Speaker 2: 0:19

Welcome to the Dunk City Podcast. The truncheon is thundering. Usc is on to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000.

Speaker 1: 0:27

All right, welcome to the Dunk City Podcast. It's been a little bit since we've had a new show. I am here with Sky Liam, who's our reporter at uscbasketballcom, covers the team when they're at Galen and just generally gives great practice reports and game reports. Sky, how's it going?

Speaker 2: 0:43

It's going great, chris, how are you?

Speaker 1: 0:51

Doing good. As you know, we were at Galen on Tuesday night when the Trojans played an exhibition opener against UT San Antonio, the first game of the Eric Musselman era. Very exciting for everyone involved. First of all, you did go to practice the previous week and I just want to get your thoughts on on first, on what you saw in practice as far as the nature of the practice, what it, what it felt like and what you thought the coaches were looking at and what they were doing, and then then we'll transition over into what we actually saw during the game.

Speaker 2: 1:21

I think a few elements that were immediately clear from the practice were that Eric Musselman is a pro coach and he is recrafting the atmosphere and aura of the program in a type of way that he wants to be seen and that he wants to be very media friendly as well as audience friendly and crowd friendly. You know, I was just overhearing other media members. We had people from 24, seven on three and a few other publications there.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Los Angeles times oh, the LA times were there, yeah, and so they were Los Angeles Times oh, the LA Times were there, yeah, and so they were just kind of trading anecdotes of past years of USC basketball, particularly last year, saying that the atmosphere was very tight. There was no photography allowed, no video allowed, they didn't really get the opportunity to speak with the coach. By contrast. I immediately asked okay, what are the filming restrictions? What can we? And I was told instantly film whatever you want, Anything is fair game, Do whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 2:33

You know, Eric Musselman came out of the tunnel. He individually greeted every single one of us media members. We could sit wherever we want, we could talk to whoever we wanted, essentially within the scope of what they were running, and it was really refreshing. And then, once we got onto the court, you know it was intense. They were already practicing.

Speaker 2: 2:52

I'm not sure exactly what time they started, but they were in full swing. They had already done all their warm-ups and they were doing this drill. You know it's a pretty elementary drill, but it's clearly something that they want to really hone in on right now, as they're getting ready for the season, which is how do we create good shots, including from numerous point guards that we have available as different options on this team. So they were doing this weaving drill and then they would drive and kick, drive and kick, try to find a lot of three-point shooters, but also they'd be finding cutters to the rim too.

Speaker 2: 3:28

And what was really cool is that when we were at the game and I noticed this from the practice is that the very first possession of the game was essentially exactly like that. Well, I think the first possession might have been a turnover, but the first score by either team was a Trojan simulation of that drill and it worked to perfection. St Thomas swished a wide-open three. They didn't take any breaks during the practice. They were completely relentless. The only breaks were when Muscleman stopped to explain something. Otherwise, everybody was 100% the entire time and I was really impressed by that.

Speaker 1: 4:04

Yeah, you know, thinking about what you were saying earlier about, uh, musclemen, you know, being being so open with practice and promoting things, and it kind of struck me that if you're going to do that, this is the year to do it, mainly because there's not a lot of expectations, right. He has sort of the luxury of not having incredible expectations for this team, right. So it's kind of all gravy. Maybe a lot of coaches like maybe that's why there's such a stark dichotomy with last year's team, because last year's team had great expectations. And when teams have great expectations, coaches tend to tighten up a bit, right, they tend to be a little more careful with what kind of exposure the team gets, right, unless if it hadn't had it already, right, so they tend to be more careful. So Musselman sort of got a bit of a leash here, because if we struggle this year, there's lots of reasons why that is.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Every new first-year coach has to have time to get their program in order. Uh, these are a lot of guys who've never played together before. Um, there's, there's just it's basically all upside as far as letting media come in. Look at the practice report on it, do much a podcast, all the stuff they're doing. There's only upside, there, there's no like. A lot of coaches will find downside to that Like, oh, we don't want distractions or blah, blah blah. But and and partially because Muss and his staff are very proactive in this, I think they they do a lot of things. That where maybe the, the players themselves don't have to do a lot of things and and it kind of takes some of the heat off of them don't have to do a lot of things and it kind of takes some of the heat off of them.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Well, one thing that's really interesting about what you just said is that this team is not going to be distracted by any kind of media coverage or whatnot. I mean, they are locked in. They are doing exactly what he wants them to do, to the best of their ability. At this point during the practice, you know, um, you would hear one of the coaches call out a play and every uh player on the court is echoing to each other. This is the play. This is the play. This is the play. Screens are being called out, shots are being called out and they made mistakes. You know, some guys didn't know the play or whatever, um, but, but they're all trying to the best of their ability at this point in their learning of the system, to do exactly what he has told them is going to lead to success.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Yeah, they look like a very well-conditioned team. They play hard and I think that's one of the things Musk promised, things uh must promised uh going into the game last night. What were your expectations based on what you'd seen in practice, and how were your expectations met based on what you saw at the game?

Speaker 2: 6:52

well, I didn't really have to be honest, like any real, um, specific expectations about what exactly they look like, because, you know, musselman would say this and he said this essentially after the practice when we did the media interviews they're still figuring out how to get good shots and that was evident in the scrimmage, you know, and he wasn't making it easy on them either. He was mixing up teams. They did four 10 minute periods, um, which is actually longer than a game would be, and he would mix up the teams every period. He was playing lots of different players at point.

Speaker 2: 7:32

You know, I think during the scrimmages we saw Thomas Claude Slackert, shelly Yates and all playing the point during various possessions, and so you know, there was a ton of effort, there were some good plays, but there was also just sometimes a little bit of confusion or just kind of like a desperation type heave or something like that, and some of which went in. But I wasn't necessarily expecting a well-oiled machine and it was really a tale of two halves in the game, because the first half, I think, kind of echoed that scrimmage, even to the substitutions, where there were tons of substitutions in the first half and the second half felt very different because he stuck a lot more with probably I'd say his top six, I think, in the rotation.

Speaker 2: 8:21

And then we saw a lot of great cuts, a lot of great shots. Even um bench guys came in like shelly or gates, they were splashing open threes and then they were able to kind of integrate into the system they were trying to run um.

Speaker 1: 8:35

So that was that was really nice to see in that second half yeah, it struck me that, um, if you, if you commit to positionless basketball and you get your players to commit to positionless basketballs, they get your players to commit to positionless basketballs.

Speaker 1: 8:47

They're not thinking about position basketball, right?

Speaker 1: 8:50

So, uh, if everyone sort of has the understanding that they have to play a little, a little bit of what is called point, which is really just, you know, being a good ball handler, initiating the play, finding the open man, doing a lot of the things that point guards do, if everyone does a little bit of it, you make up for it in volume.

Speaker 1: 9:12

But I also think that mental aspect of not thinking, oh, we don't have a point guard, is important to the success, like we've talked about this a lot in recent USC history, where it's like, since Jordan McLaughlin, usc hadn't been able to find a point guard, right, so there's obsession we don't have a point guard, we don't have a point guard, we don't have a point guard. So rather than, like you know, maybe the approach that Enfield should have taken during those years was which he kind of did a little bit right, you did see, like Drew Peterson do stuff, you know, kind of take a lot of that in the half court sets. But really, you know, I guess maybe recruiting toward that end might have been a good insurance policy. But I really think that having guys who are 20% point guard, you get five of them together you got one hole.

Speaker 2: 9:57

That's a great point. I didn't want to use the pun, but I had to. During the scrimmage, I saw every single player get a rebound and bring it up to court, and that was happening during the game. Some too. Josh Cohen brought it up to court at one point after a rebound. He brought it to about three-quarters of the way, the defense converged and he passed it off to, I think, Claude. So Musselman has said that he's not like a system guy. This is the system I run, and so he's running something this year which we don't even know exactly what it is yet as fans, but he's running something that is tailored to this roster and it is really leaning into that positionless basketball.

Speaker 1: 10:42

Yeah, let's talk about some of the guys who stood out in the game. St Thomas what's your early impressions on him? And then, how did he also look in practice?

Speaker 2: 10:51

You know it's interesting, in practice they put him at starting point every single period and he didn't do a poor job by any means, but he wasn't looking for his own shot at all and I think it's an interesting tactic, um, that he used later on some other players too where, okay, if you know there's a guy who can or will hunt for his own shot, make him do the opposite. You know, strengthen that weakness. And so he didn't really pop to me. During the practice. He splashed a few threes, you know, made a few like nice kind of mid range moves, but I I didn't come away thinking like, wow, st Thomas is the guy for this team. Now in the game, particularly in the second half, he totally took over. Yeah, I mean and.

Speaker 2: 11:39

I. At the end of the game I said all right, if I ever said anything different, I it back. Saint thomas is the guy. He was really impressive yeah, I.

Speaker 1: 11:48

I think one of the things that I've noticed is that they take good shots or they've taken good shots and they work really hard to get good shots. They don't. You don't see a lot of well there's. They play to their strengths, right. So there's no great rule. Great, like one-on-one offensive player like boogie ellis was last year, right. Guys who can, uh, just go out, beat guys, beat guys and just, you know, take a shot with a high degree of difficulty and still make it like. There's not too many of those guys, if any. So everyone knows their limitations, so everyone's like. And also, you don't want to take a bad like he's he's talked about, right. You don't want to hunt. You don't want to get hungry for scoring, right, you just want to to score when you can or when you should.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And I think that having these veterans makes a difference. I mean, it's also the fact that maybe they don't there's a lot of guys who have experienced scoring. So part of the downstream effect of having players like a Boogie Ellis or Isaiah Collier is that the other players tend to depend on them. So they're standing around a lot while that's happening. But if you don't have one of those players, but you have a lot of players who are nonetheless experienced and can score and if you can get them to like not be, you know, kind of subordinate their egos a bit, so they're not like thinking I've got to get the 19 points I scored last year or the 15 points I scored last year. If you can achieve that, then you've kind of got this available firepower that, in a pinch, is going to be opportunistic and be able to score when it really needs to.

Speaker 2: 13:23

And that's what's really interesting when we're talking about players that stood out during the game. There were several, but one was Clark Slacker, and he wasn't in any way a type of a ball-dominant player. Actually, they played him off the ball probably about just as much as they played him on the ball. But when he saw an opening he took it and he scored a couple times close to the basket. He made one or two threes, um and, and he looked really good. He looked like whatever you saw and once again this is against utsa they had. They were big, though I mean they weren't like necessarily a team. I don't know exactly how that roster would compare talent-wise to a power four roster, but he was getting into the lane just like he did in his highlights from Penn.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Yeah, there weren't too many bad shots. I think Wesley Yates might have had a bad shot in there, the king check kind of shot. Yeah, chibuzu Agbo, I think, might have had a couple bad shots. He probably shot the worst of the starters. He did shoot the worst. He was 0 for 4 from 3, 2 of 7, probably pressing a little bit but it was kind of encouraging that. I think Jalen Shelley might have taken one bad shot but he was 2 of 3. One bad shot but he was two of three.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Um, and for the most part everyone, everyone shot really well, except for uh agbo and uh of the main guys and desmond claude who started out. I think he started out over four in the first half, uh, but he finished strong. I think he was three or four finishing and he had eight of nine uh free throws so and he had 14 points, five assists. So I think that there's a maturity level there in shot selection and because of that they're getting good shots. And the guys who are taking the shots, like St Thomas, I mean, he only took eight shots and he made seven, so it's not like they have to lean on him, but it's good to know that if they need to lean on somebody that he'll be available when the time comes.

Speaker 2: 15:27

Yeah, some of the guys who missed shots, they're the guys who you'd actually expect to make those shots, so it wasn't particularly concerning because you look at the histories averages of these guys. Like Abo, he played a lot in the first half when the team was still kind of, I think, maybe getting some jitters out or maybe just finding their cohesion on the court. So he was maybe taking some late shot, clock shots or he was kind of within that context of doing multiple passes and he'd end up with the ball and take a three and it just wasn't going in. They didn't look terrible, but those are shots that you'd probably expect him to hit at a higher rate.

Speaker 1: 16:15

There weren't many bad shots, and they're also, and they also didn't pass up many good shots either. Like you see that a lot, uh, in in games where someone's got an open look at a three and they and they do the, they do the double, they do the pump or the pump fake and reset and all that. There was a a little bit of that, but not too much of that. There was a lot of that last few years at USC, I think, where some of Boogie Ellis if he didn't get it quite in his rhythm he wouldn't take that shot. I can't remember. Was it Boogie last year who wouldn't shoot threes? Who was the guy who wouldn't shoot threes on the team last year? There was a guy who just refused. Oh yeah, sellers. So Isaiah Sellers.

Speaker 2: 16:58

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Yeah, this guy. There was a point where his refusal to take threes I think actually hurt the team at one point. Right, yeah yeah, definitely. Yeah, so we didn't see any of that, so that was good.

Speaker 2: 17:12

No, everyone is bought into, like you said, this positionless basketball. I don't think. And even St Thomas, who I think is very talented, he's not going out there saying, well, I'm going to take every shot, I'm going to be the number one option. He'll be the option if he has the shot there. And he had the shot there a lot of of time and he scored on fast breaks too. He scored, you know, late clock situations when he had to be that guy. But he scored and he was wide open and he, you know, passed the ball around too.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Yeah, and it looks to me like St Thomas is probably going to be the guy they really need to lean on when everybody's not shooting. Well, but they do have a lot of guys who you said when referring to um, the, uh, the, the pope game. What's pope's first name again? Oh, bryce pope, oh, bryce pope. Yeah, you said that in your report that there will be. There will be a bryce pope game one day. Um, and that's probably true. Um, and, and I think that's it's nice to have, and I think that someone like St Thomas, it'll be interesting to see if you know what kind of game he can put up when he's got like high volume shooting, unlike this game, even though he was like super efficient, it's almost impossible, it's almost like it doesn't. Even just in the short period of time that I've seen him, it doesn't seem like he would have a game, like he wouldn't shoot 25 shots if he only made eight. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 18:43

I don't see him shooting 25 shots period. No, that's what I mean.

Speaker 1: 18:47

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like he like if he wasn't shooting, well, I feel like he he's not like a guy who you know he's going to force the issue Right as much. I feel like he's like, if he's not shooting, well, that it's just not going to be him that day.

Speaker 2: 19:02

You know, in all the interviews I've seen, the interactions that I've had, he seems like a really nice guy and and he's happy to be here. That's a really nice thing too. Everybody's happy to be a USC's a really nice thing too. Uh, everybody's happy to be at usc and and they all want to succeed together. I mean this culture that they're building is it shows on the court, it does um shows in the communication too, and and the style of play you know, and like matt noling was kind of I think when he was was signed, people were kind of like oh yeah, who's this guy?

Speaker 1: 19:35

Not me. I was like that guy's going to be the glue guy.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Because you know USC basketball. But Musselman praises him to the other players, saying this is how we want to play. And Matt Noling had five assists. Yeah, I think he was yeah, he was four or four from the floor what's better having?

Speaker 1: 19:55

hey, that rhymes too. What's better having, um, having uh, two guys who are like like desmond claude and matt noling combining for 10 assists, or do you want like a single point guard getting like five assists a game? You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 20:11

Like yeah, that's a good point and that, but that's what.

Speaker 1: 20:13

That's what he's talking about, which making up, making up for deficiencies, um, through volume and through other positions and stuff like that. So very encouraging result. Uh, usc plays gonzaga I think was it october 25th over in Palm Springs. I think. Is that right? Does that sound right?

Speaker 2: 20:36

It's either 25th is Friday, I think it's 26 then.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Oh yeah, it is October 26th. So Saturday, october 26th, 5 pm at Acre Jura Arena in Palm Desert. That will also be on Big Plus. We're not going to make it to that one, but we will be out for the November opener against Chattanooga. Seems like a great. I mean the schedule is set up nice, because you have a softer exhibition, then you have a more challenging exhibition. You can kind of take your temperature and see where you're at, and then and then the. The preseason schedule is not particularly challenging, which is good, because the Big Ten is particularly challenging this year, and so there's no issues with strength of schedule. And you get another bunch of games against Chattanooga, idaho State, ut Arlington, so on and so forth, and then teams that might be decent like Cal and St Mary's and ASU they get sprinkled in there a bit. So given that you've got an entirely new team that you're just learning to play together, it's like a good slate to get everybody ready for Big Ten. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 21:51

I totally agree. I think last year Enfield even said that they probably played too many difficult neutral court games. When you're when you're integrating some big new pieces in and for this team, you're integrating everybody who's completely new to each other. And one thing that was a little bit different from the scrimmage to the game was that, as I mentioned earlier, during the scrimmage everybody was talking, constant talking. I mean, I'd never heard so much talking related to the game on the court. But during the exhibition game, particularly in that first half, there was less talking and I don't know if we just couldn't hear it or I think they were really just honed in on kind of you know the mechanics of the game and there was some. There was not only less talking, but the coaches were yelling their heads off.

Speaker 2: 22:50

And I didn't think the players could always hear them, because you're in an arena with fans.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Or maybe we couldn't hear it and they could.

Speaker 2: 22:56

Maybe they could, um, but I think there was that element where you know eric musselman prefers exhibitions to secret scrimmages, because the secret scrimmage is just going to be an extension of practice. Basically, this is a simulation of a real game. So I think, ramping up to the gonzaga game and then bringing it back down, saying okay, if that game doesn't go, you know, as rosily as people hope, then we go back, we open against Chattanooga. You know we are able to develop those skills that that they're working on, and then, like you said, ramp that up for big 10 play.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Yeah Well, it was definitely a fun night and Galen got to meet Matt 4SC, who's on our board. He recognized my voice from the podcast, which was kind of fun. Lots of MustBusUSCBasketballcom shirts in the house. If I say lots, I mean that Probably the highest percentage of total capacity of MustBus shirts that we'll have all year, because there was probably 300 people there and five of them were wearing must-bust shirts. One out of 60 is probably the best we'll get, but it was cool.

Speaker 1: 24:08

Talked to Danielle Musselman briefly. She loves the shirts as well. All you guys listening to this, you should go get must-bust shirts. Go to uscbasketballcom, endorsed personally by the coaching staff. They all wear the shirt. If you go, look in. You might see the video of uh musselman's pre-game speech. Uh, before the game, anthony ruda is wearing a must bus shirt by uscbasketballcom. So go, don't be left out. Uh, go get the shirt, show up, show up at galen, we can all point each other out and and uh and bond, so it'll be great. Um, and I think uh, we'll have another podcast after the Gonzaga game. Does that sound good to you, sky? Yeah Well, very good. And also we'll have our uh other co-host, mark Backstrom. We'll be back in town at some point. He's off to Japan with his lovely wife and we will come back sometime after Gonzaga and talk about that and also start looking forward to the season on November 4th. Anything else you want to add, sky?

Speaker 2: 25:12

I got a lot more excited for the season after watching this exhibition game.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Well, all right. Well, everyone who's not been paying attention to basketball, it's time to get going. You know, like Mus said in the video in the pregame speech, you know the team spent a lot of time on the beach in the summer together hanging out, doing stuff, and so he brought in a beach chair and a towel and a straw hat and he sat in the chair in the locker room and he said this is the last time. I'm going to do it until April, because it's business time and they all got fired up so great video and that's exactly what it is with usdbasketballcom.

Speaker 1: 25:51

We're getting to business time and thanks for listening to the show. Be sure to follow us, subscribe, like, review, tell your friends the podcast of record for USC basketball. We appreciate your support and Sky, we will see you next time Sounds good. Fight on Fight on anymore I'm so good now you.