This is the way the Pac-12 ended: Mark and Chris discuss USC's loss to Arizona in game two of the Pac-12 tournament, as the program says farewell to the Conference of Champions and hello to the Big Ten. Mark provides the final metrics for the seniors while Chris gives the latest updates from the transfer portal, including fresh news on the departure of Kijani Wright and the two hash out who the best coach of the Pac-12 era was in basketball.
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.
This is the way the Pac-12 ended: Mark and Chris discuss USC's loss to Arizona in game two of the Pac-12 tournament, as the program says farewell to the Conference of Champions and hello to the Big Ten. Mark provides the final metrics for the seniors while Chris gives the latest updates from the transfer portal, including fresh news on the departure of Kijani Wright and the two hash out who the best coach of the Pac-12 era was in basketball.
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. Alright, welcome back to another episode of the Dunk City podcast, brought to you by USCBasketballcom, chris Houston, here with Mark Baxter. Well, this is the way the Pac-12 ends. This is the way the Pac-12 ends. This is the way the Pac-12 ends not with the bang, but with the whimper. So wrote TS Eliot so many years ago, and so it happened. This past week, usc made our little mini run at the Pac-12 title, won the first game against Washington and then came up short. It was 80-74 against Washington and then came up short against Arizona 70 to 49. Mark thoughts on the last two games and just sort of your impression of the team and where it's looking right now.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're a little more literate than I am. Just TS Eliot. Was that a portal name? I kind of missed some of what you were saying there.
Speaker 1:Well, ts did for people don't know. It's good for tough shit.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow, Defensive minded guy. Yeah, kind of an unfortunate end If you read the column. After the end of the regular season I was concerned about what kind of home cooking slash defensive specialties Arizona would have waiting for us after getting embarrassed at Galen in four days to kind of stew on that. And my worst fears were realized, although not surprised.
Speaker 1:I didn't think Arizona played particularly well. I don't think it was necessarily an onslaught. It seemed more the case of USC not playing well and offense not hitting their shots. Boogie Ellis, after a great game against Washington, struggled against Arizona. But you look at Arizona's offense they scored 65 against USC, 70 against USC and then 59 against Oregon. So the leading offense in the conference and one of the leading offenses in the country, which had been averaging almost 90 points per game, three consecutive games on their way to bowing out in the Pac-12 tournament, three consecutive games averaged 65 points per game. That's a huge drop off. So I think the Arizona game for USC was just a matter of.
Speaker 1:There was incredible defensive effort and energy expended in that first half. I think USC gave Arizona its best shot defensively and indeed it held the Wildcats to 28 first half points, which that little 12-0 run spurt toward the end of the first half that USC's been used to having during the year, those late first half spurts by their opponent. But anyway, arizona scored 28 points in the first half. Still a great defensive effort by USC. The problem is USC only scored 16.
Speaker 1:And I think you know I'm not usually one to complain a lot about the officiating, but there's a lot of deference being given by the refs to Arizona, omar Abalu, who, you know, if he sneezes in Tucson they can probably feel it in Long Beach. Yet he, you know, for some reason is treated with the utmost respect by the refs and it was allowed to pretty much do whatever he wanted. And you know there's this incredible amount of body checking going on by the Wildcats and I think once the refs did that, it pretty much ensured that Arizona was not going to get into a hole in the first half. And after USC spent all that energy in the first half, it was really hard for it to come back in the second half and, of course, when you're not shooting well makes it even harder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agree, deference, I guess, is one way to put it. I just I couldn't figure out, like, what they were letting go and what they weren't letting go. I was just kind of just I couldn't see a pattern other than just I guess you know, if you're the biggest guy in the court, the most experienced guy in the court, I guess I guess you're going to get all the calls, or a vast majority of them.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you just have to look at which team has to bring out its players because they're in foul trouble the most. It was always USC in the two games that played against Arizona. Anyway, I didn't really. The game wasn't fun to watch. Obviously, when your team is not shooting well, it's not fun to watch. But I thought the Trojans played hard, which is all you can ask. They didn't fold, they played hard, whistle to whistle, and so Trojans finished 15 and 18. Of course, they did play pretty well against a pretty solid Washington team the night before and, as it turns out, you know, there was a magical run in this tournament.
Speaker 1:It wasn't USC, it was Oregon. So Oregon will be going to the dance and looks like Dana Altman has lived to fight another day. But it's going to be interesting to see how a lot of the other coaching changes in the conference are in the conference and it is no more how it will end up. But what do you think? You know you just came out with a new column today and I'd like to talk a little bit about where some of our seniors ended up with the analytics, how it looked throughout their career, and I think you have a little little discussion about a potential returning player who showed some good things as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, let me pull that up first. So the. You know, I guess, when you're looking and we're setting aside Isaiah Collier, um, just because this focuses on the seniors who just finished, you know, uh, what three, three plus and one season with the with the program Um. So you know, boogie Ellis would kind of seem to be first this, the one that's that's most irreplaceable Um, and that he was just such a prolific score the last two years Um. You know, one thing that sticks out to me is just the improvement he showed um once he got to the program and then, you know, after just one year, uh, under coach, I feel I'm not going to pretend to know really who coaches the guards, but you know, if there's one person that's been responsible for, for really coaching um, you know Boogie specifically, my gosh, huge credit to him and obviously huge credit to to Boogie for putting in the work.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, as a, as a, I think he was a sixth man his last season at Memphis. Um, bpo one, yeah, thank you, bpo 148.7. Um, his first season with the USC that improved to a 50.4. Um, pretty fair to say that pack 12 was a decent step up from the American Um, although the American that Boogie left did have Houston, so it's not like it was a bunch of tomato cans, um. But after that first season of acclimating the pack 12, the last two seasons, bpo 100, up to a 54.7 and then down to a 54.2. Um, you know, in a season where he was just not himself right, Say probably about a third of the season, if not more, between being hobbled, eventually benched, and then you know back in a, a hobbled, just less than 100% state.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now he um Boogie Ellis ended up becoming an elite pack 12 player. I'd say that with Ellis you got 70, 75% of the time he was going to be really just a, an unguardable player.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 1:I should say 75% of the games, and 75% I mean this is I'm just doing like in my memory of him three out of four games. He was just somebody you, you had to deal with, maybe end up, and one of those three games you couldn't. You couldn't stop them.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 1:And then there'd be that fourth game where, where he was going to go one for eight, you know, just on, just on sort of like the over the course of his career. And last year I thought he had fewer of those games and this year I think he had more of those games. And you know, I think because of the injury, because of the, because of the tough time with the different lineups and rotations, so, uh, it was definitely a tough year for him, but I thought he he had some huge games, uh, not least of which against Washington in the Pactualp tournament 25 points. Just his ability to shoot from from long range, despite he doesn't really matter who's guarding him, he's just going to. Uh, the confidence he had to to just nail those shots is something we're really going to miss and it's something very, really rare to have in college basketball.
Speaker 1:Just somebody like that, who, who was like an alpha dog when it comes to shooting, yeah, he actually thinks started the Washington game off really slowly shooting as well, right, yeah, he did a little a little slow, shooting A little a little sluggish, and then just he, he just gets on these tears right, yeah, just um, where everything's going to go in.
Speaker 1:Very streaky shooter. But I think he was probably, again, most likely due to the injuries and also just due to the state of the team. But last year I thought he was particularly affected because I thought he was more, he was better at getting to the hole, driving, driving, uh, the patented boogie, uh drive to the hole on the right side getting knocked over and and, uh, you know um, uh, exalting from from the prone position. Uh, before he goes to it, get his aunt one, uh, that was. I said that we saw more often as a, as a junior, I should say, last year and this year we didn't get to see that as much because, uh, he really, what you know it sort of took away his, his driving ability was sort of taken away by the, the driving ability of Collier there. So I just think that he drove less because of because of how much Collier drove.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think when he came back from that injury he didn't have the same explosion for a while, until really the Colorado game, too Precisely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a shame and you know that's just the way the ball bounces and and and basketball sometimes we USC has been very lucky in the in the infield era not to have a bunch of injury bugaboos. Uh, oregon of late has been very riddled with injuries and it's all luck and this is something that USC had had a lot of good luck in recent years. And so this is finally the year where it couldn't have happened at the worst time, given given the lineup, given the expectations. But, um, you know, when you go back and look at it, the injuries really were the the biggest factor in why the season um ended the way it did, not the only factor, but the biggest factor, yeah.
Speaker 2:The only starter that didn't miss a game due to injury was, uh uh, dj Rodman, I believe right, or did he miss a game?
Speaker 1:Oh, he missed a game, absolutely, did he? Yeah, I don't remember the game, but I promise he missed a game, okay.
Speaker 2:Um so okay, so.
Speaker 1:Boogie Ellis, and then and then, uh, who were? Let's talk about your other seniors, okay, um, josh.
Speaker 2:Morgan. You know, obviously the first thing we're talking about is the first thing we're talking about Josh Morgan, what really stands out? Obviously he's just. I can't remember a better shot blocker at USC ever. Now. I've only been following for 33, 34 years.
Speaker 1:Now, to be fair, Evan Mobley and big O were pretty great shot blockers, yeah.
Speaker 2:I boy. I don't know. I'll have to run some numbers on those guys.
Speaker 1:Um and and they didn't. The numbers were good, but also so they. They also played more minutes than Josh, but but the other thing was that I think that they could have blocked more if they wanted to, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Uh, especially Evan, Evan, pretty much. If you look at those games, you know there would be games where he didn't get a block shot all game and it was coming down to the end and they needed a block shot. So he's like, okay, I'm just going to go block these shots, excuse me, and um, and he would just do that whenever he needed to, uh, and, but I think it was like preserve. You know, he knew it was more important to preserve his uh, stay on the court by not fouling, uh, because you know, you never know what kind of fouls you're going to get called in the pack 12. But with Morgan, uh, he didn't really have that, that issue where you know he, he was thinking I need to stay on the court, uh, because they need my scoring.
Speaker 2:So very fair point, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:I do think that he was focused more, no, to take nothing away from a fantastic shot block, and you may, and you still may, be right in this, in this summation, but I will, I just offer that for your consideration.
Speaker 2:Very fair point. I didn't think about that, um, and maybe that's because you know, aside from from what you mentioned. Um, I can't really speak to specific memories about about Okangu, but um, it seemed like Evans blocks a lot of the times were not just the hey, watch this, it was just more like I'm going to stick my left hand out there because it's closer to the shooter's right hand, and you know what I mean. He just had a little like if you're, if that shot's blocked, if you're shooting it in a gut block, they'd be like, oh man, come on, not like wow, this was embarrassing you know, Josh's blocks, I guess, are more thunderous, and and, and just you know, watch out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and also Evan and and Onyek, it were better at blocking and controlling.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, and and.
Speaker 1:Josh has was less good at that. He was, he was. You know he would often send the ball out of bounds or whatever, but which is still good. But you know, if you can block it and control it, you know, rebound it, outlet it. Those are things that Evan and Big O were both great at.
Speaker 2:And in fairness too. I mean, you know, um, those guys each only had one season too. I mean by who knows what kind of shot blockers it would have been, and they, they played four seasons.
Speaker 1:Well, you can see it, evan Mowley is a one of the best defenders in the in the NBA right now. So, and and Big O is not a starter, but he comes in. I think he averages 10 and seven or something like that and he comes in and I think per 40 minutes he does very well Shot blocking both, both incredible players. And you know, going back to Trojan history, you just made me think I who are some of the great shot blockers? Certainly, Taj Gibson was a good shot blocker. He was, you know, a great defender. Sam Clancy, excellent shot blocker, especially considering he was probably six, five and a half six, six.
Speaker 1:And then going back further, um, uh, there, there, there weren't many great. I mean, uh, evandre Jones, uh, the, the, the samurai sword, uh, wielder himself, and uh, and um, and uh, there weren't that many great shot blockers. Uh, uh, before that, before my time would have been, as far as knowing who were great shot blockers would have been the seventies, but um, yeah, there weren't many great shot blockers in the 80s, to what I could recall. So so, yeah, I would say you're looking at the last four years of USC basketball has been a, has been a shot blocking paradise. So, even though I don't think, um, vince or whoever is going to be our big, our main bin next year. I don't think they're bad at, they're not like they're not um, you know, they show up as shot blockers. Right, they can block some shots, but they're not going to be as prolific, as prolific as Onyeka, evan and and Joshua were, uh, for USC. So we're kind of it's a little bit of an end of an era from a shot blocking standpoint, I'd say.
Speaker 2:Depending on the portal, but we can say that pretty much about everything, right?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see if, if Coach Enfield is like you know, I want to continue this shot blocking because I kind of like having that element, uh, or, or you know, or if it's just like hey, you know, we can't really get that right now, so we're going to go for other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, um, it seemed last season in his freshman year when Vince first came on the scene and once he got his kind of got his sea legs, he was a tough shot blocker for a while and I didn't mention that in the column and cause I'm not really sure if it's a matter of you know. The guys just had had a star cross season between recovering from back surgery and then it seemed like he had lower body injuries for most of the year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, always, just, you know, going to the bench and like there's some kind of ankle or something like that that's bugging him, and I don't know if it was the injuries that that kind of you know had him take a step back from the shop blocking. Or maybe he got figured out in terms of I don't know, I don't know, I don't know technique enough to know if he's just a one, a one trick guy when it comes to shop blocking. But you know, his shop blocking diminished this season versus last season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he shows, he shows flashes of it, and and it always surprises me, sort of like when he shows flashes of other elements of his game. Kind of surprises me because he's so. He's been pretty inconsistent, um, but it's interesting because sometimes he shows up and he's like this Really good offensive player. He shows good footwork, he rebounds and he blocks shots, and then the next game he shows up and he's like you know, he's completely different players. So it would be it's. There's enough tantalizing there.
Speaker 1:I mean, he doesn't have good hands is kind of like my main issue with with Vincent a lot of the other things I like about him. I think he's got potential. I don't know if you can develop hands, though, and I think that that's probably the one thing that is like standing in the way be up, besides the injuries. The one thing besides the injuries standing in the way of Vincent Iwuchu Kwu turning into a really good player is his ability to ours inability to To grab the basketball, whether it's going up for rebound, loose balls, lob passes, whatever anything. That's below his knee, yeah, and that could be a residue of the back injury, but that's gonna be if he can. You know, I don't know how you fix that. Maybe you. I think you can improve that. He's never gonna be a natural hands guy, but he can definitely improve his hands to where they're not a real liability. So hopefully we'll see that in the offseason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll let's just put this this way as well. I think you know Vince still has a ways to go quite a bit on the offensive end, but he has a lot more offensive skill than Josh, and the fact that Morgan actually had a better shooting percentage from the floor Just tells me that there's, you know, once Vince just gets the the I guess you'd say the floor wisdom that Josh showed this season, he, you know there's gonna be a step forward offensively. I just I'm, I'm, just you know. Yeah, josh was good.
Speaker 1:Josh was a little better at two feet in. And the thing with Vince is that and we saw this a little bit at the thinking is Arizona. There were a couple times where we're Vince had some little bunnies down low and it's just. It's just he's pressing right. You can just see him pressing. You can just see him saying, oh, I got this great opportunity to make a shot and you could tell he's he's not being natural when he's, he's trying not to mess up and that's messing him up, and so yeah and Josh has sort of gotten gotten through that by by virtue of his experience and so with Vince, it's, it's gonna be, it's, it's a lot of it's, that confidence as well.
Speaker 1:But I think from a complete sort of Toolset, his offensive game is better than his defensive game from it. From a tools perspective, I think, like he can shoot the guy, the guy has, like he has the ability to to, you know, to get position and you post, get, make post moves and and play face-up and. But what he's not great at right now is is being a reliable finisher and being more consistent on defense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess to your point, you know, when you say press, I think he hurries, he just he wants to, you know. So he's thinking I've got position, I got to finish this without just taking the time to get his feet under him and that's the. That's what I see is the biggest detriment in his game is just and that's something to your point, I don't the hands are a question on how much that can improve that, just patience and understanding. I think it's just a natural outgrowth of maturity because you know I it, you know Morgan improved quite a bit in that. In that regard, and.
Speaker 2:Morgan just, you know, just Doesn't have the same natural skills offensively that that Vince does. So I'd be surprised if we don't see a step forward Just in that kind of stuff, and especially considering the the back surgery that he had, I mean, man, what he could have been this season just had that not happen and just gotten a full-off season of, you know, improvement in.
Speaker 1:Boy. Yeah, well, hopefully he gets that this season, hopefully there's no more injuries and and I think I Think we'll see, I think we're gonna see some improvement with him. I mean, he's gonna get more minutes, ostensibly, depending on you know what kind of big comes in and what kind of big goes out. But yeah, with Morgan gone, he looks to be the the next up. So, yeah, okay, and then DJ Rodman.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dj kind of fits into the Vince narrative as well, and we'll come back to that in a second. So you know, dj, he just kind of took a step back this season, obviously, and it was really until he got benched against Oregon State, the home game against Oregon State. Matt meal block made a great point during the the game against Washington that. You know, it seemed like DJ I this was such a good analogy I'm kind of Shamed to myself for not thinking of it. He said you know, coming from going from Washington State, you know from Pullman to Los Angeles. He said it. He drew a parallel to like a fear baseball free agent, you went from the Royals to the Dodgers. You're probably gonna be pressing a lot when you're in your first year of that. You know your first few games of that new contract.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I can really see that, because otherwise it just didn't make sense what we were seeing from him. I think fitting in with the new team to obviously is a big problem, especially with a lot of established, talented guys on the floor. But boy, once, once he had a, you know, he cleared his head from the bench. He, he Metrically was our best player for the rest of the season, which is Incredible considering just how lousy he had been to that point. I mean, you see flashes, but they would be flashes and then long stretches of what exactly do we have here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, it's one of those things where where you you try to Bring a team together and you look at things on paper and you see what Rodman did up at Washington State and you think I can plug him in here and he's a Senior veteran player, has been through the battles, been through the wars and sometimes things don't mesh and eventually they did mesh and the team got a lot better. But he's gonna be filed on sort of under the we hardly knew you kind of kind of category of Daniel Utomis and and.
Speaker 2:You know, here's the name for you Charles Bugs.
Speaker 1:Charles Bugs yeah, boy, I can't. Charles Bugs was a. What a great dunker he was forgot about. Yeah, yeah, charles Bugs, yeah, took me back there. There's a little bit of a little bit of news that just came out over the wire related to USC basketball. What do you think it is? No cheating, don't look.
Speaker 2:I'm not looking. I don't have tick tock so I wouldn't you know. Know, boy, is this somebody hitting the portal for us leaving the program?
Speaker 1:it is USC software. Kajani Wright has entered the transfer portal. Former four-star McDonald's All-American played in 57 games. He is the second former McDonald's All-American to enter the transfer portal today, joining Oklahoma State freshman Brandon Garrison. So a Little bit of information there. Uh, makes sense for Kajani. I think he sort of you know his. What he brings to the to the table is probably Not gonna work with what USC is trying to do.
Speaker 1:He was sort of a Sort of not big enough to be a Meaning you get to get meaningful minutes as a big and Too many guys ahead of him, sort of as a wing or if you wanted to play a smaller, small forward type position Brought a lot to the table, I thought, as far as passing, being a good teammate, playing hard, did a lot of smart things but just Didn't do enough things.
Speaker 1:Well, he did a lot of things kind of okay but didn't do it. You know, like one thing he didn't have one thing that he did really well. I think if he had been like a really good rebounder or Really good defender. I mean, I think he was a solid defender. He was a solid rebounder If he had been a three-point shooter or, you know, if he just had one thing that he could bring to the table that was like oh yeah, we need that. Then I think that would have worked for him. But he is a guy who is a he's a glue guy and Um he, if he's ever gonna Develop some of these facets of his game, he's gonna need more minutes and he's just not gonna get that at USC.
Speaker 2:Very fair. I will say one thing that, um, just to my chagrin and I almost mentioned this um, I think the one thing that he was good at was this season especially. He got so patient. Once he got the ball in a good position, he didn't press, he, he was he became much better of just just, you know, not getting excited and just Just taking this time. It's like it's an easy look, now Just finish it, um. But yeah, fair to your point, um.
Speaker 1:And and and you know he'll probably go to. You know he'll probably go to a, to a mid major and get a chance to To show what he can do and and that makes sense. You know he put two, two years in at USC. There are guys ahead of him. Hopefully this will sort of Play into Kind of clear the decks a little bit, for hopefully erranton page Also stays, I think. I think he's a guy that Is an example of of sort of like what usd is looking for at that position. He's taller than kejani, he shoots better than kejani, um more athletic than kejani, so Just kind of shows more overall promise.
Speaker 2:So he's. He's actually as you talk about. He's pretty much the inverse of um kejani. Yeah page much more of an above the rim guy. Kejani is kind of like a jaha wilson yeah bigger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, um, yeah, great, great, great analogy there. Um, I mean, I I would have liked I think kejani writes a kind of player, you need to be like your seventh or eighth man. But I get it that he doesn't want to be a seventh or eighth man, so he's got to go somewhere else. So that's just the reality of modern day college basketball. And we wish Kejani write the best, assuming he leaves and you know it doesn't come back. If he does leave, we wish him all the best, and if returns, we wish him all the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and to that point, you know, in the in the column, just kind of going back to the dj rodman, before you broke news here, you know I, I saw page as really feeling that that role next season. Um, just, he had just and and not even in a lot of minutes, but he had just a very, very freshman freshman season, if you will. Um, in that you, just you, sometimes you saw just just the natural talent oozing and sometimes it was extremely well hidden and a lot of the times it was well hidden because he was doing freshman stuff. Um, not afraid to dribble, I'll say that about um, about mr Page, but also, um, you know he ended the whole Lamentation I had about can somebody just please push somebody on this team? I mean, he did it. Um, I Like his skill set and I'm intrigued by it and I'm also intrigued, for better or worse, by his confidence. Um, so there's, there's a whole package there with with mr Page, but it's, it's enticing. You're, uh, you're on mute, I don't know if you know that.
Speaker 1:Oops, sorry about that. Yeah, the confidence that page has is great. One last thing on Rodman. I think if, if he had played the way he played the last six or seven games yeah, for I don't know, 80% of the season Probably a different-looking season.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry not to put too much of that on him.
Speaker 2:Yeah but, a lot of his worst basketball was in the toughest spots when we were really down at guard position and you've got. You know those isle sellers playing point guard and it just it got a little.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he was playing the two guard, if you double times. He was playing off guard. So, and that's not his position for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know. So I just back to page two. I think the thing is, you know, I think you and I were a little surprised when, when Rodman was the starter and we thought, is this just kind of a game-to-game thing? And it clearly wasn't. Since he started, you know most games, but I think pages, skill set really lend itself to. You know a more a More typical looking and feel team with two bigs that that you know, he and and Vince are much more in line with what you've seen, basically since they had enough bigs to you know, get it together once.
Speaker 2:I guess met you really came on board is when you got yeah, that look and what have that. You just didn't sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I think he's very much like a Chamezi met you that's kind of been his comp since he's arrived in the sense that he's a real skilled, big, very athletic and but you know plays can shoot the ball and do things around the rim.
Speaker 1:So it just, it was just kind of the the cluster that this season was just didn't allow him to develop. We were almost to we. It was kind of a weird thing. The team was struggling, but we were. We were also a deep team, right. Yeah, we had 11 guys who all had justifiable claims to minutes when the season was over.
Speaker 1:You know it's like you, boogie, collier, johnson, rodman, morgan, you chook who sellers? There's Ronnie James could. Johnny Wright, harrison, hornet, arrington page, and then Brandon Gardner was hurt. But like every one of those guys and there's just there was too much depth for for some of these other guys to develop, and so Right now we're down to eight scholarship players. So we lose our three seniors and Then you, we just lose. We just lost to Johnny Wright, right. So last year we only had 12 scholarships out of the 13. So the four guys leaving, that brings us down to eight. We have three freshman coming in Puts us back up to 11. So, as of right now, we have two available Scholarships. I imagine I'd be shocked if there wasn't more available soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, gotta be at least one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and, and, then you know, go ahead Good.
Speaker 2:Well, I started just back to back. To wrap it up on page. Yeah, I think, even though Rodman had a decent, decently respectable rebounding Ratio for his size, I think from that position you need more. I think we'll get a lot more From page and because page again he can handle it probably not as quite as well as he fancies himself I think you're gonna see a lot more that big to big passing that got us a lot of easy baskets, basically from about 17 or so through last year.
Speaker 1:Well, if there's another big to pass to, if it's, you know, I don't know if, if we're gonna see, potentially we could have erranton page play the four Vince, it would shoot who played a five. So, you might. You might see that, but the problem is to do that great Hi low game you really need guys with good hands and Hopefully that's.
Speaker 1:you know, if erranton is gonna stay, hopefully he invents and Vince is gonna stay, hopefully he invents his work on that all summer and again if, going back to if that's what they're gonna be called to do, I mean they have to demonstrate they can do it. And a lot of people asked during the year like why don't we have more high low? Well, like you, I'm sure the team would, the coaching staff would love to do high low, but you know you can't plague, you can't do the high low Passing unless you, if you don't have guys who are good at passing, are receiving the ball. So that's kind of an important part of the process.
Speaker 2:Well it's. It's different dynamic with a six, nine or six ten guy versus a six six guy. It's just right, right a lot more, a lot more, a lot better view, the taller you are.
Speaker 1:Right, but in the situations where where there wasn't DJ Robin playing the four and there could have been situations, for instance, erranton page and and Vince you chukwu, our erranton page and and Joshua Morgan they might have had more minutes if if they were able to play that high low game, you know. So my point is is that the you know, that element of our game is same with our pick and roll game, and this is another thing. That's like Isaiah Collier comes to USC and he's an excellent pick and roll point guard, but we don't have pick and roll bigs.
Speaker 1:You know like he, he was excellent, like with Pick and pops, with his, with the guards, right, you know boogie picking and rolling out for the three and you know he was great at assisting for those types of plays. But Joshua and Vince and Kejani, even when they did roll clean and the guy was best at it was was Joshua, because because he, you know he's, he's not it, he wasn't as big, he's a little more, he's a little more. He's kind of a coil, right, the way he moves, he's just kind of like a slinky kind of guy. So so he was, just he was good at at, at sticking his heel into the, into the, into the court and just, you know, getting toward the basket quicker than the other the other two guys could.
Speaker 1:Erranton was good at it, I think, with, with, with, with, with Collier, of course, his teammate from high school, but again, didn't get enough time to really show it. And when they did do it is very sloppy because Two freshmen trying to do that, yeah, but again, even even if Kejani was picking and rolling, well, when you got the ball, what was he gonna do with it? And To some extent, same with Vincent, a little bit a little bit less with Josh, but still still exists there. So that whole pick-and-roll game. So the pick-and-roll game is out. The, which again was, was big with, with in the met-two, benny Boatwright, mobily the moblier, all those, all those teams played great high, low, pick-and-roll type with their bigs. So that was just like completely gone from our repertoire, even though we had a point guard who could really do those things.
Speaker 2:You know help, our help set those things up, you know.
Speaker 1:So yeah, just a little factor I'm sure we're gonna look for. You know, obviously Paige, if he stays, has potential to really do a lot of those things. So I'm sure they're looking for a big who who, above all, has really good hands and can, you know, be an option there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's pretty much ties a bow in the season. It's just a couple last notes. Looking at conference games, only USC ended up third in the conference in field goal percentage defense, which is interesting because they finished 12th in three point field goal percentage defense, which means I haven't done the numbers, but which, which I would assume, means that our two-point field goal percentage defense ended up being first in the conference in conference games. And so what we really saw was kind of a reversion back to the excellent. The two-point field goal percentage defense has been a staple. Yeah, the end field era. Since 2019-2020, it's been like among the best in the country. So what we did see was An improvement or like a reversion to the typical end field type team. So that was encouraging. And now, you know, now the attention turns toward putting this season in the review mirror and Filling these holes in the transfer portal and then on to the Big 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, onto the Big 10. I will also tell you that you know where we started a defensive or where we ended. Defensively is nowhere near where we started. Yeah, it was a rough, rough, rough trip out of the gate. You know to use a first racing parlance. Big improvement there over the last month plus.
Speaker 1:All right, shall we go to question time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just one question, and this is not snarky. This is a tough one and I'm curious where you're gonna land. So here's the background and during the windup You'll see the pitch here. Okay, clearly, the best college coach of all time Is also the best coach of the pack eight era, which is John wooden. I would say that the best coach of the Pac 10 era is Lute Olsen. I don't imagine you'll push back on that. So my question is who was the best coach of the Pac 12 era?
Speaker 1:So the Pac 12 was like 2014.
Speaker 2:No 11.
Speaker 1:2011.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say you cannot vote for your own guy. So Kevin O'Neill is not on this ballot.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's a process of elimination. It's not going to be anybody from Washington state. It's not going to be much for Stanford. It's no one from Washington, no one from UCLA, no one from Colorado, even though you know Tab was probably one of the best over that period, but no one close to the best. No one from Oregon State, no one from Utah. I think we're basically looking at Dana Altman. I would say yeah.
Speaker 2:That's where I landed too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:That was even before, you know, they took this tournament. I just yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mr. I would say Dana Altman, followed by yeah. Probably probably Andy, really, yeah, maybe I don't want to say Sean Miller, because you know. You know I'm talking about. I think longevity matters a bit right, because some of these guys haven't been around very long.
Speaker 2:I can't put you in the top three of your fan bases. Just delighted that you got fired.
Speaker 1:I just I get a point.
Speaker 2:I might go off the board here a little bit because his best work was before the Pac-12 era. But, montgomery, coming back to Cal he got that like in order really quickly.
Speaker 1:You know you're early, early on, for sure, but then he just wasn't to me. I just don't know if he's there long enough, I think. I think like there's a. I think the quality of like of both Altman and Enfield are the two, two longest turn-deared guys, I think. Right, they're the ones who've been at the school the longest right now.
Speaker 2:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a quality In that alone, right, yeah, like even though, let's say, even though McRonan has been to a final four and I think he's been a couple, I think he went to a couple of sweet 16. I think, what is this? His fifth year and he's been to a couple of 16s and a final four. That's a good five years. I don't know if that kind of five years is good enough to To just by itself be better than Enfield's full 11.
Speaker 2:Or even better than like what Tinkle did at Oregon State.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And going through this discussion I think is kind of indicative, I think, of why the conference has not quite been the same in basketball in the Pac-12 era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's sort of like this general. I think there's been this general malaise in the conference. We need Jimmy Carter to give a speech. Yes, yes, but yeah, there's been a bit of a malaise in the conference. You could see it at Cal, which used to be a really good program. Utah is kind of not what it was. Yeah, ucla is still has some success, but they're they're they're a clear notch below, like the, the best part of of the Ben Hallender. Washington had a little brief hiccup with With their coach when he came out Hopkins, when he came over first couple years, but then then, I guess, with Rome, you know, with Romar they were pretty good too. They had some stuff going on with Romar, but and then, like in the Stanford had once they lost Montgomery. They've just been been pretty awful.
Speaker 1:I can't remember who was there before Haas. I can't even remember.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, no, haas, is that, or sorry, trent Johnson?
Speaker 1:Oh right, right, right, right, right, yeah, so they had you know when they had the Lopez twins.
Speaker 2:Oh no, but that was Pac Ten era still yeah yeah. The Pac 12 era just came at a really weird time from from a hoop standpoint.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think USC is no worse than third, or Enfield is no worse than third in the Pac 12 era.
Speaker 2:Yeah, among.
Speaker 1:The coaches, just just accomplishments, and also Having long people having longevity at USC basketball is a is a great accomplishment, you know he's. He's now like I think he's. I think he's the last time someone coached longer than than any Enfield. It was Bob Boyd.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:So, and I think he's and he's closing in on Boyd.
Speaker 2:When, mathematically, his tenure, I think is is now officially to do the math real quick, I think it'd be about a thousand times longer than the Rick Majeris era also.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, One day we're going to do the. You know, I was the basketball SID when he got hired. We're allowed to do that story sometime, boy, I let a word and then you overslept and you missed.
Speaker 2:You missed the rest of it, right.
Speaker 1:I walked in. I walked in when he, when he was talking about Poole sperm. That was when. That was when I knew he wasn't long for for the job.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to that one. Yeah, wow, so Bob Boyd was at.
Speaker 1:USC for 12 years and and he's now been there 11. Bibi was there for eight years which is pretty amazing, yeah, considering. And then Ravelling was also there for for eight years, so pretty much. And then Morrison was there for for for eight years, for eight years, seven, seven years, so pretty much. Since Bob Boyd left, you had seven years, eight years a year and a half. Charlie Parker, eight years, baby, four years, floyd, four years, O'Neill, or three years and some change O'Neill, and then 11 years and field.
Speaker 1:So there had sort of been this idea that there had been each coach had some level of success in his own right. Stan Morrison was the last coach to win a Pac 10 title. George Ravelling, of course, had his little boomlet with Harold Minor and then, of course, he got into the car accident. That was the end of his era. Henry Bibi had some good things happen. Tim Floyd had some good things happen, but he couldn't sustain and got us on probation. Kevin O'Neill, of course, was a complete disaster, although he did make the tournament one year. And then you know, the most consistent guy throughout it all, through it all, has been, has been Andy Enfield.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, especially if you take out the two, the two year ramp yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean you kind of have to with that, because that's just yeah you know, taking over a dumpster fire. So all right Now. I guess that's enough for question time. Now it's on to Mark.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah three topics on Mark's mean minute. First of all, just an update to last week's mean minute. Good news Arizona's former Arizona State player, jose Perez, is fine. He actually got a professional contract. I actually saw that was originally leaked out as part of the story and then that was retracted. Just bring this up. Number one glad there's no family emergency. Number two yeah, the fact that Arizona State could not keep up with the fact that Arizona State could not keep this guy around just for for the tournament or even the UCLA game season regular season finale, I I'm I'll just say this I'm not really bullish on Arizona State and the Big 12, considering that culture and whatever NIL they do or do not have, and the absolute buzz saw that is the Big 12. That that's going to be. I don't know. That'll be kind of a good. I don't know if you'd call it a hate watch, but kind of a gore watch. Maybe you will.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to some extent it's going to be interesting with Arizona next year as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they lose. They lose everybody. I mean they lose every. You know, caleb Love, just really quick, one quick aside.
Speaker 1:Caleb Love has got to be the the worst player of the year on the that I can remember, at least. The least deserving player of the year. I mean, this is a guy. He was seven for his last 34, the last three games. Oh Jesus Right.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because he went one for 10 against USC in the first game and people were like, well, you know, can't hold him, you know can't hold him down, so he goes four for 13. Against USC, the second game. And then I think he went, I think he went two for 10 or something like that against against Oregon. So yeah, he, he was just, he was just brutal toward the end. He's just, he's just a big volume scorer. I don't understand really why. Why he was given Conference player of the year. I mean he was the leading scorer on the best team. But I think to me, I think KJ Simpson probably deserved it. Yeah, given that the buffs did make the tournament, they got to the, the conference final and he was second in the conference and scoring and and was second in assists. So to me I thought, I thought your original pick when we had our preview back in late December, early January I think that ended up being the guy that who should have won it all along. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, so I agree with you yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, so continue with your minute, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Second Second topic. Second topic I mean I could have put this in question time, but it's more of a mean question what, what, what? I and I'm pleased let's not discuss the the tournament, because I haven't looked at a bracket, so I'm, and that's the truth, so I don't know here. What, what's seating did Kansas State get in this year's tournament?
Speaker 1:They didn't make the tournament.
Speaker 2:What, what.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm confused. So we're we're supposed to fire our guy for a coach that didn't make the tournament. What am I? What am I missing here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you know the great Jerome Tang. Why not just hire me? Why not hire?
Speaker 2:a lot of the bad coach, that is, andy Enfield, right.
Speaker 1:Right, Well, we could just hire a Mac Cronin too.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, well, yeah, you kind of blew my brain with that one, my gosh.
Speaker 1:Oh man, well, you know that's too shay. To whoever thought that we should have hired Jerome Tang yeah, it's never a serious proposition, of course. No, and there was never really any seriousness to that whole whatever, that whole two or three weeks span where we had the board was sort of filled up with that. Any other mean minute topics?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know I've I've several times I've mentioned complaints about media coverage and want to want to kind of put a little twist on that. I want to pitch you on a Netflix series and just you're a little more closer to that that kind of business than I am. So Netflix series it's kind of a romantic comedy, thriller, suspense. Who done it? And you'll? You'll see that in a second here. So we have two main characters. So the first one is a huge USC basketball fan, you know. So such a big fan that you know the guy. He has his own website, he has his own podcast. Ok, um does this podcast. And he's such a big fan that you know, after, after there's just a couple of bad losses, he stops podcasting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know what happened there. So that's that's kind of the background on on. We'll just call him the Hoops website guy, ok. Ok. Then the other main character is we're calling Mr High standards and you know he loves USC as well and he's saying hey, you know, if we're serious we need to go to the final four every five years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he kind of embarrasses himself and he gets run off of one board and then he finds solace in another board with, you know, hoops board guy. But here's, here's the dynamic. That's really crazy. So Hoops board guy has to pretend that he doesn't know how absurd Mr High standards is with this final, you know final four every five years, right, and Mr High standards has to has to pretend that he doesn't know that Hoops board guy just stopped podcasting for two and a half weeks because just he gave up. So there's a lot of dynamics there, I think there. I think I think there might be the source of a good, you know, good conflicts there to make a good show. But it might just be too absurd to be real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's just ridiculous. I think that would never happen. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, I got carried away in the fictional side of it. My creative side just comes out at some times, you just sometimes you think of the craziest things.
Speaker 1:I just wish you would ground yourself in reality more.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, all right, my bad.
Speaker 1:No worries, okay, is that the final bit of your your rants Rants?
Speaker 2:That is. That is the last part for Mark's main minute. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I just want to say that we're obviously USC is not in the tournament, obviously, so it's it's. I will, of course, watch the tournament, but it's going to be less exciting. Always is less exciting when the Trojans aren't in it. We are now heading into portal season.
Speaker 1:There is a thread at USC basketball dot com which covers all the latest players from the portal. I try to post guys who I think USC might be interested in. There is recently a actually he's not in the portal but USC is looking at a junior college big 69245 pound freshman, xavier Edmonds. He plays at Salt Lake City Junior College. He's hearing from LSU, usc, ole Miss, tcu, texas A&M, byu, washington State, among other. Surprised Arkansas on that list, since they seem to offer everybody out of the portal. He averaged 14 points, 7.8 rebounds his freshman year. He's a former three star prospect, went to Bishop Montgomery High School. So if USC is looking for I saw a tape of him. He's pretty, pretty skilled guy which is the kind of the kind of guy that USC likes from there are the kind of attributes that USC likes on there from their bigs he's. I don't know how serious we are with them or if he wants to come back home or what the possibilities of him coming to SCR, but he's definitely a possibility. And then some other names in the portal that just recently went in and who USC is looking at Michael Ajai, a Pepperdine average 17 points, 10 boards, 46% from three for the waves this year. I believe he's related to the Ajai who went to Gonzaga. Nevertheless, usc is after him, as are a bunch of other schools, including Arkansas. Also, corrin Johnson of Washington is in the portal, the Pac-12 sixth man of the year average 11 points shot, 37.3% from three. Cal Poly senior. Kobe Sanders, six foot eight guard, average 19.6 points per game. And so yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, interestingly enough, the kind of couple of the repercussions of the Jared Haas firing is that Canaan Carlisle of Stanford is in the portal. He had a great freshman season on the farm average 11.5 points, shot 38.6 from the field. Not the greatest outside shooter, did pretty well from the line, had 31 against Washington State, so pretty good player. And also Andre Stojakovic, junior Is it junior? Anyway, he's in the portal. No, he's not a junior, he's his father's pageant. So yeah, he's in the portal. Former McDonald's All-American average about eight points a game with the Cardinal killed us up there in Stanford when we played him, 275 names have entered the portal. Last I checked it's going up. It's kind of a crazy time.
Speaker 1:It's weird that we're right here in the middle of the NCAA tournament and people are dealing with the portal. I wonder if the teams that are not in the tournament can sort of get a little head start on this. I wonder how much teams that are prepping for games can spend on this. Oh, another player who's in the portal is Arkansas Guard Keon Menifield. You might remember him from Washington. He made the all-pack freshman team two years ago, so another potential player.
Speaker 1:I think USC needs a big. From what Andy Enfield has said, they're going to go after a big another point guard and then another shooter, and so hopefully that will complement some of the guys they have returning. Of course, the incoming freshmen are all really good shooters and I think if you look at them as shooters, I think they're probably the best trio of shooters coming into a class this year in college basketball. Now, this is with the caveat of knowing that most great high school shooters tend to have an adjustment year when they get to college. Some of them don't. Reed Shepard is probably a better shooter to how he was in high school, but most cases you look at Bronnie James excellent three-point shooter, but has been struggling doing the freshman adjustment.
Speaker 1:So but when you bring in a lot of shooters, the chances are one of them is going to hit and be a really good shooter as a freshman. So USC has those three excellent shooters, including Trent Perry, mcdonald's All-American LA Times, southern California Player of the Year. Gatorade, california Player of the Year really on a really great trajectory right now. So it's going to be interesting to see who USC is going to add in the portal. Who else is going to leave? We just saw Kejani Wright leave. Yeah, we're going to keep a close eye on the portal and hopefully we'll have a good idea of who's staying and who's going. Any final thoughts as we close out this, this podcast, mark.
Speaker 2:No, I just again going to miss all the the awesome color commentators that we get, for we had Got to go past tense now, he said sadly, for Pac-12 hoops, and let's just hope that in the Pac-12 dispersal draft we get at least Don McClain picked up for Peacock. Whatever games are going to be forced to pay for on a game by game basis, yeah, now is this.
Speaker 1:Is this the part of the movie where it goes from black and white to Technicolor as we, as we go to the Big Ten here?
Speaker 2:I like that. Yes, although, yeah, that's another, that's another podcast. Just what to expect in the in that transition, that boy, that's a loaded topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be a. We'll probably folks will probably will not do a weekly podcast, but we'll probably move to more of a two week podcast every two week podcast and of course, as events warrant, we might do it sooner. And hopefully by by the end of spring we get a good idea of what the team looks like for next year and then we could start projecting. And I think one of the things we're going to do is talk to some old players, go back into USC history, old players and coaches who we can talk to and and just reminisce about some great USC times the past and hopefully that'll be something everyone enjoys and we can start getting fired up for that first season of the Big Ten.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:Very good, all right. Well, on behalf of Mark, thanks everyone for listening this year. This was our first season doing the Dunk City podcast. We had a great time doing it and we appreciate everyone who tuned in. Keep tuning in every every couple of weeks. We will keep you up to date on the latest in USC basketball and try to do as much as we can to up our game a bit and and bring on more players and more people who can, who can sort of shed some light on that thing. We all love USC basketball, so, without further ado, I will sign off and say fight on, mark.
Speaker 2:Fight on everyone.