Speaker 1: 0:27

Welcome back to the Dunk City Podcast brought to you by uscbasketballcom. I am Chris Houston, here with Mark Backstrom and Sky Liam. We are coming off of another two games in Galen this past week, in game one, usc defeated. Who did they defeat? They defeated UT Arlington 98-95. And then, on Sunday, usc versus California, the Trojans suffered their first loss of the season. The first loss of the Eric Musselman era 71-66 was the loss to Cal.

Speaker 1: 1:04

I would say that in that game we saw the downside of the structure of the roster. We saw, in some of the early games and the exhibitions, the plus sides of those things, for sure. And there's always different sides of the ledger, different sides of the ledger, and so, um, uh, I think USC has in this coming week, uh, I wouldn't call them, uh, you know, pushovers necessarily, because it's college basketball but San Jose state and Grambling, another Wednesday, sunday week, uh, and then onto the Acquisher classic uh, around Thanksgiving. So, uh, I will ask to you, gentlemen, you can decide who goes first, based on what you've seen in the first four games of this season. Is this USC team a tournament team? Go, mark.

Speaker 3: 1:58

Me. Okay. Four data points is too few, I'm going to say, to be determined. I think I'm going to give Musselman the benefit of the doubt. He's obviously a really good coach. I think it's time where he needs to kind of counterpunch and game plan against the adjustments that he's seen.

Speaker 3: 2:18

It was pretty clear after game one that you know the way that this defense can be had is basically just breaking down, uh, you know, breaking down the defense via penetration, and that's gotten more and more extreme.

Speaker 3: 2:33

Um, that's a concern and I don't know what the quick fix to that is or if there is a quick fix.

Speaker 3: 2:40

The other thing I just, without getting too far ahead, just I don't want to read too much into losing to Cal and we can get into that game later. I will just say that you think about, if you think about the rosters like a spectrum, our roster construction is very central, heavy, with, you said, a lot of interchangeable, as we all know, between basically like 6'5 and 6'7. And Cal seems almost the opposite in that they're kind of disparate. They're like a barbell. They have a lot of small fast guards and two just giant lugs in the middle that can just have their way and they're good, but they're not super talented. I think that kind of roster construction is the absolute worst matchup for us. I'm not an X's and O's guys, but it was clear that, boy, they could have their way getting to the basket and in the paint. So that's my first takeaway, and I have to see basically how many teams like that we're going to encounter in the Big Ten before I really know if this is a tournament team or not.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Right Sky.

Speaker 2: 3:40

You know, I kind of feel like, in some ways, the more I watch this team, the less I know. I mean, you have stuff like Abo, that cal game, where usc really was not able to stop cal at all defensively. Then you have the last like seven minutes or so and they completely locked cal down. But the issue then was that they couldn't hit a shot. St thomas actually said it was like pretty much turned into a game of horse and they just lost because they weren't hitting shots, it's.

Speaker 2: 4:28

You know, I was not like a follower of Muscleman before he came to USC. I heard of him, I heard about his successes and whatnot, but from what I have read, his teams tend to gel later in the season. His teams tend to gel later in the season. That's something that also has been said of Nick Cronin, for instance, another defensive-minded coach. So I think there are going to be some lumps to be taken in this non-conference. And Cal also and the guy said this in the press conference last night that was like the best team they've played so far. If you're going to lose to someone out of these first four games, right, that's kind of the loss that you could have foreseen.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Cal's not a bad team, except for Gonzaga, if you want to count that.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Except for Gonzaga right, and contrary to what some people might say, gonzaga was definitely trying to win that game. Almost everybody tries to win Now, secret scrimmages. I don't know if they try to win Exhibitions, they try to win For sure. And yeah, usc, but as also, like Claude pointed out, he's like you know we didn't stop Gonzaga either. We scored more than them. And that's why they said we're not worried about the offensive shortcomings last night. That's not our issue.

Speaker 1: 5:45

Yes, it all makes sense. Yes, and the way I look at it is that you can't really. I think I would lean more to what you're saying, sky, in the sense that we still don't have a clear picture, because even after four games, it's only Terrence Williams is he's only two games in right, and Matt Noling missed the previous two Right and and like so he, he didn't, and then, and then Jalen Shelley has is missing games Right. So there are some pieces that might've potentially helped us in this game or or a couple of previous games, had they been part of the mix all along. And that's you know.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Obviously, injuries are part of basketball, a part of sports, and you can't, like you know, write in that you're going to automatically be healthy with everyone all the way through. Nonetheless, I think that it's reasonable to assume that when you have a team filled with players who are playing together for the first time, that injuries, where they exist, do have an outsized impact compared to other teams that might be together longer, right? So I think this is sort of um. I think this is the, this is what has produced this kind of like inexact um result where we don't really know for sure which direction it's going.

Speaker 2: 7:06

And one thing to your point, of teams that have been together longer versus not. Not only has no one been together on this team ever, no one has been with this coach ever, and one small thing that was pointed out by the players last night after the game was everybody's coming not only from different systems, which is you know when, when crunch time happens, you tend to revert to like what your reflex is and so that the different systems have already been pounded into these guys and takes a lot of work together to overcome that. But even the terminology is different. You know, if someone's shouting you to do this, that might not be your reflex. Now you can learn to adapt and overcome that, but that's not going to come instantly and the communication is still like an ongoing process with this team.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Mark, you're muted.

Speaker 3: 8:04

Sorry, To that point I really wonder. I made this point last week. I've been surprised about how Muscleman does not call a lot of timeouts, and I'm wondering how much that plays into this too, where I might actually want a little bit of overcoaching just to make sure that people kind of understand that this isn't the time to revert to habits of two years ago, but rather this is kind of the new way that things are supposed to be done.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Yeah, yeah, we talked about this over the summer with some of the coaches. I asked them how much of a factor are old habits? You've got old players and that's good, but old players also have old habits, so there is to some extent going to be some reversion. In situations like that, I think there's a side to look at it and say we are actually doing better than maybe we should be doing, given all the players that are kind of being thrust together for the first time, plus the injuries we've had so far. So maybe I mean it wasn't like USC certainly could have won the Cal game, certainly could have lost some of the games previously, but I do think that overall they're playing pretty well together and I think that it's just going to be up to Muscleman to find ways to scheme around their limitations.

Speaker 2: 9:22

And speaking of old habits, players you kind of want them to let go of the old habits, right, but coaches, you also want them to be letting go of the old habits. And that was really interesting to watch Muscleman in this game and after the game, because his big reputation, right, is like kind of a hothead and he so one of the media members. I don't know if you can hear the questions, uh, on the video, but one of the media members.

Speaker 2: 9:52

Just like straight up asked him because muscleman has said before one of his phrases is put an address on it. If don't tell the team like guys, we got a rebound, tell like so and so you need to rebound, and he'll like, he'll put an address on it and be direct with that person. One of the media members said hey, so is there anybody you want to call out after this game? Which players? And Musk said I'm not going to do that in the media, maybe that works for NBA guys, but we're going to talk to our guys directly. So that was really big. And then the fact that he admitted they have started practicing zone defense. They practiced it this week. They put it in the game and he said they put it in for a play. Cal hit a three, so they went away from it.

Speaker 2: 10:35

Maybe they're probably not polished enough at it yet, but he's not going to die on this hill of not playing zone potentially. They're exploring that, which I think is pretty encouraging.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Yeah, well, I mean, could it be that that he is like, just like anybody else, growing, you know, growing as a coach, trying new things? He is, maybe for the first time, in a geographically ideal position for him and he wants to, you know, be in the position for a while, and maybe he wants to put more care into it. Uh, for whatever reason, that could be a possibility. Um, you know, uh, the other thing is, is that sometimes, when you are, uh, you have the reputation as a tyrant? Uh, you can, by not exercising it, exercising that power, but just holding it, keeping your powder dry. Sometimes it has a lot of power in and of itself because everyone's waiting for it to explode and maybe, just like you know, not exploding for a while, because it's just, you know, he can still kind of, you know, use that fear of the explosion in his favor. So that's what I was thinking. Yeah, so okay. So I think we're sort of indetermined yet what this team is all about. I think, like Sky referenced, it looks like Musselman is not afraid to try new things. Looks like he's obviously has always been against the zone, but now it looks like he said, like you said, looks like he's going to consider it at least, and it looks like we said, like you said, it looks like he's going to consider it at least and and it looks like we could see some some lineup changes.

Speaker 1: 12:09

I think everyone's talking about Abo probably being the one on the chopping block. I will say that he struggled a lot last night on both sides of the ball and he hasn't, you know, he has struggled shooting from beyond the arc to start the season. He's six of 22,. But I will say that that's not a still. I mean it's not a ton of, it's not a ton of. You know data right there. I mean he is a career 40% shooter from three. If he goes four for four of the next game, then suddenly he's his average looks a lot more respectable. So, if not Abo, who do you think might be reshuffled in the coming games as far as lineups go?

Speaker 2: 12:57

I see Cohen as kind of a situational starter. I mean, the guy's great on offense. He has such an unorthodox touch around the basket and so far in these few games, including the exhibitions, we haven't really seen anybody slow that down. But he really doesn't seem like he has the foot speed to switch on defense, which is such a big thing in modern basketball. I think he's not that bad in the post. He's kind of just average. But yeah, I think that's been kind of an issue. So I don't think that means he's not a starter, I think he's a situational starter.

Speaker 1: 13:47

And Muscleman rides the hot. He'll start some games and then, and then maybe some other games then ag or maybe.

Speaker 2: 13:54

Maybe muscleman's gonna ride more with this like small lineup and for all of uh abo's struggles, I actually thought he did a really good job defending the post at the end of the game I agree with that. Nothing really yeah, they didn't really get any dunks or anything over the last like five minutes. They barely got anything. In fact, they've missed several layups.

Speaker 1: 14:15

The whole unit played well defensively down the stretch, like you referenced, and you know it shows they're capable of playing really good defense when they really clamp down, but usually what happens is that I think it hurts their offense, their offense a lot too. So, uh, just the expenditure of energy, um, so why don't we get to some numbers, and that's, that means Mark and Buck metrics? Can you give us a recap of the last two games? Uh, what you saw, uh, from your, from your advanced analytics?

Speaker 3: 14:51

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, first the the the UT Arlington game. Um, we actually were very fortunate not that this is breaking news Um, very fortunate to win that game. Actually, arlington was more efficient than us barely BPO of 62.6, which is alarming. Last year we struggled on defense and our defensive BPO was in the very high 40s, so 62.6 is just frightening. Clearly not the first to say this team hasn't defensive issues to straighten out. But my gosh, that yeah, yes. Do you need some more sewer rats on defense? Is that what you're telling me here?

Speaker 1: 15:38

Sorry, I just, I was just showing it to sky, I didn't mean to distract you. Oh okay, sorry, no worries.

Speaker 3: 15:45

So the defense you know we need some rat from the sewer rat, I guess, if you will, on the defensive end. You know we need some rat from the sewer rat, I guess, if you will. On the defensive end. You know Abo's been catching a lot of I don't want to say heat, but you know some questions about his performance, rightfully so. You know his last three games, bpo of 36.6, 26.2, and 20.7. If he's doing fine on defense and that's great, just his usage needs to go down and it has.

Speaker 3: 16:14

Um, the thing that really is kind of, you know, I guess kind of breaking news to me is last couple games st thomas has been pretty inefficient. Uh, bpo 44.1 against arlington and 36.9, which is fine. He needs to play through it because a player like him is going to have up and down. But the problem that I'm having is he had the second most usage against Darlington and he had the most usage along with Claude against Cal. I know you need to play through that but at the same time, boy, you know Claude has just been I don't want to say unstoppable, but let's just say a force of nature these last few games just being able to do what he wants. I'd like to see, boy. I don't know if you can say I want more Desmond Claude, because it's become at times kind of the Desmond Claude show. But we need to find other focuses of offense until Thomas kind of gets himself straight. Who knows if it's the mask or not.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Yeah, you know that that's the flip side of the complaint that USC has difficulty with with small guards and quick guards is that on the flip side, desmond Claude is able to basically back a lot of these guys down or take them off the dribble and and and use his length to kind of like create space and get up there and go through through contact. So that's kind of the flip side of those kind of lineups that we'll be facing. There's some aspect of that which will benefit us as well and the question is how much benefit do we get out of that versus how much benefit we give?

Speaker 3: 17:46

up right, yeah. The other thing, going back to the numbers, that sticks out to me is, once again, yeah. And the other thing going back to the numbers that sticks out to me is, once again, rashawn Agee with the perfect plus game, a BP over 100, doesn't turn the ball over, makes a three-pointer. I made the point, kind of my summation, before the season was he was probably used too much at Bowling Green and I thought if he was used less he'd be a lot more efficient. He's kind of broken the meter on that, in that he's had these games that make Mike bend in terms of the numbers. I don't know if I'd necessarily need him used more when he's on the court, but I think more minutes would be beneficial to that regard too.

Speaker 3: 18:26

The other thing as outstanding as Williams has been the last couple games. The other thing you know, as outstanding as Williams has been the last couple games only 14 opportunities, literally only two-thirds of what Thomas had First game against Arlington, first game back. I can see that being the case. That's fine. Only six opportunities, less than 30% of what Thomas and Claude had in the last game. For a guy that's been that efficient I need. I need more stuff running through him. Now, the drawback of that is, you know, is he only this efficient? Because he's? You know he's not having everything run through him.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I don't know, but at this point, I'd kind of like to find out, yeah, you know. Yeah, I think I think that again, as the season goes along, some of these things will kind of work themselves out, because it'll be fairly obvious, as guys get more usage, like just what their proper usage is. You know.

Speaker 2: 19:20

So if you guys remember, when Isaiah Mobley got his nose broken, I think it was in 22, his shot was off for a while and he kind of regained it towards the very end of the season. But I really think Thomas is going through this process, I mean the only game that we saw him without a broken nose. He was incredible, right. It was like 20 minutes, 20 points.

Speaker 1: 19:57

That's a great point, Sky been think. I've been watching him play and he does. He look sluggish out there. I don't. It's like. I don't know if he's like tentative.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Yeah, this is what happened at um the game versus arlington. He started with the mask on and and I was watching I went back and watched a little bit from, like I think it was chattanooga. Um, when he had the mask on and you know he was getting a lot of rebounds, mixing it up against arlington, he started with the mask, he missed a few shots, got really frustrated and took the mask off and then he immediately got hit in the nose again. Now I don't know if it was rebroken or what, but he had to. They put gauze in his nose again. Um, it was like immediately, like a couple plays after, he took the mask.

Speaker 3: 20:39

He's going for a rebound wow.

Speaker 2: 20:41

And and then I noticed like he was not driving to the hoop with full force and it as people you know, as someone who's played sports, when you're afraid, like you might have the power and the speed to go in there, but if you're afraid that you use all your speed and get hurt, what you do is you use about 60% of your speed and then you back off and try to bait the other person and try to get crafty and make something out of nothing.

Speaker 2: 21:16

Basically, and that's kind of what it looks like to me now, like he's kind of doing a lot of posting up, he's kind of doing a lot of shot fakes and stuff to get his shot off, instead of being able to slide in and do what he wants to do. Because I mean, listen, the guy has, he's playing with a broken nose and it messes up your equilibrium and everything like that too. So I don't know how long that takes to get over. Maybe another month?

Speaker 1: 21:43

That's a really great point because I had, for all I had already forgotten we're only four games into the season and there's been a couple and there were a couple exhibition. But I had already forgotten we're only four games into the season and there were a couple exhibitions but I had already forgotten how different kind of St Thomas' game was. Before he broke his nose he was able to get to his shot pretty much whenever he wanted to. He was able to create his shot whenever he had a little bit more. He felt quicker, more aggressive.

Speaker 2: 22:10

He wasn't tentative, as you said so he was going to the rim a lot more too went to the rim a lot more so.

Speaker 1: 22:15

So just chalk that up as another uh x factor that so far, maybe um, as he improves, gets, gets himself back together, and I like his attitude. I gotta think that he's gonna be one of those guys who is not gonna go into the hole. He just you can just. He looks like a you know an alpha dog out that. He's going to be one of those guys who is not going to go into the hole. He just you can just he looks like you know an alpha dog out there. He just he's just one of these guys. He's going to who he's not going to dog it that's for sure.

Speaker 2: 22:40

I actually asked him last night in the press conference what changes in your preparation after a loss like this. Do you get more shots up, do you focus on a different team dynamic? And he said nothing in our preparation changes. The most important thing is to keep everyone together, to make sure everyone is still on the same page and you know, him and Claude really are the like the leaders the de facto leaders on this team Seems like it, yeah, and they were really steadfast in that, so that was encouraging.

Speaker 1: 23:13

Yeah, mark, some more numbers from you, if you have them.

Speaker 3: 23:18

Yeah, one other thing, and this is not the best number to pass along, but it's amazing. Jaden Wells from UTA just torched us. His Buscar of 9.4 is the highest I can remember seeing in a single game, except for that famous reese dixon waters game at ucla right where he basically had almost all of the seasons buscar in one game. Um, god bless him for that, but um, I've just, that was just just ownership, that was just another level. That was. That was the most frustrating win.

Speaker 1: 23:49

I can remember quite some time that was the most frustrating win I can remember in quite some time. Frustrating win absolutely. I mean when he got going they just couldn't like and it's weird, because he kept getting space, you know, coming off screens and stuff and with USC's length we still couldn't get out there, we still couldn't close out on him in time.

Speaker 2: 24:11

It was amazing. Yeah, he really went supernova in the first half and then he was a little bit quieter in the second half and muslim and said you know that the issue then was we focused on him a lot more, took things away from him, but then the other guy started to hurt us and everyone around him was making threes. And I saw the same thing last night against cal in the first half, black sheer playing very well. In the second half, what actually was, you know, worrying to me, stojakovic was getting to the rim at will I mean there was no stopping him.

Speaker 2: 24:47

He had like at least three layups just driving to the hoop and I think you know, maybe the scout was like take away his shot because of his dad or something. I'm just spitballing here, but man, he really was getting past his defender.

Speaker 1: 25:02

Absolutely. You know, mark, last week on our last podcast you and I talked about Cal and I broke down Cal's roster and it pretty much the game as far as, like the talent wise went pretty much how I thought it would go, because Blackshire, I thought, was was. I watched two full Cal games before before that game and I and this guy was clearly a standout going to be very difficult and and he's got great range as well. And then you know, stojakovic is obviously a rapidly improving player. He's still kind of a defensive liability.

Speaker 1: 25:36

He did make a great defensive play down the stretch, but I still think most of the time when those bigs were being effective against us, they just were able to establish position was like the biggest thing. Right, they? They weren't like major offensive threats, Uh, but as long as long as they had the position because of their size, they were able to do things. But but I thought the game pretty much turned out the way I thought it would, except for the fact that I thought USC would win it, which was a reasonable conclusion because it could have gone either way.

Speaker 3: 26:12

Yeah, you know. Going back to your question to to start off the podcast, when you mentioned Blackshirt and Jaden Wells, I think I wanted to make a snarky remark and say, well, if we were in the WAC conference we would not have a chance, because those are two guards that were in the WAC last season. They both just lit us up. I don't even know how that works, they both, you know, they're both playing tougher competition and they just they just just lit us up. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know what it is in whack water or what just you get these 510 guys that are just speedy gonzalez with players are everywhere man it's like there are guys everywhere and on a given night they can go off and it's just, it's uh, it's tons of players.

Speaker 1: 26:48

You can shake a tree and get guys like that and uh, it's um pretty amazing. Okay, so usc is now three and one on the year. Let's go to a question from the message board from uh the great matt b4sc. He wants to know what should we do with chibuzo abo? We did talk about that a little bit. Uh, he did say also we are really just a small ball team now. Josh barely played in the game and we will consistently be playing teams with legitimate centers. Are Josh and Rashad Agee really incapable of playing against quality centers? So let's pose that question. I guess the question is I think maybe, if we kind of rephrase it is like how can we get through the season with our two bigs? I mean, obviously we have to, but can we get through it and be successful with our two bigs? Go ahead, sky.

Speaker 2: 27:41

So I actually was. I stayed in the press room a little bit longer last night working on the videos of the, the coaches and the players, and then when I came out, uh, abo was in the hall, you know having it was not a private conversation necessarily. Uh, he was talking to us, some support staff member who I I couldn't identify, but I've seen him around and uh, you know, listen, when players are transferring all around the country and stuff, and they're, they're humans, they're, they're young guys.

Speaker 2: 28:17

I think there's a lot of you know, personal things could be going on with some of these players too, and they all really want to do their best and they're all trying really hard. But there are factors, I think, in some of these people's lives that, just like you know, you have to navigate that stuff as well as navigate what's going on on the court too, and Muscleman alluded to, you know, shaking up the starting lineup potentially. Sometimes guys do better when they come off the bench. I don't know exactly what we'll see. I do think he's going to make some big plays. He was the leading scorer in one of the games earlier first game, I think.

Speaker 2: 28:54

Yeah, you know maybe, maybe he's putting too much pressure on himself with everything going on yeah, it's still pretty early. Yeah, it's still very early I mean drew peterson, I think it was. Also I don't know if it was 21 or 22 he didn't make a three, a single three for like the first five or six games.

Speaker 1: 29:10

Yeah, I think I remember that. Yeah, and then he finished like almost at 40% or 30. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so plenty of time in the season. Uh, these, this is. You know you get a larger depth sample size and you know good shooters tend to shoot well over those that time period. Uh, mark your thoughts.

Speaker 3: 29:26

Yeah, um, the, the, the precept. First of all, just shout out to, to matt, matt, before sc. I mean, my god, the guy lives in reason as much as the three of us do so much love to him. Um, I want to just just push back a little bit on the concept of our two bigs. Um, I see, if I just look at the offensive productivity, I see a lot of a lot of offensive efficiency and productivity between Claude, I'm just going to have faith in St Thomas and let it, let it, you know he's. I think you, you cannot remove him.

Speaker 3: 30:00

St Thomas, terrence Williams, between Nolan and I might make a deal with the devil on Wesley Yates. Yates is, you know he needs to work through his decision-making. He's not the best with the ball so far, but I would just say look, you have the athleticism to guard other guards that we lack elsewhere. Do it on that end and you can play time. The other thing I would do is you know, remember in the off season I think it was Coach Roy said Kevin Patton could be the best defensive player on the team. I think about starting him. Um, I think that he is the rim protector, ish, rim protector, light, if you will and I look at spots, starting him um kind of where I would go in terms of maybe the lineups I would look at, maybe not necessarily to start, but the bulk of the minutes is is maybe how I'd want to see that.

Speaker 1: 30:53

Well, uh, I was going to say something else, but I want to talk about that last point because you could if, in theory, if you were doing a zone, then you put him at the top of that zone, right, oh my God, and with his length he'd be a guy who would be a problem in a zone. So you help really disrupt Teams, got a really good zone offense against someone with that length in there. What were we talking about? What was the question before that?

Speaker 2: 31:21

Talking about the starting lineup, talking about the centers, I think I have seen a lot of improvement from ag um yeah over the, the first few games, you know the first couple exhibitions.

Speaker 2: 31:35

I mentioned this that he he had like two turnovers and two or three games in a row and it was like weird turnovers where he was like passing it to the other team and stuff. He completely, completely cut that out. You know, he tried to do like against Arlington. He tried to do a post-up and hook shot and he got yanked immediately after that. I don't think that's really his game and well, as Mark said, with the numbers, he played kind of totally within himself in this game and I think he deserves more because I think he's rapidly improving.

Speaker 3: 32:10

I would. I just when you said that. I kind of think we need to really think of him more as a four than a five. Does that seem fair? I think he's kind of getting typecast to a five because it's like, please somebody rebound.

Speaker 1: 32:22

Yeah, he's a good rebounder. He does. I think he rebounds pretty well Not last night though.

Speaker 1: 32:26

No, you're right, he was not good last night, but he has not been very aggressive, especially last night on the boards. But I think if you actually look at each one of these players and we've talked about how much scoring they bring most guys who are really good scorers are not that much focused on defense. So it could be that that must was thinking okay, in my first season, no one, there's not great expectations, let's get a bunch of scores and have some fun. Well, you know what I mean, like and and let's and let's, and some of them let's. And we got a few guys who were like you know, we know can, can and let's, and some of them let's. And we got a few guys who were like you know, we know can, can, can move around, let's see if we can get these guys to defend.

Speaker 1: 33:12

But maybe they're thinking, ok, maybe this guy is not, doesn't have the greatest lateral movement, but he, but he can't shoot Right. So that's kind of and they got, he's got length. So I think maybe there's just like. This is sort of like how they've chosen to ride and they've got to talk. You know, when you give up 95 points or whatever, you got to talk about defense, and especially your defensive coach, for the most part. But for a guy who's a defensive coach, he sure did get Thomas certainly is, is, is um, can, can defend, I think. But what keeps him from being a plus defender is the fact that that he's such a good offensive player, and it's very rare you're going to find someone who's who's a great offensive player and a great defensive player. Usually there's in the college game there's.

Speaker 2: 34:07

There's usually some some give or take there. Go ahead, sky. You know, uh, I was at this uh q a a long time ago um, I'm gonna speak the unspeakable name. It was with kevin o'neill and he, he was a, a good defensive coach, you know. Sure he was, he was, and he I, he and he answers some questions from some 40-something kind of fan. He was like I could get you to be a good defender. I can pick five guys out of this audience and make you guys good defenders, and maybe that was kind of Muscleman's idea and look, he may be right, but it does take time.

Speaker 2: 34:49

I kind of got the feeling, watching last night, similar to what you said, chris. Maybe some of these guys are not used to defending for 40 minutes Because sometimes it does feel like they have a few possessions of absolutely stifling defense. They force a shot clock violation and then the defense gets broken down a little bit. A few possessions of absolutely stifling defense, you know they force a shot clock violation and then they kind of the defense gets broken down a little bit and the coverage looks a little bit looser and then they tighten back up again.

Speaker 1: 35:16

Yeah Well, think about it in the terms of of of St Thomas being Northern Colorado. He's the man over there, right, and he's got four guys around him to play defense. You didn't have to play defense that much, probably you know. And look at Clark Slacker or you know whoever. Whoever, it is right. Josh Cohen, right, he was probably not the defensive stalwart of his team, he was probably the guy they depended upon to do the stuff he does. So. So you're looking at a lot of guys from from a, from a, a emphasis standpoint. They're not used to emphasizing defense.

Speaker 1: 35:49

Now, here's the thing I don't think while while the, while the defensive numbers don't look great in the four games, the first three games didn't look great. In the fourth game we didn't give a lot of points and because we played well enough in stretches to to really keep the opposing team from scoring a lot. But there's like they're not getting like guards are blowing by because we have bigger guards and they're smaller. It doesn't necessarily mean that, like, because a guy blew by Desmond Claude that Desmond Claude can't defend, right, desmond claude could probably defend a 6-5 guy pretty well, right, and so it's just. That's just.

Speaker 1: 36:36

It's not a matter of like his ability, it's just that. It's just that it takes someone with freakish ability at 6-5 to be able to guard a 5-10 guard, you know, going going around the corner right and so, and so what we're seeing is not necessarily like bad defense right. We're just seeing, like you know, we're being taken advantage of in mismatches, which is different than bad defense right, and because the bad defense part, like the team defense part, is the part that will develop as they play together more, so that can improve. But from a physical standpoint there's not many like there. There are absolutely individual cases of guys like taking bad angles or or or not not helping, or not switching properly, absolutely, but for the most part, from the physical part of like giving effort, there's not a whole lot of dogging going on from what I can tell.

Speaker 2: 37:34

Yeah, I don't think it's an effort issue like I wouldn't. I wouldn't uh say any of these guys are not giving full effort, I think. I think, like you said earlier, it's a habit thing, because how tall is stojakovic? He's a good like six, six, six, seven. Right, he was blown by guys well he's also he's.

Speaker 1: 37:44

He's no slouch, I mean. He mean he was a five-star recruit. He is. You know, he's got a lineage. He is obviously physically he's not like a physical phenom, but he is a pure basketball player, you know what I mean. He's going to blow by a lot of guys in his career. So that's like. You know they're partially true, yes, but partially he's also pretty damn good, is kind of the other part of it. You know they're partially true, yes, but partially he's also pretty damn good, is kind of the other part of it. You know is how I see it.

Speaker 3: 38:12

One other thing to your point about, I think, just almost a, uh, a complicating or exponential factor too. That is just not to pick on him, but just Cohen as an example. Okay yeah, he wasn't dependent on likely to be the defensive stalwart you have to. You're looking at more defense and the consequences are higher. Now I mean not to pick on anybody, but you guys, you have guys coming from the big sky, from the atlantic 10, uh, two guys from, um, uh, the ivy league, a guy from the mac. It's a lot different to miss an assignment at that level.

Speaker 3: 38:45

Then you, you know, cal is not awesome but Cal is much better than the team I saw last year and they have guys that can make you pay. It's just it's, it's. You know, I think there's a little bit of culture shock about oh, 40 minutes of hell is 40 minutes of hell, it's not it's not just a 10 seconds at a time, and USC didn't play that well last night and could have won pretty easily. I mean, could have won the game.

Speaker 1: 39:09

You know it wasn't like, it wasn't an embarrassing performance.

Speaker 3: 39:11

You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 39:12

It wasn't like yeah.

Speaker 3: 39:14

Yeah, must said this. In the post-game conference too, and this is something that I always, always, always look at there were a lot of good looks that didn't go down.

Speaker 1: 39:23

I'm fine, no-transcript that would have tied the game too yep, yep, yep, uh and, and there were like a couple uh shots. They had that shot from the corner which was like come on, you know the fade away three or whatever the guy did uh from the corner, that I think they were down two and they hit the three and they went up by one. I don't think they, I don't think they fell behind after that. But uh, there was one question I wanted to ask sky because he was in galen, which, of course, is, I think, what everyone is wondering and that was how many must bus shirts did you see in the crowd?

Speaker 2: 40:21

you know there were a few, but I kind of was not able to count because there were so many different Cardinal and gold shirts in the crowd and then, plus, they were giving away these free shirts too, so everyone was changing shirts?

Speaker 1: 40:35

Yeah, I don't know, but what is the not like USC?

Speaker 2: 40:39

You know what that was? Supposedly it was on Instagram. They posted it was like the Bay is not like SoCal, so Cal is not like USC or something like that. I don't know. The design was cool, but I didn't really the slogan, didn't.

Speaker 1: 40:53

I get it, but the slogan didn't really I mean. It doesn't feel like a zinger. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 40:58

Maybe it's a Gen Z thing.

Speaker 1: 41:00

Maybe it's a Gen Z thing, oh right, hey. But for those of you listening out there, hey, but for those of you listening out there, if you go to uscbasketballcom and go to our store, our Dunk City swag shop, there are some photos of some shirts out on the website. If you click on them we'll take you to that shop. You can buy Muspa shirts in cardinal and gold. We also got sewer rats, which is based on a thing that a Muslim said about his team. We have some sewer rats wearing wearing must bus shirts very meta type of situation here. Um, stickers and shirts. I'm wearing one right now and, um, so just go there. Uh, it helps support the website. The more we sell, the the more we can do, hopefully, and um, so appreciate your support there.

Speaker 1: 41:47

Sewer rats speaking of sewer rats, if this is kind of like what a sewer rat team would have to do scrape and claw, uh, like we saw noling down low with going up against the soco and and dort holding his own on a couple occasions you know that's what sewer rats do and I think, think, uh, that is what Musselman I don't want to say Warren, but he said these guys are sewer rats, and so I think that USC fans, I think, have to embrace the shortcomings of this team in a sense, and just uh, I'm actually a little bit um proud of some of our fans on the message boards for being, you know, not panicking at this point, and I think that people have shown a lot of maturity and understanding that it's going to be an interesting ride and probably pretty fun. But there are some deficiencies in this team that are not going to be developed out of this season this year. Sky.

Speaker 2: 42:48

One thing that crossed my mind today was that, looking at this game, especially since it was against Cal, some of us might still be in a Pac-12 mindset, which is we need to win these marquee out-of-conference games in order to get a shot at the dance Right. And now I'm not saying we should just lose all of the non-conference games in order to get a shot at the dance right. And now I'm not saying we should just lose all of the non-conference games, but I was thinking back to tim floyd's teams. I mean, those teams were losing to like coppin state and, uh, they would routinely lose their first game of the season, which I think there was a statistic like usc hasn't won its, you know, first game of the season for their home opener, for I don't remember how many years or some, some, some weird stat like that. But we're kind of it's going to be more like if you can win 20 games and you're playing in the big, you're probably going to have a pretty good shot at the dance.

Speaker 2: 43:43

So if dropping a couple of these non-con games comes. It's the cost of improving the team cohesiveness for conference play. I think that could still bode well for the Trojans.

Speaker 1: 43:57

Well, there's what? 12 non-conference games, I believe. So if you are, even if USC went 7-5 in non-conference, you are, uh, even if usc went seven and five in non-conference, then they'd have to go 13, and how many?

Speaker 3: 44:15

how many conference?

Speaker 1: 44:16

games are there? I think we have. Is it 22?

Speaker 3: 44:17

is it?

Speaker 1: 44:18

I think it's it's 18 or 20 18, I think it might be 20, but if you to get to 20, I'm just trying to think like what would you have to go in the big 10?

Speaker 3: 44:28

Obviously, if you go you know, I think you're overthinking it. Literally, it seems like the rule of thumb is, if you're like one game over 500 in that conference, you're most likely going to get a bid. Just don't really dirty it up in the non-conference season. You know the other thing that stood out to me just along those same lines, I left that game just thinking, you know, a lot of times after, after a loss, you see, oh, that was a quality loss, or what a horrible loss. That literally was right in the middle. That was just a loss, wasn't a bad loss, wasn't a quality loss, it literally was just like. You know that. I don't say it was expected, but that's just like okay, it's not unforgivable. Um, and if I look at, are either you familiar I guess I'll frame it another way for those who are familiar with the pythagorean win formula in baseball when basically you take the square of your your runs and your opponent runs and then you square them both and, like your, your ratio of that is what your win percentage should be.

Speaker 3: 45:24

I just did this. It's interesting if I use Buscar instead of points, just to, for you know, a real measure, just true. True, you know, volume efficiency. If I take the Pythagorean win percentage. Based on our Buscar, we should have won 77 percent of our games, so guess what we're? We're right on schedule. From from that, it's not like there's an unfortunate loss or anything in there well, that's great.

Speaker 1: 45:46

If we win 75 percent of the rest of our games too, we should be great and great shape.

Speaker 3: 45:50

Let's do it. I'm not going to bet against my own school, but if you want to just look for an alternate bookmaker for that action, just let's talk after the pod.

Speaker 1: 46:00

Well, there are two games coming up this week. On Wednesday there is San Jose state at 7 PM in Galen, and then Wednesday there is San Jose State at 7 pm in Galen, and then there is Grambling on Sunday at 4 pm in Galen. Guys, any quick thoughts on that? San Jose State is really struggling and Grambling is not considered much of a threat either. What do you guys think about those two games? How are they going to help the team in a sort of like preparation standpoint I think you want to look at.

Speaker 2: 46:35

Uh, you want to prepare in the same fashion that you prepare for any other game. For those you know you don't want to get used to the habit of like, well, let's just play this game, but prepare for sunday whatever. If you want to prepare and you know I think the Trojans are going to want to go out and try to lock those guys down. You know it's.

Speaker 2: 46:54

I don't think they're going to want to have a shootout again. I think they're going to want to say how can we use this to focus our defense and practice some new concepts and some new habits?

Speaker 1: 47:05

Makes sense, Mark.

Speaker 3: 47:10

Yeah, I, I just to that point. Just two struggling teams sounds really appetizing right now. Um, we've, we've had a couple of sneaky teams with sneaky, uh ability to to exploit our vulnerabilities. I'd like a couple of tackling dummies for a while, just to kind of get right and stretch the legs a little bit. Um, you did leave out, uh, one of my pet peeves. Next game is on peacock. Yeah, oh yeah I gotta.

Speaker 1: 47:32

I gotta means I gotta do my whole forgot password, send my link to my email and I click on it and then I gotta like get the code, and then there's a qr code and and then it goes to like five other people says I'm logged in or something A little word to the wise here, and since this is a USC basketball podcast, we probably do have a little more than the average demographic would have.

Speaker 3: 47:55

This If you do have an American Express Platinum, charge your Peacock subscription to that, because they will refund you $20 a month from what I've read.

Speaker 1: 48:07

Wow, I do have a Platinum Of your media buys. Well, there's the tip of the day folks to that, because they will refund you $20 a month from what I've read. Wow, I do have a plan Of your media bias. Well, there's the tip of the day, folks, all right.

Speaker 2: 48:22

Anything else to add, gents, before we head out for the weekend or for the week, I'm just looking forward to St Thomas getting right. You know not to put pressure on him, but I think it's going to come for him. I think some fans have been frustrated and I think he's just been dealing with this physical stuff that you know he's going to keep playing through and he's going to settle in.

Speaker 1: 48:36

You know, it's great that you mentioned St Thomas, because I'm trying right now to get St Thomas on this very podcast. We will find out shortly if he's able to talk to me tomorrow. If, dear listeners, if St Thomas is on this podcast, you can keep listening, and if he's not, then, guys, why don't we just say goodbye and fight on?

Speaker 3: 49:01

as always, fight on, fight on you.