Boogie is at his most effective when he's when he's driving In combination with his outside game, when he's driving as well and and coming to jump stops and doing turnarounds and Popping it in the middle of the lane. So he did that a lot against UCLA. He had the whole repertoire going, so that's usually a good sign when he's kind of firing from all those cylinders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess I would just say I think that even though he's, he's not faster, I would say that when that, when he's shooting like he is and the defender's so worried about getting me out on him because the guys on fire, that's gonna make it a lot easier to get past that defender.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely All right. I agree, I wasn't breaking news there, they're not all you know. A plus material yeah, and can we just you know and can we just add about you know time our collier like how much better he is right now.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh yes then he was early in the season. So it's like we are seeing. We are seeing a definite improvement level. I mean he's he's averaging, I think, yes, he's averaging five assists and like 19 points, I think the last five games, or maybe going back to last seven, he's been pretty. He's just been very effective and Just has cut down on the turnovers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, big shout out to him. He's now a place Lee playing. He doesn't have it. I'm normally a low amount of turnovers but he has like an acceptable amount of turnovers now I think for a, for a quality point guard. He's not like a High volume assist guy, but I think a lot of that again is just probably due to the failure of his teammates to to convert on a lot of his plays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last three games just going back, turnover percentage of 14.3, which is pretty good for a point guard, and then before that 3.1 percent and against Utah 8.2 percent. So he's you know the turnovers. It's kind of. You know it's easy to forget just what a source of frustration that was earlier in the season. Like we were. I think we spent a good 10 minutes. One of the pods is saying how do you fix this without crushing his confidence or getting into, you know to kind of? You know, just overthink it.
Speaker 2:Yeah clearly, whatever they did worked.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And it's interesting because we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and we've kind of been through this kind of facade before. But Okay, so just bear with me for a second. But. But if you have this lineup, which we all agree is is a pretty good lineup when healthy, right. So if you have Isaiah Collier and he's now at like the peak of his powers for his freshman season, and you got Boogie Ellis who's who's back to His ways right last couple games, so you've got a pretty formidable duo that you can start off with right there.
Speaker 1:And Kobe Johnson is is like playing less bad and he's Starting to. He played really well as a help defender Against Bona and so did so did Rodman, and the USC in general did a great job of helping out the big guys against Bona. But Just, you know marginally better, you know significantly better play from Kobe Johnson. He's not playing like at a superstar level, but he's playing pretty well right now and Some of the other guys are playing better within the system and the overall scheme of things.
Speaker 1:So you could argue that that USC if, if they're healthy at the end of the season and let's say they win, if they can win two of their last four, they're probably not gonna have a ton of momentum unless it's the last two that they win. But if they went three or their last four, they might be feeling pretty good about themselves going into the Pac-12 tournament because they let's just say they even I don't know this Throughout the record for a minute, but say they play well in each of these last four games, whatever the record is, then they're gonna be a tough out in the Pac-12 tournament. Right, because they will have that. That point put together ten, ten games pretty much Stanford game aside ten games in a row where they played well, mm-hmm, whatever the record was, but they played well. So, like you get into that tournament and if USC is 11 seed, right, who was the first four, that get buys yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, so then it's USC right now. Would play, would play cow mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:If this you know, and so or Colorado, both of whom we went to overtime against true, yeah, or Colorado.
Speaker 1:so those teams are, those teams are beatable mm-hmm on a neutral floor. I packed on a neutral floor. I like USC and either of those games. So you know, and and the top, it's not a tough conference this year, right, like Washington State, arizona, that are the cream of the crop, but Oregon's beatable. Yeah with USC healthy and playing well. So all these teams, all these teams from from Three through twelve or are like you know. You would not bat an eye at USC beating two of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it's. I mean that speaks to what kind of season it's been in this conference. Yeah if there was a conference team in Las Vegas, I think they'd be the prohibitive favorites in some court teams. So much this season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, point being is that it again the team has a lot to play for, in the sense that if they can get their their shit together, then they could beat anybody they play it in that tournament they really can't. I Mean it's, it's, it's four games and it's tough to do, but Oregon did it. Oregon state did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think they probably need a little help on the other side of the bracket, wherever that may be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would, I would always help for sure, yeah, but but these aren't like. The point being is that USC has personnel that that can beat teams on a given night. They haven't proven they could beat teams on a given tight necessarily, like on the road, necessarily, although they did beat UCLA, but they haven't proven they could be a good team. But there's a first for everything and that's why teams get hot.
Speaker 2:So these are neutral site? They're not. They're not on the road either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so. I'm not predicting it's gonna happen. I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if USC won the first two, based on how they're playing right now. I think they're playing right now like Like if USC played another 20 games in the conference starting right now, they would probably be like fourth or fifth in the conference as far as the level they're playing at. Yeah you know like they're like a 500 conference team Right now the way they're playing, because they're what they're like three and three, their last six, right.
Speaker 1:So, they're like, they're playing like a 500 conference team, so and, and California is nine and eight, and they're, and they're six, and UCLA is 97, so so, right there, so like If we were a mid, a mid-level conference team, we wouldn't bat an eye at the idea of us winning a couple games in the tournament. Yeah so again, not saying it's gonna happen, but Something to keep an eye on. And, of course, we will be talking about it as we get closer to that date okay, let's move on from this and go to question time Question time.
Speaker 2:All right, I've got two questions for you. We've kind of hit on one a little bit, so I'll just kind of continue that thread. Kobe Johnson was good against UCLA because we had really a fully functional About as his at his best, boogie Ellis, and we had a very, very good Isaiah Collier Mm-hmm. What does this say about what he can be next season? What have is there? Is there any reason to expect that he can be this good without one, let alone both, of these players next season?
Speaker 1:Um, no, I think for him to be as effective as he was against UCLA, and that involves being being part of the game plan, but not obtrusively so, picking his moments, focusing mainly on defense and rebounding and really just taking the open shot, but not forcing too much, but having the luxury to do that when those other guys are doing well, when they're controlling the game and the tempo Right, so he has the luxury of doing that.
Speaker 1:He won't have the luxury of that next year unless USC brings in someone who is a quality point guard in addition, because most likely Trent Perry is going to start and Trent Perry is a very good freshman coming in. He's a McDonald's All-American. I mean, I really like him. I think let's put it this way I think he's every bit. I think he's better than Silas Demery was Silas Demery Jr. Silas Demery Jr was the top 50 recruit and now he's. He's rated higher than Silas Demery Jr.
Speaker 1:But the thought was that Silas was going to start this year. That was kind of the idea. Boogie hadn't come back. He was probably going to start. They were going to do double point guard off.
Speaker 1:Now this is, you know, as a quick aside. How would the team have been without Boogie Ellis and instead with Silas Demery Jr? Might have been an even rougher team, but if it had been better, that's one of those things you could probably chalk up to. Just that's how the algorithm would have worked. Right, it's up to the algorithm. You know the programmers of this simulation. Who knows how that calculation would have worked? But but, yeah, so. So next year it's going to be a similar situation. You're going to have Kobe Johnson and if he assuming he comes back, right, assuming he comes back to USC you have Kobe Johnson and then you have Trent Perry and then it's going to be from there like a wide open backcourt. It could be, as I sellers, it could be Bonnie James, although doubtful, could be one of the other recruits coming in, liam Campbell, but most likely it would be some other, some other transfer ballhandler they're getting need at least one coming in and then, yeah, so I think that unless Kobe can, can make a big jump offensively and make it stick, like he.
Speaker 1:It seemed like he was starting to do the beginning of the season but then he lost it. He's a hard worker, I mean, I wouldn't put it past him, but he's really. It's going to have to be a real proof of season for him. And look, we've had great track record the last few seasons of that senior guard coming back and playing really well.
Speaker 1:Jonah Matthews came back, hadn't been, you know, had had his moments his first three seasons, but hadn't really been a dude until like the last half of his senior season when he just sort of like, at that point he was just, you know, stronger, smarter, knew what he was doing, and so he was really good. And so you hope that with Kobe you know, getting that fourth year player he's going to be able to utilize his mix of experience and understanding of the game and his, his work ethic and all that to like come in with a big season. So it's certainly possible that that, if he comes out and works hard on the off season and looks like he's ready to actually turn around his game offensively, then I think that Andy infield is the kind of coach who who trusts his players and he would. He would have the opportunity to do that, but I don't think it's a coach you necessarily want to rely on.
Speaker 2:It's tough because you know it did seem like after he got over, you know, when he had to, after he set out sit out that one game early in the season, he seemed to be kind of the guy that we thought had taken the next step and I don't know if you know that was a false positive.
Speaker 2:Or maybe he, to your point, just uses the experience of this season, kind of sees what Boogie did in terms of putting in the work and saying, all right, I need to be that. I don't know. It's a tough question to me because my first England is no, but there's been, there's been signs, and he is a smart, a smart guy and a hard worker. I mean anybody that, that, that that you know, that has that many steals. You don't do that just by kind of showing up on game day and otherwise mailing it in.
Speaker 1:Well, my yeah absolutely, and maybe he's not. You know, Boogie Ellis is a is a true gunner, true shooter, true score. Those guys know enough. They are there, they don't. They don't let like a four of a four of 15 shooting performance get them down. Boogie Ellis goes. Oh, was he one of nine two games ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. And then the next game he went for 30. Like he doesn't let that get into his head, he knows that he's a good shooter Right, but with Kobe Johnson he's not much. He hadn't matured yet enough as an offensive player to be able to withstand those types of games mentally, which all good off the players have at some point, no matter how much you try or how much you know how much you do to to try to try to come out and play hard and you're going to have games where you go two of nine Right or three of 15. But you have to be able to bounce back from that and trust in your abilities. And I think Kobe hadn't got to the point where he trusted his abilities enough, his shooting abilities enough to bounce back from those rough games that he had. And then he just went on that horrible tailspin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's the difference.
Speaker 1:He's going to have to get that mental edge back if he ever had it.
Speaker 2:Maybe they can talk about being mentally tough. I'm joking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I think it's just he's just going to have to just keep working on it and not everybody has that from the beginning and it has to develop and that's why you have years of eligibility to work on that stuff. So so he certainly. There's been many a guy who had a rough junior year or had a great sophomore year that didn't have so good of a junior year and then came back and had a good senior year. It happens all the time and different circumstances, different mindsets, maturity levels, all that stuff. Again, I wouldn't count on it from a coach. I don't. I don't put my eggs in that basket, but I cautiously hope that it's. Thank you, mr Speaker. Can I join the Prime Minister?
Speaker 2:in his comments. We will see that that's yeah, it'll obviously I'll be assuming they comes back. That'll be one of the biggest storylines in next season.
Speaker 1:It'll be a benefit to have him back, like he'll be. There'll be people, when they're talking about this team, they'll be like, oh, kobe Johnson is back and he averaged 10 points and whatever he's averaging I think he's averaging 10 points and four, you know, three assists and ten points, four rebounds. I think he's averaging three assists, so, and he's averaging two steals a game. So he's. If you didn't know about, if you just looked at those numbers, you'd say, oh, he's a decent player, but he but he shot 38% field goal percentage and 29% from three and 72% from the free throw line. So he definitely had a real problem with his percentages. So, but he had. He had a really good percentage the previous season. So maybe he gets back to his sophomore year form. And I think when people look at next year's team, like from a prognostication standpoint, they're probably going to give Kobe the benefit of the doubt that he could come back and improve upon things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. Second question I don't know the answer at all. I've never been a coach. But what, what, what does the coach say at halftime after his team has blown a 14 point lead and just yet again, just close the first half in, just you know, like they just cannot wait for halftime to come?
Speaker 1:soon enough.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what is it a? What's the theme like? You know what like? Okay, we can do it this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think that it depends on on how, on how the the run transpired. So earlier in the season USC had a similar or was the victim of a similar run to Arizona State, which was almost entirely due to a withering full court press. I think I saw Isaiah Collier, so Bronny was playing the point guard A lot of, a lot of the that game, so he got pressed a lot and and I think we had 15 turnovers the half. So in that kind of game you say something different than what you would say against UCLA, where I think USC didn't have a bunch of turnovers, didn't play like particularly like horribly during that straight. They just they weren't, like you know, giving easy baskets. It's like UCLA played focused, hit some shots, got some good matchups and then USC made a few mistakes on top of that. But you know, you know you had some bad possessions and couldn't hold the lead. And so if I'm Andy Enfield, I think what you're able to do with that information is a lot easier than the previous situation with Arizona State. I think you're able to say, hey, look, I think at the time you see it, I think was out rebounding. You say at the half look, you're out rebounding these guys. You've you've been up most. You've been up most this game. You were up 15. You know you're close. You're the team that got up to play like the team that got up 15. Don't play the team that that lost the 15 point lead right.
Speaker 1:And UCLA is a team that they have weaknesses. You guys are doing well defensively. They only scored 34 points at the half. So you guys are you know they're shooting poorly. Just keep it up. Eventually, you're, it's going to turn around and I think for once I mean I imagine that's what Enfield would have told them, something like that where it's like hey, you're not playing poorly, you, you can win this game, don't let this slide at the end of the first half deter you from just going out playing your game. And that's kind of what they did. They came out and and just really got up to a great start and played great defensively to yeah, I, you make a good, a good point.
Speaker 2:I would know that that's why I'm not a coach one of many reasons but I guess with that you know a little clearer head. Maybe I would have said something like, alright, and I'm not as professional as you would be. Something like they're not going to shoot like that in the second half. Look at these guys. They're not a good shooting team. Just take care of the ball and we'll win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, exactly, and you know the other. The other thing that was different from the other games was that in the other games the score was was either like really close, and then the other team went on a spurt to get ahead, or you know what I mean like the other team and those other games went into half time ahead. So USC and UCLA were tied at the half and USC blew a big lead, but they didn't get overrun Right. So it's almost like if I'm in the infield I would have said, hey, okay, they gave you their best shot and you and you stood your ground. Right now we're even again.
Speaker 1:And now you just go out there and beat them Right, because like that's you know it's really hard to you can logically say that's, there's no way. You see, they play at that level. For the rest of the game they went on a nice run. They're just not going to play at that level. If you, if you play your game and play defense, they're not going to be able to do that. And I think a lot easier to say when you're, when you're still tied.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, you're a little more clearheaded about than I am. I just yeah, we were tied. It didn't kind of feel like it to me, but I don't know, saturday night fill in the blanks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, All right. So any other questions for question time?
Speaker 2:Nope, just two questions this week.
Speaker 1:OK, very good. Ok, let's move on to Mark's me, all right.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I forgot about the echo there.
Speaker 1:Did you hear the echo on the last one? I did.
Speaker 2:I heard a little bit of it, even though I didn't talk completely over it. All right, three things. First of all, just read the column. I don't want to just read the column it's too long to read, but I do a pretty good number on Micronin. Believe me, you will enjoy it. I think this is probably about the most positive feedback I've had. It helps to be coming after a UCLA loss, but pretty good job I did on Micronin, I must say myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a very enjoyable read. I think everyone should go out there. It's at the Dunk City blog at uscbaskablecom.
Speaker 2:Thank you, number two. This is actually a little ruin on ruin crime, so I can't take credit for this mean part of the mean minute. But one of my ruin buddies. I'm on a text thread with about three other UCLA guys and one of them said he said you know what, I would make a joke that there's a lid on the rim. But UCLA is not even hitting the rim on some of these, which I couldn't have been more mean myself. So credit to him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not a good offensive team they got there.
Speaker 2:No, no. And for the real mean part of it, congratulations to UCLA Again. I mentioned this in my column. This is not the part about Cronin. You were not as good at home as the only other team that USC has beaten on the road this season, that being Alabama State, whose entire athletic department's budget is $12 million, which is about what? About one-fifth of the media rights revenue we will get just from football next season. Is that fair, yeah, yeah. So you all are an elite company in being the two teams that were able to just kind of roll over at home for the USC Trojans. I'm sure you all enjoyed seeing that one at home. Good company, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. Ok, so I do want to add one other thing, kind of a milestone for the site Our Twitter account got retweeted or got posted out or tagged, I should say by LeBron James, the Laker and future NBA Hell of Famer. He tweeted it out to his 52.8 million followers great win, usc basketball. And the beauty of my Twitter handle is it starts out USC basketball and then underscore and most people they just have the auto type, so they start typing USC basketball and it populates and so I get a lot of tagged situations where people tag me thinking I'm the official site and so I benefited that by having LeBron do that. So that was pretty fun.
Speaker 2:That is cool. Now I'm sure you might get a few going the other direction where your people are. Are you guys going to fire Enfield yet, or what?
Speaker 1:You get the tweets like that I haven't seen too many of those. Usually those people are very online, so they make sure it goes to the official one, I'm sure, so not to the unofficial. I mean, it is the official Twitter of USC's unofficial basketball home, but it is not the unofficial, or it's not the official Twitter of USC's official basketball home. So, anyway, a pretty cool thing. There were some Cindy Brady's who were tattling saying that, telling LeBron that hey, that's not the real, that's not the official site, but trying to spoil everyone's good time. But yeah, we got through that, ok. So that was your mean minute. We have Washington State and Washington coming up this Thursday and Saturday. Washington State beat Arizona in Tucson last week and then lost to Arizona State in Tempe, so they went one-on-one on their road stand and they are now 12 and five in conference, 21 and seven overall. Washington, meanwhile, got swept. I think, I believe they got swept, or did they beat Arizona State?
Speaker 2:They beat Arizona State.
Speaker 1:They did. Ok, they split. They are now 7 and 10, 15 and 13. It's never easy to play up in the Washington's. Hopefully. Usually Washington's a really tough place to play but hopefully, with them not doing as well this year, hopefully the crowd's not too crazy. But I'm sure Washington State their crowd will be revved up and, like you said, alluded to in your column, looking at the metrics, it's going to be a tough haul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interestingly, between the two, washington has the better home offense. If 100 is just an average Pac-12 offense, their offensive BPO plus at home is 109.9. So they're big outliers there. Just about average at home on defense. So maybe something that we can pick on there. That's on Saturday, on Thursday night, washington State home games offensive BPO plus of 104.2, which is good, but I kind of expected it to be better at home. Tough defense at home, though. Defense of BPO plus of 92.8. That's almost on the level of UCLA. So both these teams have about the same power rating at home, about an 11. We're a minus 10. But there's a lot of the injury gully, I guess I would call it in that negative 10. As we saw, not that Polly is the toughest place to play. But that's a big win that we had on the road and I think that we've proven to be at least a little more tougher and capable on the road now than some of those real turds that we dropped on earlier in the season on the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looks like we're a better team than we were when we played Washington State last time, but a Washington State's also a better team than they were when they played us last time, when they beat us. That was actually. I think right at the beginning of their run.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:When they really started playing well. So they're really confident, but they're not an unbeatable team. I would like to see USC at least try to get one of these games up in the Washington's. It'd be great. I think that'd be a successful road trip and then that way, I think, you at least beat it on a state at home. You can at least assure that you get at least a two and two split to finish the season so that it's not a complete downer. And of course, if USC comes out, beats Washington State, then they would be really feeling good about themselves. So it's kind of a big game, I think, for how the season could turn out Right. If there's going to be any signs of a late season surge, we're probably going to see it this Thursday against Washington State.
Speaker 2:Yeah, If USC comes out flat.
Speaker 1:There's still time to have a good game Time, to have a late season surge. But you really want a really strong late season surge and it's going to require beating Washington State.
Speaker 2:I'd say in the weekend, I think, if we win one of those two to your, to your point. I think that that sets the stage as much as anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Hey, one last thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How about just a? Not necessarily we had a favorite UCLA memory. How about just a memory against either Washington School? Do you have one or I have one? And this is basically kind of in the in the spirit of Fair the Well, Pac 12. So I can go first if we want to do this Sure. Ok, I don't remember the year I should have looked it up, but when Washington had that team with Will Conroy and.
Speaker 2:Brandon Roy and that blonde center, mike Jensen yeah at the sports arena in the second half of that game. This is just very packed pack 10. Back then Washington was in the bonus before they had been called for a foul. So thank you, pac 12. Can't wait to leave you all that was that had to be pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that, but that must have been pretty amazing. My favorite memory that I'm thinking of is the 1992 USE Washington State game at home where Harold Minor poured in 30 first half points. That was quite a sight to see. The entire stadium was chanting Harold, harold, harold as he I think he hit six threes in the first half. He was just unconscious. They had that game pretty well in hand, so I think he only ended up scoring 37. The I was hoping that the USC record, single game record, I think by John Ruder-Metkin 47, was obviously within reach that game. But but we kind of called the dogs up, but we kind of called the dogs off a bit. But that's probably my favorite Washington State memory.
Speaker 1:I don't know if the Washington, if there's too many favorite Washington memories, but I do have a memory which is interesting, which is I remember being a court side before the game and Nate Robinson, who was a recruit, who was a football basketball recruit in 2001, who Pete Carroll was going really hard after a football and Henry Bibby was recruiting hard as well in basketball.
Speaker 1:He was very small or he was like five, seven, and I remember, not thinking, I remember looking at him and not thinking he was he was. It didn't seem like he was a serious basketball prospect at the time and he was a fantastic football player and super athletic, as you know, and played really well as a corner as a freshman for Washington. But I remember him sitting as a recruit. He was visiting US USC campus and he was shooting like half court three point. He was just kind of messing around with the ball and he had, like he wasn't dressed in like basketball gear, he was just dressed in jeans and a jacket and he was just launching up these like 35 foot 40 foot shots that were sinking in in pregame warmups and stuff just hanging around. That was pretty. It was pretty cool. I remember just seeing that guy and thinking, wow, this guy can really shoot and, yeah, end up having quite a quiet career for himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember first time I saw him and I thought, all right, this guy's kind of short, what's going on? And he actually had a, he actually had a tip jam and I just I could I'm thinking of guy five foot seven just did that and I just completely set the stage for that guy. Man, what an awesome athlete he was. Yeah, he was incredible.
Speaker 1:I remember just. But seeing him I was like there's no way this guy can. He's tiny, yeah, so tiny, yeah, so tiny. But man, like you said, what an athlete. So, all right, I think that'll do it for this week's edition of the Dunk City podcast brought to you by uscbasketballcom. We will have another podcast next week talking about the trip to the Washington schools. In the meantime, hope you visit the website to discuss Trojan basketball. We're coming to the end of this rough season, but hopefully we can find some a little bit of hope to to retain as the season goes on and comes to an end. So, mark, unless you have anything else to add, I will say fight on and start playing Tusk.
Speaker 2:As always, fight on, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.