Mark and Chris discuss USC's sweep of the desert schools that included a 78-65 victory over No. 5 Arizona and how the Trojans are playing like a top-17 team over the last seven games. DJ Rodman is on a tear! Can he and USC continue its magic in the Pac-12 tourney? Can incoming recruit Trent Perry play point next year for the Trojans? Listen to find out!
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 sweep of the desert schools that included a 78-65 victory over No. 5 Arizona and how the Trojans are playing like a top-17 team over the last seven games. DJ Rodman is on a tear! Can he and USC continue its magic in the Pac-12 tourney? Can incoming recruit Trent Perry play point next year for the Trojans? Listen to find out!
The Dunk City Podcast is the podcast of record for the USC basketball community. You can find all episodes at DunkCityPod.com, USCBasketball.com or on Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
Welcome to the Dunk City podcast. Change direction by backstabbing. For the first time in a while, life and attention.
Speaker 2:For the OLS and the.
Speaker 1:CBC news. United States defeated the Arizona State Sun Devils on 8173 on Thursday and then came back on Saturday to defeat the number five Arizona Wildcats 7865. It was the first top five victory for USC since 2008. Davon Jefferson scored 25 points to lead USC to a victory over UCLA at Pauley. It was Kevin Love and Russell Ruskwick, ucla Bruins, so great win for the Trojans.
Speaker 1:Also, I'd be remiss, not to mention the women of Troy have defeated Stanford today to win the pack 12, the last pack 12 tournament title on the women's side, and it looks like the women of Troy will be favored to get a number one seeding, which is a great outcome for the season.
Speaker 1:Surprisingly, juju Watkins didn't have the biggest game today, but her teammates stepped up and really dominated Stanford, I'd say, from a tip to the end, very much in the same way, similar fashion, that USC defeated Arizona on Saturday. So, mark, the Trojans are now 14 and 17. They are a nine seed heading into the pack 12 tournament on Wednesday and will play Washington. The season ended about as well as we could have dreamed almost. The Trojans finished three and one in those final four games that we talked about and one of those losses came down to the final possession. So 14 and 17 playing as well as any team in the conference right now, and according to at least one analytics out there, torvik USC for the last seven games is 17th in the country. So what say you about where USC is and what's transpired over this past week?
Speaker 2:Well to be clear, when you said raising Arizona, you mean with the Z right as in destruction of.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, OK, we plundered their village and sunk their boats and they had to find a land bridge back to Arizona. Somehow.
Speaker 2:The land bridge. Oh, by the way, I was dying.
Speaker 1:I was just. I mean just the sweep alone was worth it, just for being able to write raising Arizona for the title of this podcast.
Speaker 2:So I'm just thank the basketball gods for that, Carry on, truly a former editor or once an editor, always an editor. Exactly, yeah, as you said, about as well as we could expect. Clearly, it's easy to be optimistic when you get a road win, as we did a week ago, but, as I said, I wasn't really surprised with the good brand of ball that we'd been playing as of late. And, having said that, I still have USC, basically from February forward, as the second best team in the conference, still well behind Arizona, but we prove that we definitely more than just belong in the same court with them. I'll put it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the 13 point margin of victory over Arizona was second to Stanford's 18 point margin of victory, as you mentioned on Twitter, and so just an impressive win, wasn't a fluke. Usc played great defense. Caleb Love was one for 10. Probably probably the weakest Pac-12 player of the year that we're going to get I've seen in a while. I mean really just a volume score out there and he's just the leading scorer on the best team, but he's a 38% career shooter. So him going one for 10 wasn't really surprising for me, but I thought USC played an inspired game. The the rebounding problem is there, but the rebounding problem has been sort of dealt with in a different way and I'll get into that later. But let's go into your analytics of how USC did against Arizona State.
Speaker 2:All right against Arizona State. You know, obviously, boogie Ellis, my gosh, bpl 183 for the game, a Buscar of 9, which is just on fire in only 25 minutes too, which is just insane. More than a point a minute is just nuts. The rebounding definitely turned in our favor in that one and both the Biggs, josh and Vince Joshua 12.8 rebounds per 40 and Vince with 11.4. So very promising in that regard. We still we'll get to the second part of this story later but we had the tendency to let a couple guys really go off Jose Perez at a BPL 175.6. What a way to go out to continue a little bit later.
Speaker 1:He was unstoppable in that game and I think he decided to just do a Jim Brown slash Barry Sanders on Ritt very small.
Speaker 2:In that regard, Ritt's small I like that and then Frankie Collins for the 64.8.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he bedevils us with consistency and him fouling out, who is definitely a great thing for the Trojans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, four steals in that game. And one thing that's this is not to demean him at all, this is actually a compliment I got to think a lot of the steals that he gets, and this probably is true for anybody, but just it really sticks out to me is that I think there's just a lot of instances where people are just ill-advisedly dribbling, and all credit for him for recognizing that. Just no one right away got to get after this one because there's a lollipop for me. Oh, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:The Trojans have been shooting great from the line of late as well during this stretch 25 of 30 against Arizona State, which was huge and that kind of thing can really, and then going 12 to 24 from three point land. That kind of stuff can really offset your weaknesses elsewhere. But the Trojans did out rebound the Sun devils by 10, 32, 22. In general, usc had enough things positively going for it to counteract any negative things.
Speaker 1:What's sort of been creeping back into the sort of the situation here is I think the fouls are starting to pick up again and particularly for Isaiah Collier. He seems to be playing with a little bit more abandoned, which is good in a way because it helps him stay loose for his overall quality in his game. But he's being a little bit more aggressive on defense, and then I'll get to that again. I know why we're doing it and I think we found sort of a formula for it and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But that Arizona State game, the Trojans we're leading at the half. Interesting stat Last seven games since Utah the Trojans have not trailed at the half and that's sort of again sort of a sign of the I hate to use the word dominance, because it's not a dominant stretch, but in the sense that we're playing from ahead or tied versus from behind or tied in these last seven games and when you're playing from ahead, we lost a couple of them because sometimes teams come back.
Speaker 1:But if you're playing from ahead most of the time, you're going to win most of those games, and we have won five of seven. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so great overall development with the team. Things are going swimmingly, I would say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is truly from a metric standpoint. This is the best ball that we've been playing, basically from the Utah game forward. Highest BPO over any stretch that I could really really find yeah.
Speaker 1:I would say that I mean, I've looked at the numbers that you've created but I would venture to guess and maybe this is something you can check into but I would venture to guess that this seven game stretch is about as strong as seven game stretch in conference play as we've had in the last couple years, or I should say it's as strong as whatever our strong stretch was last year. It's about as strong as that and it helps because we finally beat Arizona right, which really helps, I think the metrics of that overall, because we've lost to Arizona the last seven times.
Speaker 1:So when your win includes a win over Arizona, when that stretch includes a win over Arizona, Utah, UCLA who they're not necessarily like world beaters this year, Utah and UCLA but they're not horrible, right, it's not like we're just feasting on bad competition, so yeah, and then winning on the road at that. So I would venture to guess that this seven game stretch, if you will, this three or four game stretch, is probably as strong as our best three or four game stretch in conference last year and the year before.
Speaker 1:So I'm just curious to see how that would go, but just really good sign Makes you feel good about that we have. It's not like a fantasy that they could win the Pac-12 tournament. I think USC has a puncher's chance.
Speaker 2:I'd say, more than a puncher's chance. I've actually, in last week's column I passed along a tweet from John Rothstein about hey, watch out, usc might be a bid stealer. I know this might be hard to believe. I follow quite a few gambling accounts on Twitter sports wagering accounts and just one of these guys, who's just kind of a I guess you'd call him program agnostic where he's just looking for value, he said yeah, usc at 45 to 1 to win the Pac-12 conference. That price isn't going to be there for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a great, great value team right now, I'm afraid, and I actually I had $5 left in one of my online accounts and so I put $5 money line for USC last night and it was I think it was $290. So, yeah, whatever, I just had five bucks. I'm like I didn't want to make a big deal of it, but I felt like it was a good bet.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Trojans came through and now I've got 20 big dollars in there.
Speaker 2:You got to roll over to the Pac-12.
Speaker 1:Yep, roll it over, start building the nest egg for next year. So the Trojans played great against Arizona State I mentioned on the board. They're an unorthodox, they're sort of an asymmetric team. They're a little bit just difficult to deal with. Like you said, they grab, they play physical, they'll press you. They have just really kind of quick-handed athletes and they have some strange unorthodox players like Jose Perez, who just he's not a good looking player. You don't really know how he scores. Adam Miller, kind of the same way, just guys who don't really look good in doing what they're doing, but the ball goes in the basket.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so it was a good win, always good to beat the Sun Devils. Really should have beat them over at Arizona State as well. But the big win that everyone is excited about is last night's win over the Wildcats $78.65. And this was just really from the second half onwards. From, I should say, in the second half, was a complete dominance by USC, because that was a 34-30 game with the half and USC scored 44 points in the second half, held Arizona to 35. They are the number one offense in the country, or number two somewhere in that range, and they scored 65 points, testament to the great defense that USC brought.
Speaker 2:Yeah, lots going on in here. First of all, I'm going to say I think that we didn't get Arizona's best shot, but I'm going to also say that they got far from our best shot too. Our defense was really good, but we left quite a bit on the table. There was one stretch in particular in the first half where we had we had a in five over over five straight possessions. We had a misjumper and four turnovers. So yeah one missed shot on five possessions, that's you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, not that you can't ever have that happen. But you know that's just not indicative of a team firing on all cylinders at all.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely is I like we didn't play our light, we didn't play our hearts out. You know what I mean. We played a good, solid game. We played well within our capabilities. We had some flaws, you know. We didn't have a great rebounding game. We were out rebounded. I believe it was 38 to 30. It was a lot worse than that early on and USC really battled back and sort of negated that, that margin. To some extent. Usc had a little bit of foul trouble. All the bigs got in quick foul trouble. Josh and Morgan couldn't, couldn't catch a break. He'd come into the game and and he'd he'd sort of like put his hand On on Balo and they'd call a foul. There was some the refs. I thought for a while we're just trying to keep Arizona in the game. It was just some of these really ticky tack calls and then Balo could seemingly just, you know, lean on people and and Pat, you know, power over through them and swing his elbows.
Speaker 1:Yeah and would get no calls. And then and then Caleb love was was constantly like body-checking Isaiah Collier and was not getting called for any foul. So it's interesting Balo had ended up having one personal foul. The entire game didn't pick up that foul till like midway through the second half. For a guy who's like really physical and he's going up against USC's throwing bodies at him, the fact that and you know, he's just sort of like he's a big guy, right, he's it's really hard for big guys like that not to get called for fouls.
Speaker 1:Yeah so it was just. It was just weird, but USC didn't really need Any kind of like special referee consideration. They pretty much control the entire game and whenever Arizona made a run, USC just bounced right back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agree, you know other other things that stand out too. Is, you know, along the lines of not getting our best shot? Boogie only had five points in 31 minutes, one for it from the field. When you can be the team that badly and and basically, your top score is that far off his game, yeah, that's. That's a really bullish sign.
Speaker 1:Well, he, that's going was certainly as off his game as Caleb love was off for Arizona.
Speaker 1:You know, similarly not quite as much, one for eight, one for five versus one for ten over six. But Caleb love did some other things, actually a lot of turnovers, do you? Had five turnovers. But actually boogie did a lot of other things. He had three assists, a couple rebounds including one which was kind of tore away From from crevice, which was a really important rebound Just generally, you know, made his free throws, played good defense, so he wasn't a liability out there and it's just one of those games. And and we didn't need him, kobe Johnson scored 19 points, six steals for assists, three rebounds, dj Robin to continue to his hot play 19.7 boards and assist and a block and a steal. And then Collier had a really even though he didn't shoot that great, just really solid night. Overall 16 points for rebounds, five assist and a steal and Especially toward the end, did some explosive plays. That really helped out. So, and then the bench, brawny James comes in five points, six boards, assist and a block and two steals in 20 minutes. Then see what you could have four personal fouls. But he played really good defense.
Speaker 1:I thought second half. And one thing that USC did a lot of it gets Arizona, which I thought was smart Was they went to the zone and because Arizona wasn't shooting well from outside and so they were trying to pound it in. And that's when you play zone and, and USC has found a formula with its zone At times where they mix, so they sort of mix zone and and man to man. A lot of times I noticed that they would play a zone and then at some point in the shot clock but let's just say the last eight or seven seconds they would switch to a man, hmm, and I noticed that a few times. So they're doing some some interesting things on defense. I know some people don't like it when USC plays zone, but but I don't see any evidence that that it's that it's causing USC to have any worst you know outputs on defense and Certainly USC is actually playing very well defensively these last seven games over the last seven games, according to Torvik again and we'll look at your numbers to seventh in country in defense.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is impressive man. Yeah, we held them to a BP a 142.0 for the game. You know I'm I like you. You know I'm not even gonna read too much into Caleb love, because he's gonna have games like that. But you know, pella Larson, I don't know if he just may be cared for 30 seconds or whatever, but his BP of 100 was under 30 for the game as well. Really poor game for him. And they've got I'm gonna give you four names here Caleb love, killing Boswell, pella Larson and KJ Lewis. All oh sorry, they're couple now these other guys didn't play that much. Those four all had negative boosters for the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't play they weren't, they weren't very they did not play well they know, they're there guys.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was almost like it's never the bigs that really kill USC, it's, it's the, because USC, when they, when USC had great bigs, usc can generally neutralize or, like you know, play those bigs to not necessarily a draw but, like you know, lessen their advantage, but it would always be the guards who would kill them.
Speaker 1:And last year I forget the guard, the great defender they had last year that just completely destroyed us over over in Mikhail, and it's been, though, it's been those guys like and and then keep Kylan Boswell, I think, hurt us really a lot last game and last year. So he you know, just the guard plays actually Seemingly has been the deciding factor against USC for Arizona, but this time our guard play was just much more superior and especially, you know, even though with even though boogie didn't have a good game, kobe Johnson, isaiah Collier, brony those guys and Ozai sellers came in hit a big shot. They did some stuff and they were and they were efficient and played good defense and and Arizona they have been playing good defensive late, but they did not play very well defensively in this game and it was interesting because Kisha Johnson had a great game offensively but he really struggled defensively at times mm-hmm, he did the other thing too.
Speaker 2:Is this this is I'm not sure how this can happen. Um, all right, caleb love takes 10 shots. Bad night for him. Kisha Johnson 10 he was. He was having a seem like he made more than six, though, didn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess, when they all come at once. Yeah it seems like that, you know, but after that, then then Jaden Bradley has nine field goal attempts. He had their most two-point field goal attempts. I just something's a little weird there. When, when, that's your distribution. I you know, I don't know me. Maybe, if the other guys are just really struggling, maybe just works out that way, but I'm I'm not really thrilled that he is getting you know more field goal attempts in Bolo and to your point that that's a testament to our defense too.
Speaker 2:Yeah either preventing or fronting, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did. We fronted a lot and the zone we collapsed down on them, we down on Bolo with the zone a lot. So so that really slowed him down, I mean, and he played 28 minutes so he didn't really wasn't able to really, you know, be as effective as he wanted to be and he only got, like you said, he only got seven shots off. He did rebound very well, but he does. He didn't have a to bail us at his side Like he hasn't been in recent years.
Speaker 1:And Kisha Johnson just isn't the Isn't, just isn't. He's a really athletic guy, jumps on pogo sticks, but he seemed to be more like this game. At least he seemed to be hanging out, hanging out more on the perimeter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I Guess, yeah, offensively he's. He's not really an inside threat. I'm like you know, I think he's a capable rebounder, but yeah, to that point you're not gonna see a lot of big-to-big passing between he and Bolo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so one of the things that I think I Mentioned earlier that we saw in the Arizona game. So USC was Outclassed on the rebounding statistic 38 to 30. Trojans only had four Offensive rebounds to Arizona's 14, but I think USC's found the formula for For how to sort of work around the lack of rebounding and that is Just getting steals, getting a getting a shit ton of steals. Last seven games the Trojans are averaging 10.4 steals per game and they're allowing 5.5 steals per game. So they're plus, basically plus five on Steel. So they're getting five extra possessions and If you consider it a steal to be like a, like a rebound Grab grabbing a possession, you're sort of eating into that rebounding disadvantage that you have right. So USC had 15 steals, arizona 12, steel three steals. So that's a plus 12.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the steel front.
Speaker 1:Now I know that's like it's all wrapped into turnovers, but you know, steals in particular have have certain you know you, they. They create fast break points and transition shots. We had a lot of fast break points in this game so maybe we didn't get as many rebounds. But Brony, getting a steal and turning that into a dunk, that's. That's more valuable than than than getting a 31st rebound, potentially.
Speaker 2:Exactly no to that point you've, you've already kind of exhausted defensive effort and then you're getting one of those. You know 55 to 60 percent that you of the misses. You've capitalized on that To your point. I don't know if I've ever explained this because it's really inside baseball, but I think this illustrates your point very well. The other side of it when I'm, when I'm calculating a a players BPO 100, I don't just count A turnover as a zero, I count it basically as a minus one times the average Points per possession for an average team, because you're not just going without a possession, you're literally just giving to the chance to the other team without even getting an opportunity off yourself. Yea, yea and it's. You know if you can win that battle. It's not just your point, it's not just a rebound, if you just you know if a possession is one, I think a rebound is a little bit less than one because you've already given them a shot, yeah, and a turnover is more than one because you prevented that shot, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we're and just in general, we're also winning most of the turnover battles in the last half of the year, yeah, and oftentimes big right Against Stanford the first game at home against Stanford, usa at six, and Stanford at 18 against Washington State. It was eight versus 13. And then, but really these last seven to 10 games, it's really just been the. We're forcing tons of turnovers and I think that this is sort of what's inspiring Kobe Johnson to return to his previous form and maybe, with Isaiah Collier being a little bit unleashed in that regard, he can start to get a lot more steals. These guys are out there just like cherry picking right and they're going after steals and brawny as well, and so it's like I think they sort of have this mentality now that they're trying to get these steals, because because if you're getting out rebounded, you really need to get steals, and and it's a great way to turn things around.
Speaker 2:We said that before to about a month ago, maybe a little more, not in the context of the rebounding, but just more when the field goal percentage wasn't there. And we just said, if this team is going to turn it around, it's going to be when in the battle of turnover, specifically by creating steals. So not not surprising to me that that's kind of the narrative that's taken place. It fits with, you know, this team that has to rely on its guards to do a lot of rebounding too. I mean, it's just, it's a perimeter heavy team. For a while, you know, the narrative was worth three point shooting team and it's like no, we're really just a guard dominant team that sometimes will take a lot of threes.
Speaker 1:And so the other thing with steals is that it's sort of in as far as traditional, traditional defensive metrics go. It is does create a misleading level of how the defense is is performing. For example, if you get a steal on a possession, the other team doesn't take a shot Right. So so there, they didn't miss a shot, so their, their field goal percentage doesn't go down Right, but you have the exact same effect as if they had taken a shot and missed and you got the rebound Right Because you got it.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and more so because if you've got a steal, you're more likely to get a fast break than just a typical defensive rebound.
Speaker 1:Right and so and so that's the other element to it. But in this case it's like when we look at traditional metrics we're like, oh, usc gave up. Oh, let's say they gave up 50 percent shooting to Arizona State. Right, and that wasn't a particularly good steal game. Actually it was. It was Arizona State's a good steal team, so they had more steals. But but, for example, in advanced analytics, I'm sure I think measures that as far as defensive efficiency. But when you're just looking at field goal percentage, if you, you know, steals create fewer shots, and even if the other team is shooting 50 percent and but they're shooting fewer shots, the steal is going to to erase that opportunity for them to take more shots.
Speaker 1:Right, so correct, it has all these advantages to it that don't necessarily get recognized or in in sort of like traditional metrics of how you would grade a defense.
Speaker 2:Which is exactly why I like to include, I like including the turnovers in our turnovers, created in your, in your BPO 100, so that you know, ok, it's, it's better than than the misshot, and that they didn't even have that 40 percent chance, even for a bad team. Yeah, to make it, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then and then you know the other great thing about steals versus just a regular turnover the other other teams point guard dribbles off, the foot goes out of bounds, that's a turnover. Or they they throw a pass the wrong way turnover. Ball out of bounds, right, not. It's. You know, you like it but it's not. It doesn't change sort of the tenor of the game. The way a steal does right, when Ronnie intercepts that pass, he jumps it and he does the dunk, you know the crowd gets excited, players feel good about themselves.
Speaker 1:The other team gets a little rattled and he keep doing these steals. This has a psychological kind of a wearing down effect. I think so that you know I have again.
Speaker 1:I'm not privy to the inner workings of what they're telling the team, but I got to think that that they're looking at their sort of struggles with rebounding and saying, hey, the blocking of the shots and the stealing of the ball are two steel are two metrics that if we really push those things, we get everybody to really buy into to try and do that more, then that can make up for for not being able to rebound as well. One more thing about the rebounding, and I think this might have played a big part of it.
Speaker 2:We saw into the to the Zaya Sellers three game rebounding streak, so I think that might have just had a disheartening effect on the team. Oh my God he did so. We got a rebound against Arizona, Against the ASU.
Speaker 1:Right, but he came back against Arizona. He did get an assist. He did, yeah, but he did get an assist. He did. Yeah, he did get an assist. He did get an assist he did.
Speaker 2:yeah, but yeah, I think it was funny.
Speaker 1:He was in for that possession. Arizona had a possession where I think they had like four offensive rebounds and four attempts to shoot. And as soon as there's a ball, Sellers came out and Kobe Johnson came in, just because Kobe just you know, he can at least get in there and mix it up, but I just rip it away. Yeah, I just I just. You know he was I right now. I'm sure he will eventually, but right now he just doesn't bring that element to his game.
Speaker 2:So and that's why he needs to do that. He needs a. Tom is a drill where they like shoot on the basket that has like you can't make it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you seen that drill? Yeah, I think I have. Yeah, yeah, it's like they put a lid on it or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like another ball actually, so it just bounces off the top yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why he's you know, time is a.
Speaker 2:Yeah so.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, great win for the Trojans sweep three in a row, they've won. And you definitely go back and I think I calculated up again If you really look at the games that do to injury, really sort of the USC would have won some of these games in the season and I know that when we were healthy we weren't always playing well, but I think there are teams that are healthy that don't play well at times anyway, right, like there are certain individual games where we were healthy and didn't play well, and that happens to a lot of teams, but I think we didn't have the health over a sustained period. And you look at that particular lineup that that infield likes to play, with Boogie Collier and Johnson and DJ Rodman and Morgan I think going into, I think before the last three games they'd only been able to play that lineup 13 times. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and then I think they were nine and four before the last three, so I think that lineup is 12 and four, which is pretty good, pretty good record.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think to that point and you know I'm not the injuries are a big part of this and that's going to. When you read the column this week, you'll see that that it's. You know it's a big part, but I don't think it's. I don't think it's necessarily the excuse per se. I think that the injuries because we were struggling, as you said, when we were healthy we still did not play all that well, especially in December, but I think that the injuries, they kept us from figuring out what works best.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, because by the time, by the time that we were trying to figure things out, guys kept getting hurt.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah, and you know, maybe part of it is the absence. You know kind of magnified what we need from player X and player Y. I don't know, I just kind of high level stuff for me, but I think there's a lot to that. I'm not saying much is like somebody learning from the bench.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying that the injuries prevented USC from from being like a top 10 team. I think the injury without the injuries USC probably still has, like you know, a disappointing season. To some extent, like without the injuries, usc is probably like 21 and 10.
Speaker 2:I was going to say they're probably like a 21.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 2011, 21 and 10, which, right would have put, would have put us on the bubble. Maybe beating Arizona would have got us in the tournament then, but, but, and then we would have beat some other teams, right, but going 2011, 21 and 10, it would have been in that sort of spot where a lot of and field detractors would have been sort of really disappointed in the overall team. And then, like the injuries, there's the injuries and there's sort of like the kind of the over the three, overtime losses, right, a little bit of bad luck there. So maybe you know, maybe if you're lucky, you win those three games, you're, and then you, you know, win the games you lost due to injury. Maybe you're 24 and seven, right, maybe you know, but things have to bounce your way a bit, so and that's sort of. And then, but that goes back to you know, you kind of create your own luck and all that stuff. So, but I think the injuries no doubt are the reason for why the season is a losing season, right?
Speaker 2:I think without the injuries.
Speaker 1:We're not. We don't have a losing season. We have a disappointing season nonetheless, but not, not sort of like just this, really, you know bad tasting season, yeah, yeah, great so. Ok, so anyway but the Trojans are 14 and 17, have a chance To win the next four and get above 500. And now it comes to the segment that we call game theory. What is your game theory of this week, mark All?
Speaker 2:right, I've got three game theories and we'll start from easiest to to most advance. So all of the Arizona game. It seemed to me that Arizona I don't know if they were just happy to or this was explicitly their game plan, but it did it seem like they were more than just content to let our big men take as many mid-range jumpers as they could be tempted to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's sort of the way that our bigs have been played this year, and whether it's Morgan or whether it's Iwachukwu or Kajani right, they're generally left alone from like 12 feet out. And what happened in a few of these instances few of these possessions I think Kajani right did it once or twice, I think Iwachukwu did it. They just sort of dribbled closer, took their shots and they had clear shots. Now, joshua Morgan has had that 10 to 12 footer in his repertoire for a while. Yeah, and he's not bad at it, like.
Speaker 2:I would say he.
Speaker 1:I would say he probably makes shoots 50% on those overall in his in the last two years. So I'm not really that upset when he takes that shot. It may not be unless it's like, unless, like we need a better shot from someone else, but in general I'm not really sad that he takes that shot. But Vince hit one of those shots and it was a pretty important shot, I think down the stretch, and I think that if we have bigs who can, who can hit?
Speaker 1:it, and Vince is certainly a skilled offensive player when he when he gets the chance to show it, so I don't really have a problem with it. But I but I do think that that's sort of the scouting report are bigs, which is, which is, they're really not guys who are going to play much of a face up game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think that. Not I, how do I say this? I'm OK with that and just not if I'm the other team. I'm OK with that, not just from a shooting perspective, but also I don't see like exceptional passers among the big men in those spots either. You know, to the extent that they do pass well, it's more from a recognition of of inside out to a guy in the perimeter. But you don't, you haven't seen a lot of that. You know high, low game, that that the best end field teams have from big to big. You, just you. I haven't seen that a lot this season, unless I'm just not paying attention. No, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not this season, unless I'm just not paying attention.
Speaker 1:No, no, you're right. What's interesting, though, is that Johnny Wright is our best passing big, like he's a really good passer and and and like he's got really like His passes. He passes with purpose and intent and passes that zip on him and they and they and you think he's like out of control, but the passes get to where he's with her, where they're going usually, and he had one bad pass where he was up near the top of the key and I think he tried to hit a cutter and it didn't work out. And then Joshua Morgan is typically not been very good passer, but then he had a great pass late in the game to Kobe Johnson, cutting across. Yes.
Speaker 2:And we show.
Speaker 1:We were showing really nice ball movement, real good movement away from the ball, with our players in in again in the second half. It's almost like we were. We were running like Tommy Lloyd offense against Arizona in the second half and just really moving well without the ball and with the ball and hitting cutters and just you know, really playing, playing well and passing or passing it around and so yeah, so Joshua Morgan had a really nice pass. So it was kind of funny Our best passer, our best big passer, sort of struggled, and our worst big passer did some nice things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Number two I think the pivotal moment in Saturday's game was. I'm curious if you would agree with this. We're up 60 to 49.
Speaker 2:Kiesha Johnson makes a three, a couple of turnovers going both ways, and then Bolo gets an easy breakaway dunk and right then there was a timeout and then I kind of thought it might be a little quick because it was just five points in a row, but it was. It seemed like that was the only time the Arizona bench kind of gave a crap and that just sucked the life out of it, and then just that was the end, just after that timeout. It was a really good timeout. It was over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting, you know, Boogie came out after that time out and Collier came in, and then Pele came in, and I think from that point on was when well, first of all Robin came back and he hit a three right. Robin has just really been lights out these last few. It just took time for him to find his role and unfortunately we needed this to happen a lot sooner in the season. But obviously, if DJ Robin is playing like this all season, then we're probably going to the tournament without needing to do it in the Pac-12 tournament.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and say it. I'm one of those people that's coming up in question time, I believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, but he's starting to play well now and certainly he's a guy who makes the team a lot better when he's playing well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because he's a fourth guy, because right now Kobe Johnson is playing well. So you've got your big two guys who are mostly reliable, and then you go back to Kobe Johnson coming back. But now you've got this fourth option in DJ Robin and then you have guys playing pretty well off the bench and then you're getting volume from your bigs Right. If the other team has a good big like Bolo, you can go in and just You've got what 15 fouls to throw at him right. And then when Arrington Page is healthy, that's another five fouls right. And Arrington Page, when he comes back I know he's been sick I assume he'll be back against Washington. It'll be interesting to see if he's sort of inspired by what he's seeing with all this great play.
Speaker 2:He started it all, remember, with the push somebody on a rebound.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's right, that's right. That was the start of it all. Yep, very true, all right. Third game theory.
Speaker 2:I think the steals, as much as anything, are a symptom of better defensive communication. And I have two instances. I'll start going. In the Arizona game Farna made the point and I wasn't at the game and I couldn't hear this, but he was emphatic when he made this point. You know, dj Rodin is out there communicating just in an unbelievable way, just talking the whole possession, making sure that everybody understands what's going on. And that was at a point when Arizona was just struggling to kind of move the ball, let alone get off a good shot. And we go back to Thursday night and full disclosure.
Speaker 2:I watched this playing poker. I was playing poker with my buddies at Scott's deal, so my focus wasn't 110%. But there was one moment in that game that really stood out to me. There was a. There was a moment where, basically, collier had to get Boogie to switch on the baseline and Collier just pushed Boogie just right into the guy is supposed to switch to. You know different kind of communication, but I don't think you saw that level of of of defensive communication, definitely not in January. Definitely like when I'm pleading for somebody just to shove somebody. We had the, we had the second shove somebody. It's like shove your man into his man.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, it's a good thing we didn't call a foul for pushing our own guy like happening against. I think it was Arizona State, but I think Arizona State got USC got called for a foul when I when Arizona State like ran into their own guy. Yes, pretty crazy stuff, yeah, no, I think that's that's. That's all a good point. There's great communication going on. They seem really dialed in and at this point it's all just crying over spilled milk. This is the team. The team is what it is right now and what it is is a is a top, is really a top 17 team. We're playing like a tournament team basically right now. So sometimes tournament teams don't want to you know, obviously they don't want every game, but we're a tournament team going up against one or two other or maybe three other tournament teams in this tournament in the pack 12. So yeah, we just we have a good chance is any tournament team would have in this situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I think it. I don't know what puncher's chance means, but I think it means that like even playing Arizona again, which we'll have to do in the second round if we beat Washington. I think last last podcast I asked is it better to lose to Arizona or beat Arizona for the pack 12 title, and at the time I thought we would be in a different bracket.
Speaker 2:But now that we're playing them.
Speaker 1:Now that we're playing them this quickly, potentially, I'm actually glad we beat them because now it's like we know we can beat them. We don't have to get that monkey up our back and beat, you know, and do it in the pack 12 tournament. So it's it's like. It's like if they beat us a little bit will be a little bit of like sort of the explanation will be like well, arizona is a good team. It's hard to beat them out on neutral court, right? Whereas if we hadn't beat Arizona at home and then we lost to them again in the conference tourney, it would be like Arizona owns us, right.
Speaker 2:True. Yeah, I let me see if I can dissuade a little bit of that confidence of you when we actually get to the little the preview part here.
Speaker 1:Sounds good.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Any more. No, that's, that's all for game. Three for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's go on to question time.
Speaker 2:Well, my. So I have a question.
Speaker 1:Oh, please, I have a question which I guess it's a question for both you and I and and the question is earlier in the season we were talking about some of our new commits, and one of them is Trent Perry, harvard Westlake, who is our highest rated player. He has been on fire in Harvard Westlake's playoff run, scored 40 points a couple of games ago, followed up with 28 points and then he played. He scored 16, I think, in a low scoring championship, southern California championship win. So he's a McDonald's All-American. He is really a really good player. He he's.
Speaker 1:I can't really think of who to compare him to. But the question that we were we had asked earlier in the season was can he play point guard next season? And my belief at the time was that it would be a great disservice to start him a point guard for USC. I still kind of think that, but I do think he has a better chance now to play point guard as a freshman at least some point guard than than I did earlier, because he's really just improving as a player by leaps and bounds. And you know, he's not a physically, he's not a physical phenom, but he's athletic enough and he's a great shooter and he plays tall amongst the trees and just a really good, fundamentally sound, all around player and a winner, and I just don't want to count him out.
Speaker 2:What do you think? Let me, let me I can't say, let me just kind of ask you for some precision on here. I'll give you a scale. Neither of these guys. I don't think we're pure point guards, would it be? Would him, him playing a point guard, be more like Tajidi playing point guard?
Speaker 1:Yes, he's a different, he's a different type of player, but he's a little bit bigger and I think his game is he's more of a creative score. But I do think that that from like they'd be similar style point guards. But I think you can get away with that kind of point guard when you have a guy like Evan Mobley, or it's easier to get away with that kind of point guard when you have an Evan Mobley right, yes, someone who's more of a not really a true point guard.
Speaker 1:Because because Tajidi was good, but you know, ethan Addison came in a lot and played point A lot, a lot, you know, and he wasn't. He wasn't a very good player, but he took some of the pressure off of Tajidi, yeah, playing the point. So I don't think that it would be a really good idea to hand the keys of the car over to Trent Perry just to be the point guard from day one. I think he can be eased into it over the course of a season. So USC is going to have to go into the transfer portal and get at least one point guard, and possibly two, because or at least another ball handler, another combo guard, because when Isaiah Collier leaves there's no point guard on the roster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, now you get back to the what is Brani discussion, right?
Speaker 1:Right. Well, it's like, even if he is a point guard, we don't know if he's coming back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the other part of that equation, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and it's just a matter of like, we saw what happened this year when Collier got hurt right. We had real issues at point guard. So when you're playing guys who aren't really true points, you're going to have some struggles. So we need to have, you know, if you are going to play Isaiah Trent Perry at point guard, you need to have at least you need to have a really good backup. You need to have a. You need to have a. You know plan B.
Speaker 2:Or, to your point, just a ball handler. Maybe it looks like a Drew Peterson guy who just can handle yeah.
Speaker 1:You know exactly Someone who can take the pressure off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now.
Speaker 1:Kobe Johnson is coming back, and again he's not at point guard either. I assume he's coming back. If he does come back, then I assume he would probably take he would have to be more of a scorer next year, which again we've seen. We've seen that yeah. But Trent Perry is a guy who can come in and score. I think he's going to be a really good player for you. I see I'm curious to see you know the. I think he's a lot closer to being a point guard than he was three months ago.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's what I would say. So I guess to the other point that I was going to give a scale. So if Edie is on one end of the scale, maybe we put me make Kobe Johnson at the other end of the scale of combo guard playing, which I had as a Daniel Hackett when it's like, technically he can't handle the ball and he can throw the ball.
Speaker 1:But um, yeah, very similar.
Speaker 2:It's not a lifestyle for a successful team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they look alike too.
Speaker 2:They do, they really do.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's kind of funny when, when, when I think everyone does this, like we make comps and we end up like comping comping players to players who kind of just actually look physically like the guy, versus actually how they play.
Speaker 1:But anyway, um, yeah. So that's my thought on Trent Perry. Oh, one other thing I just want to add about our recruits. Uh, brady, uh Brody Koslowski, I saw some highlights of him and he looks pretty. He looks a lot better than that. I'd seen from earlier highlights A lot more. I'd seen him in some earlier highlights and I thought he looked. Uh, he didn't look as, he didn't look very athletic, he looked he's a really good shooter. Um, I didn't see a whole lot of athleticism, but he's definitely slimmed down and sort of muscled up and he's definitely more athletic and lean than he was in past videos that I've seen of him. He he's more like. I would say he's not as tall as Benny Boatwright. Benny Boatwright was 6'10", but I would say his game right now is pretty similar.
Speaker 2:Wow, he's kind of filling out for that same same ish. Build too.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, yeah, I'd say so, I mean, but he's 6'7".
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's a 6' he's a 6'7 Boatwright, so he doesn't bring some of the things that Boatwright could post up and do, some things when he really, when things really boiled down to it, um, but he wasn't a great rebounder, but um, uh, yeah, koslowski is, is I think he could be a true wing at 6'7". So, yeah, I'm, I'm high on him. I haven't seen any recent video of Lee and Campbell but, um, again, we're going to have three really good shooters coming in next year as freshmen and hopefully one of them can can be a good shooter as as as a freshman for USC, which is, you know it's. It's not always easy for freshmen to come in, come in, even if they're good freshmen in high school are good, good shooters in high school to come in as freshmen and um, and do it and do it again. So, but if you bring in three good shooters, odds are one of them is going to be a really good shooter in college.
Speaker 2:So that's what I'm hoping happens Well, or they'll have different stretches as their freshmen.
Speaker 1:Right, right, of course.
Speaker 2:And hopefully at different times.
Speaker 1:But, but maybe you, maybe you've got a um, a shepherd like from Kentucky, right, who's shooting whatever 53% from 3-point this year. Yeah, he's ridiculous. I saw the game against against Tennessee and I think he was seven of nine from from 3-point land just hit some crazy shots. Um, but, yeah, um, you know, it's funny. I would actually compare, uh, trent Perry to to read Shepherd of continually. Yeah, wow, if you look at read Shepherd, he he's not like physically impressive, right, he's not, he's not very big, he's not like you don't look, he's not like ripped or he doesn't have like fast twitch, but it's just like super fundamentally sound, great shooter, really good passer plays, good, solid defense. I think Trent Perry can be like a read Shepherd type, okay.
Speaker 1:So we talked it out, we figured it out and, and, and then landed on read Shepherd.
Speaker 2:Wow, he's so easy Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, next I'll let you throw the questions over to you, prime Minister. Thank you, mr Speaker. Can I join the Prime Minister in his comments.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, standing question how dumb is your co-host? You might remember that I had made a point about three weeks ago that DJ Rodman just needs to to to stay out of the starting lineup for the rest of the year. Um, I'll just, I'll just just kindly be kindly to myself to say check the column, because his production he has literally, since he he got benched, taken out of the starting lineup. He has the highest BPO 100 of anybody on the team since then, higher than Collier.
Speaker 1:It's amazing what benching will do. Yes yeah. And Kobe was benched right. It's in the column and it worked this is an amazing call.
Speaker 2:It worked. And the thing is, I don't even know if we get to that situation where, if we had asked Kobe if Kobe was doing too much, where he gets to this very, very best version of himself living his best basketball life. But yeah, it's worked. The numbers are there. They're astounding.
Speaker 1:So maybe the critique of Enfield lies in why didn't he bench these guys sooner? Well, could you have. He hung with these guys for a long time, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's understandable. Kobe was a proven product and so you're thinking he'll come around, and I'm sure you don't want to bench someone, but I think we were. I was calling for Kobe to be benched a lot sooner than he actually ended up being benched.
Speaker 2:Well, as was I, and then, as we talked to each other, it's like so that means more minutes for JD Plow.
Speaker 1:I mean I can't remember. I mean it would have been more minutes for Brani, I guess, yeah, but I mean Collier was out.
Speaker 2:Boogie, is Pogo sticking on one leg, not himself, it was just, it was grim.
Speaker 1:Well, I think I wanted him benched before that, like sometime in December, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he stunk through the Auburn game. Yeah, it's. Yeah, I don't know what that's about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's just some guys Johnson, kobe Johnson and DJ Rodman are. They seem like maybe the two guys on the team that are the most mercurial. Rodman is like his dad, is sort of a kind of a different kind of cat, I think, from a mentality standpoint, and so he's probably one of these guys that gets in his own head. And I think Kobe's the same kind of guy, whereas maybe Boogie and Collier they have their struggles, but they're not due to they're generally not due to things like that. They're generally not mental struggles. Like Collier, his struggles were like he's a freshman who needs to get acclimated to college game and he just needs to get himself under control and then once he does that, he's fine. Once he did that, he was fine. And Boogie, it's like he knows he's going to go through the slump, but he has the confidence that the next game is going to score 28 on six of eight shooting or whatever from three.
Speaker 2:So Boogie has confidence, but Kobe and DJ do not have confidence, and so I don't know if it'd be confidence, as much as I think that Collier and really Boogie just have a DB's mentality where it's like I'm going to get burned and you know what. I'll be back on the next play.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's not the term. Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe it's not confidence, but maybe it's self-doubt. They've got a little more self-doubt, or maybe they're a little like too hard on themselves. Too hard on themselves. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:For some reason, they're too hard on themselves, while the other guys maybe have a little less conscience. But so, yeah, so it's really managing these mentalities is such an important part of coaching and Enfield's been pretty good at that and I think he's tried to be like I trust you and I'm going to let you work things out. And for some reason and it worked with Kobe Johnson in his career and he did get benched last year too early on in the season and then he came back in and that worked, and so but I think that Enfield has loyalty to these guys, rightfully so, and I think that's what you want your coach to be loyal to your players. But I think there came a point where the season was in such dire straits that something needed to be shaken up and eventually it happened. And here we are, yeah, Agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ok, this is kind of a silly question, but it's a question I've actually thought to myself for well over a year now. How do we know when Omar Bolo is actually happy? This is the first time I ever saw him smile, and it was when the foul was called the foul capital T, capital F was called against him, so I know he wasn't happy. I've never seen this guy smile. Is he just like a dour guy? Is he just one of these? Maybe behind the scenes he's beloved because he never smiles.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe, I mean I don't. Yeah, maybe if I was a closer fan of Arizona basketball I might have the answer for you, but I think that he's a menacing looking dude. He's a scary looking dude. He's a big, tough guy who doesn't smile. Maybe that's, maybe that's part of his thing, like I'm not going to smile, I'm going to. Yeah, that's like it works for him, right? He's intimidating.
Speaker 2:Even though I'm six or seven, and nobody can stop me, you know, as long as I get the ball, just nope, no smile, so OK.
Speaker 1:The answer is we don't know.
Speaker 2:I guess yeah.
Speaker 1:We'll get on that. Ok, let's see the next podcast. I'll try to. I'll try to. I'll try to get evidence of him smiling, and if I don't find evidence, I'll fake the evidence, ok thank you.
Speaker 2:And again, this is not about our team, but I just. This doesn't make sense to me as a numbers guy. Ucla the end of the season with one win in their last six games and still there are number five seeded. Did I just miss when they were like tied for second place? What on earth, how does that happen?
Speaker 1:They won like eight of nine at one point in the conference they did.
Speaker 2:They were on a real nice, a nice role Did they get that high where they should still be a number five seed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of their winning this year was done in conference.
Speaker 2:OK, right, didn't seem like it.
Speaker 1:They, they had a really brutal, brutal off out of conference schedule, right, if you look at at what they did this year, I mean they're 15 and 16 now, right, and they're, yeah, they're like 10 and 10. So but they, you know, they, they were like going into Pac 12 play, I guess they were.
Speaker 1:Only they were five and six, which isn't great, no, but it's, but they ended up I think they were, I think they were six and 10. Overall, when they started going on their run they had lost four in a row. They like kind of like USC, they had a really they sort of. They lost their last three nine conference games. I'm sorry they lost their last four. They lost to Villanova, ohio State, csun and Maryland and then they beat Oregon State and then they lost four in a row again. But then they won eight of nine.
Speaker 1:And that's where, like, the bulk of their wins on the season came right there, yeah.
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, let's move on to Mark Me minute.
Speaker 2:OK, I don't know if I'll make a full minute with this, but I'm just I don't even know how to express this I'm. I'm not a poet, I'm not a comedian. Somewhere there's there's a great joke in there about Jose Perez scoring. What was it? 25 points on Thursday.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And having the team meal and I guess just just going over to LAX and saying I'm out of here, guys, and not making it to Polybivillion on Saturday, what I don't know, I don't know, I don't know the program.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he went to LAX or if he was like I'm going to hang out in LA for a bit.
Speaker 2:OK, hmm, ok.
Speaker 1:Well, you got a trip to LA. You might as well go see the sites and then and hang out in. Hang out in Hollywood, go to the beach.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't be in a big hurry to go back to Tempe, he said sarcastically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think so, unless unless you're, like you know, you want to get back to clean out your locker before, before they do it for you.
Speaker 2:Well, there could be something to be said for that. That could be a little weird. Maybe he just wanted to get back to his locker before you know anybody else did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's you know. Maybe you know, maybe this guy's up to something. What could?
Speaker 2:it be. Have you ever heard of anything like this? I mean, there's, you know, you know. I must say that happens all the time, but it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not unusual for a player to leave the team, but yeah, in the middle of a road trip after scoring 25.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got a, I've got a steel trap memory and a lot of sports things over the years, but I don't recall anything like this. It's certainly possible, but I think with Jose Perez is, there's all, there's all kinds of things that could be going on, and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Okay, yeah you know, because look he's from. He's from New York, right, he came over from.
Speaker 2:West Virginia.
Speaker 1:No, he came over. He came over from the Manhattan Jaspers. What yeah?
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:He was. He was from the Manhattan Jaspers and before that Marquette, and before that Gardner Web, my gosh. So this is his fourth team and he was averaging 19 points a game over at Manhattan. So he came over and look the guy. The guy has been around. He's been playing for five years. He had a co. This is COVID year, maybe. Maybe there's something going on at home or maybe he's just you know, maybe you're physically, mentally, exhausted.
Speaker 1:You're playing for, you know, bobby Hurley. Yeah, that's kind of where I was going with this whole thing. Yeah, yeah, I mean, who knows?
Speaker 2:maybe the guy, maybe he was laid into. I don't know why they would have laid into him.
Speaker 1:Maybe they only scored 25.
Speaker 2:But he did say I mean I shouldn't we do know actually right.
Speaker 1:Because he said you know he's a good guy, you know actually, right, because he said there's a thin line between loyalty and stupidity. Perez post on Instagram afterwards Wow, I'm going to be loyal, but I'm not going to be stupid. I'm not going to be so loyal that I betray myself. He basically has decided to go play overseas. I guess he was offered a position, is what it sounds like, and maybe it's like based on some of these overseas competitions I'm sorry, some of these overseas leagues.
Speaker 1:They may not have the same schedule as college basketball and maybe they're just starting up like, for example, it's, what is it? It's March. My brother played down in Australia for 20 years and I think their season started in March.
Speaker 1:OK so so he must have a contact and there's all kinds of leagues all over the world, so they're probably like, hey, we want you to come play, but our season is going to start, and he's like you know what? This team is a dead end, I want to go now. And yeah, that sounds like what happened, so we know. So I guess I should say I guess I should have looked at it closely, but so we do kind of know what happened, which is that he wanted to go play overseas. Now maybe there's something more to it, but it sounds like. It just sounds like it wasn't very happy and he wanted to go change his scenery and make a few bucks.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah but I mean though my gosh, not something you not something you see every day?
Speaker 2:No, no or ever. Yeah exactly yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1:Interesting times. The very end of the, the Pac 12, ends in a little bit of, a little bit of strangeness. Yeah, as befitting the conference, yep.
Speaker 1:So, all right. Well, that does it for Mark's mean minute. We have the Pac 12 turning coming up. We can look at the brackets. Usc plays Wednesday against Washington at T-Mobile Arena. It will start at noon Pacific time, 3 pm Eastern time, which I'm excited about. You know, 1 am these, 1 am games, so I'm excited about that. And then, if USC beats Washington, the Trojans will play Arizona On Thursday, which will also be at noon to some extent. The the scouting report is fresh Trojans beat Washington up at sea, up in Seattle, 8275 on March 2nd and of course, yesterday USC beat Arizona. So two teams that the Trojans have seen very recently. So I think you got to like USC's chances against Washington. What do you think? You know I think it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:You know this will be in the column too. So if you hear a bunch of numbers and you're not remembering it, just you can. You can check the column, dear listener. So when I ran my metrics through yesterday's games for February to March, arizona is number one at a 17.6 power rating. Usc number two, just behind us, at a little bit less than 6.2, is Washington. So then we get Colorado, washington state. So the good news is that we've beaten in recent action, actually two of our three most recent games, number one and the number three team. The bad news is we have to repeat that just to get to Friday. Yeah, that's, it's, it's, it's tough. Last night we're saying tough draw just being in the same same half with Arizona.
Speaker 2:but getting Washington is sneaky, sneaky all the way, sneaky, also tough. Now who knows how the whole Hopkins imminent departure is going to play out.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I was going to say. I think that's. I think that gives a little bit of it. You know, I can't say for sure, but I think odds are that it's probably going to help us a little bit. Is he coaching in the game?
Speaker 2:I imagine he is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he just he was informed that after the season he's gone, got it so so there's a little bit of maybe they're going to play for the coach, but maybe it's also like you know how hard is. Is he really going to prepare for this game? I don't know, but I kind of I like the idea that USC's playing against a lame duck coach here. So, and you know, what's interesting too is we didn't mention as a Ken Palm's rankings USC has jumped all the way up to 83rd. In Ken Palm, we are the highest ranked 14 win team. I mean, I mean it's pretty, it's pretty crazy that the next best ranked team with 14 wins Is Arizona State and their 120 and their 121st. So we're 40, you know, 40 spots better than Arizona State with the same record.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of that goes back to that. I don't know if we talked about on the pod, but the luck metric Are we still in the bottom 10? I'm just looking at myself here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our luck metric.
Speaker 2:So I don't think there's anything these last few games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are still 310th in luck, jeez yeah, but we're ranked ahead of Ole Miss, which is 2011. We're ranked ahead of Indiana, which is 18 and 13. And we're ranked just behind Florida State, which is 16 and 15. I don't think Indiana is going to make the turn that well they might. And we also are ranked ahead of Georgia. So, yeah, so definitely a better team than our record indicates. And right now we're playing, like I mentioned earlier, we're playing basically like a top 17 team, according to at least one analytics. So this number 17 team in Ken Palm is Kentucky. So I don't think we're playing as good as Kentucky, but because they're just a fantastic offensive team, but we are playing pretty well right now. So one team that is not playing well is Kansas.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They have lost three of their last four. They were beaten by Houston 76-46. And it was. They've fallen to 22 and 9. I wonder what USC fans would have said if we had gone 22 and 9 this year. Probably went to have been very happy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if they'd want to hear about a luck metric in that case. Huh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And what's interesting is that Kansas is they're 68th in luck, so they're doing pretty well, whereas Kentucky, which is one spot ahead of them, is 242nd in luck. Interesting stuff, okay. So USC versus Washington on Wednesday. I think the Trojans are going to beat them. I think the momentum is good. Right now, I think we're zeroed in. I think Boogie comes back, plays really well. I think we played a lot in Vegas this year, haven't we? Yes, this is our third game.
Speaker 2:Our third game there.
Speaker 1:yes, yeah, so we're a little bit used to that. We're not going to have a big fan presence, although you never know, we might get a few fans going out there. But I think that beating Washington I like that. If we're going to play Arizona, I don't mind playing it, playing Arizona earlier, because we just beat them so that it's a little bit fresh in our minds. I'd rather play them in game two than game three or four when we're a little less fresh, and I think that again, Arizona doesn't have as much to play for and if we beat Washington we're going to have a really high level of confidence going into that game. So I don't know, I think our odds just keep increasing for this tournament. I'm not ready to call it for the Trojans yet, but it's definitely going to be interesting. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you make a good point about catching them before later in the process, when they probably be at a better advantage. The one thing I want to call to your attention is here is before they lost to us on Saturday, they lost six games. Here is what they did after each of those six losses they beat Alabama at home 87 to 74. They won at Cal by 19. They won at home against Arizona by 47. That's right, 47.
Speaker 1:They beat us what's?
Speaker 2:that.
Speaker 1:They beat ASU by 47.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was Colorado oh it'd be Colorado.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Although that logically would seem to be Arizona State. They beat us by 15. They won at Oregon by nine. That's the worst showing a road win by nine at Oregon. Then they won by 16 against Washington at home. Yeah, that's an average margin of 20. That's an average 91 to 71. They have four days to sit and think about how awfully they were embarrassed by the team they're going to play on Thursday possibly. I think, as Don McClain would say, they're going to have a good week of practice. It could get tough.
Speaker 1:Well, that's true, it could get tough. We're going to see that metric brought up against a potentially really highly competent USC team. Yep, we'll see which one gives, but right now Ken Palm has USC. Actually, interestingly enough, has USC losing to Washington 79-76?.
Speaker 2:In my ratings. I literally have them. I have them 0.00 points worse than USC. That's literally as close as it can get. I'm not surprised that he has them ahead. I mean mine's just in the February forward numbers and he's got a whole season in there. That's probably with some decay in there.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, they played pretty well. They're last-time games. They beat Oregon State away and they beat Stanford at home. It's part of Stanford's big losing streak.
Speaker 1:They lost a really close game to Cal at home. They lost 82 to 80. They beat ASU away in overtime and then, like you said, they lost to Arizona 91-75. It's not a huge beat. And then they crushed UCLA at home and they lost to USC and then they beat Washington State on the road. So they're showing some good stuff. So they're a little bit I wouldn't say they're as hot as USC is right now but, like you said, they're right up there amongst the top third of the conference here coming down the stretch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess the bad news is the good news. That is, I literally have them tied with us or just right behind us for the second best team in the conference and yet we just beat them on their home floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Proof of concept that we didn't just get lucky by beating a bunch of scrubs at the bottom in the last four games. We beat some good teams there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be interesting. If we do be watching and things are going to, there's going to be a lot of chatter about this big game against Arizona and if we do, if we do beat Arizona, I think there's going to be a lot of, like you know, antenna the antenna of the college basketball world is going to start going up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A bit, because at that point you're looking at a USC team that will have won five in a row and beaten Arizona twice and beaten, you know, UCLA on the road, almost beat Washington State on the road, so one of the hottest teams in the country potentially, if that happens. And that's going to be interesting because historically, going back through the years, we've seen situations like this where where USC gets really hot and the question is how long can it sustain? But sometimes it's like look at what Oregon State did a few years ago. Sometimes you just run on fumes and you get the momentum and it turns out great.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Speaking of running on fumes, it's time to put this podcast to bed. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode. If you want to talk more basketball, be sure to go to the message boards at USC basketballcom and check out Mark's latest column at the Dunk City blog. We'll be back next week to recap the Pac-12 tournament hopefully talking about a USC birth in March madness and we'll also take a look at what USC needs in the transfer portal and look at some possible candidates there. So, with all that said, fight on everybody, and I'll leave it to you to sign us out, mark.
Speaker 2:As always, everyone thanks for listening and fight on.