The Dunk City Podcast
USCBasketball.com's Chris Huston, Mark Backstrom and Sky Liam co-host the Dunk City Podcast, the only podcast devoted solely to USC Trojans basketball. Weekly during the season, intermittent during the offseason, the DCP is the "podcast of record" for Trojan hoops, featuring inside information, special guests and expert analysis.
The Dunk City Podcast
Poppin' Champaign
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Chris, Mark and Sky discuss USC's recent road trip that included a huge 82-72 victory over #13 Illinois, the first road-win over a ranked team for the Trojans since 2010. Also, a look-ahead to home games vs. Iowa and Wisconsin that could determine the ultimate outcome for Eric Musselman's first year at USC.
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 wherever you stream podcasts. Look for clips on YouTube and TikTok as well. Please like, follow, listen and review. Contact us at USCBasketball.com@gmail.com.
USC Trojans Road Victories Discussion
Speaker 1Welcome to the Sweet 16 for the first time . Welcome to the Dunk City Podcast Brought to you by uscbasketballcom . Chris Houston , here with Mark Backstrom and Sky Liam , the USC Trojans fresh off a 82-72 victory over Illinois , a game that was not a fluke in any stretch of the imagination , although Illinois was missing , arguably its top player . But number 13 , illinois of course means USC has beaten a ranked team on the road for the first time since 2010, . Team on the road for the first time since 2010 . A remarkable statistic indeed , and Eric Musselman has gotten that done in his first season at USC . Of course , the Trojans fell to Indiana in the other half of their road trip 82-69 on Wednesday Over in Bloomington .
Speaker 1The Trojans return home , uh , certainly , uh , feels good , a little bit jubilant , coming off a win . There's a great photo of the team uh in the um , the airplane bunch together . Look like they've uh , ever . It looks like someone just had a baby . That's what it looks like in the photo . And then , uh , and then so the Trojans play Iowa um on Tuesday , this coming Tuesday If you're listening , it'll be tomorrow when you first hear this maybe 7.30 pm in Galen Center on Fox Sports 1 . And then Saturday versus Wisconsin , also at Galen Center on the Big Ten Network . That's going to be at noon , so 7.30 on Tuesday and noon on Saturday . 7.30 on Tuesday and noon on Saturday . Fellas , how's it feel to be the first USC fans to witness what we just witnessed , which is a road win over a ranked team since the Obama administration the first Obama administration .
Speaker 2I think , like everyone else , I was surprised that it had been that long and especially the first time you hear that statistic . I think probably a lot of people tune out that road win part Because you know USC even actually last season I think Kansas State was ranked 19, . I want to say , in that opening game , but that was a neutral site game in Vegas . And yeah , I had to say in that opening game , but that was a neutral site game in Vegas . And yeah , I had to look it up . The last time was Tennessee in 2010 , which I had memory hold and thought USC lost that game for some reason .
Speaker 1But no , they won .
Speaker 2And it was really exciting .
Speaker 3Also worth noting that you know , when you think about the biggest wins we had since that 2010 game was probably the Elite Eight run , which are all on a neutral court , so it's a little weird , but I got to say A little misleading , just because we did play a lot of neutral court games either in the preseason or in the tournament .
Speaker 3I do have to say Chris that you and Sky both did it again . I thought Sky was going to go there , but he didn't . There's been very specific phrasing about this feat . It happened during the broadcast , it happened in the postgame , it's happened in media reports since and you guys both did it Everybody just says 2010 .
Speaker 1Uh-huh .
Speaker 3Yeah . People just clearly don't want to say what coach did that .
Speaker 2Oh , that's yeah .
Speaker 1Kevin O'Neill .
Speaker 2Yeah , oh , that's , yeah , yeah .
Speaker 3Nobody has said it . If you watch the broadcast , re-watch the postgame .
Speaker 1That's why you're here , Mark to defend Kevin O'Neal's honor .
Speaker 3Okay , Is that in my contract ? I must have missed that clause .
Speaker 1I think the reason why no one's mentioning that Kevin O'Neal is the last person to do it is that it kind of makes it kind of undermines the feat it does it's more .
Speaker 3It's more like germany when when they had the berlin wall .
Speaker 1We just don't want to talk about it right , you're right , right , exactly , exactly , um , all right . So , uh , mark , well , I , just what was your visceral reaction to uh , to this uh victory ? Because so many times we you know it happens a lot in sports where your team is is kind of fighting through a lot of things and they're playing good teams pretty tough , but when it comes down to it , you don't really think they're going to win . In these kinds of situations , what , what , what did you ? What did it feel like to you guys , uh to uh , to experience this , this win , watching it on TV or or , or , or listening to it , or however you consumed the game ?
Speaker 3You know , for me , I guess the first takeaway is and you kind of forget this until until you go through it in this sport , sport , there is nothing at all like a road conference win . There is nothing at all like that . It is just a unique thing to just absolutely savor yeah and especially when it happens at 9 am . I mean , the rest of the day is just beautiful . I I had to vacuum the house and I was in a great mood because we just got a road conference win yeah , such a productive day .
Speaker 1I cleaned like three rooms afterwards .
Speaker 2I was the opposite man . I was looking on Reddit and all this stuff . I'm like I want to hear everybody talking about USC and mostly it was just Illinois fans being salty . But USC has played so close against Michigan , against Oregon , and it just kept feeling like , is this because , listen , there have been teams where it's like , oh you know , actually , usd football was like this this year . They had a lot of losses , but by a combined two points . Yeah , exactly Ten losses by a combined two points . However , that makes sense .
Speaker 1I got to think that the fans like say the Michigan fans and the Indiana fans , and of course , now that the fans like say the Michigan fans and the Indiana fans and of course now the Illinois fans , this is their first glimpse . Really good , look at USC , right . And so I'm sure , even though they've won three of the games and they're , of course , all at USC , amazingly USC has two road wins in the conference already , which is pretty amazing . But what's interesting , I would think that USC has acquitted itself well . I'm pretty sure the fans of Michigan and Indiana aren't saying , well , that team's , they're not saying that team's a joke . They're probably saying something like wow , they don't really have all the pieces yet , this is the first year , but they kind of battled us . They're probably saying something like , wow , they , they don't really have all the pieces yet , this is the first year , but they're , they kind of battled us , they kind of gave us a battle you know , I think that's what the coaches are saying .
Speaker 2Yeah , I think I don't know if the fans have caught up yet . Yeah , especially sometimes there's anti USC bias and things like that . Sure . But I think the coaches are really starting to say , okay , we have to start preparing for these guys .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah . So a few tidbits about the games . Of course , indiana . That game was tied at the half , 38-38 . Trojans played really well in the first half , led by as much as 10 twice . Actually , it was 19-9 . Later on it was 22-12 . So very typical , very similar to the Oregon game . And then in the second half , indiana came out and Trey Galloway sort of just caught on fire against the Trojans and they outscored USC by 13 in the second half . Nonetheless , pretty well-played game by USC .
Speaker 1Omar Balu had his typical game , but I thought for a huge stretch of the game he seemed very ineffective . He was getting his points , but he had to really work for it . And I think what USC wasn't doing was they weren't trying , excuse me , he was getting his points but he had to really work for it . And then it's , and I think , um , what usc wasn't doing was they weren't trying to front him , uh , with their primary defender on him , but then . But then later on in the game they tried to front him a few times and they also the his defender , main defender , kind of got out of position a few times and this enabled him to get some easy shots . But what was your guys take on the competitiveness of the game against indiana . Certainly it's encouraging that usc played very sharp for long stretches of the game . But just you know , in that kind of scenario and that kind of setting really hard to put it all together .
Speaker 2This team always goes out and fights and they never give up . We saw that against Michigan , you know , when they went down by 15 the second half and they came back and took a lead . So I think to go against the size of Balo and they actually , you know , like you said , played him well in the first half . That game I felt was very dependent on matchups , when you saw substitutions come in and suddenly one guy starts going off . And I think in the Illinois game we saw the opposite , where Musselman tinkered a little bit in the first half and in the second half he locked it down saying these are the guys who are going to win the game . Yeah , one thing that really stood out to me too .
Speaker 3He locked it down saying these are the guys who are going to win the game . Yeah , one thing that really stood out to me , too , is you've got sample size of three , which isn't tremendous , but you know , in a 20 game season it's meaningful Three road games and we haven't seen and I don't want to jinx it by saying this , but you haven't seen that just road game where you're just not ready and you know you take a breath and you're down 12 to four already and this might be like you said . You know earlier in the season , chris , about this is such a mature team . I think you've got a mature team and a good head coach that just knows how to prepare this team as much , as you said said he's learning the personnel .
Speaker 3Still , he said I think he knows how to at least prepare them mentally .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'd venture that there's probably one of those games still in this team at least . I think even good teams have those games in them . So I wouldn't be surprised if one of those games happen where where we come out and we can't can't throw the ball in the ocean and everything they throw up goes in and suddenly it's . You know , you turn the TV off at halftime because it's going to get ugly , kind of thing . So I can , you know , that's certainly potentially in the cards , but I do think having a veteran team is starting to pay off in that regards , in that these guys don't really , I don't think they really see any point to giving up In some of the cases .
Speaker 1This is the last time some of these guys are going to play at this kind of level , this kind of competitive basketball . Probably Some guys will play overseas , some guys will get a shot at playing in other other settings and other places , but some of them are just this is going to be it , and I think that that some of them are . These guys are going to keep playing hard and and obviously they want to quit themselves as well . So I think that it's if you know that your team is going to play hard almost every game . More often than not you're going to have a lot of good outcomes .
Speaker 2You know that's how I see it Absolutely . I mean , just looking at that game again , you see how many times USC players hit the deck diving for balls and they weren't even always successful . I think that's harder when you dive for a loose ball and you don't get it , and then next time there's a loose ball you still decide to dive again . I think the last play of the game actually was Rashawn Agee diving for a loose ball yeah and getting it down the court .
Speaker 2Uh , for St Thomas's dunk . Some people weren't a fan of that , I guess .
Speaker 1I mean .
Speaker 2USC fans were .
Speaker 1I mean , it wasn't like we were up by 20 or 30 or something like that .
Speaker 1But you know , one thing we do have to acknowledge is that Illinois sort of had one of those games that we're talking about . In the first half they came out very flat , obviously missing one of their players , one of their high-level players , but just generally shooting horribly Kylan Boswell . I think his defense really kind of helped keep them in the game . But it's interesting , desmond Claude . He scored 31 points , career-high 31 points in the game . Uh , most by a usc player this year . His scoring average is up to 15.9 .
Speaker 1He is averaging 20 points per game in the last eight um and what's fascinating to me is that , as a 29 three-point shooter and someone who rarely attempts a shot from beyond the arc , it's incredible to me how he's able to manufacture those points just purely from driving and shooting from the elbow . It's like Jordan before he . I'm not carrying into Jordan , but as far as repertoire of shots I mean I hate to carry it . I'm not carrying it to Jordan , but as far as repertoire of shots it's like that Jordan that scored 63 on the Celtics in 86 . I don't think he hit any three-point shots in that game . You know what I mean .
Speaker 3Same kind of thing , yeah , during the game I came across a cross-sports analogy . If there's one thing I'm really good at , it's horrible analogies . So here we go , going back to baseball of the late 90s . You know , we all know , randy Johnson just overpowered people with their fastballs , with his fastballs . And we're not talking about that . We are talking about the other side of that , greg Maddox .
Speaker 3He didn't overpower anybody , he didn't have like a knee bending curveball or a nasty slider . He would just like take a little bit off a pitch and just get somebody to pop up and just feel stupid afterwards . Oh geez , like you know . Or just just a spot location , just where he knows the hitters , it's gonna , it's gonna be a little too far into his hands and , just like you know , they're frustrated .
Analyzing Basketball Players' Techniques
Speaker 3And I kind of see the same analogy here . It's like he's not faster than these guys , he's not quicker , but he's getting past them through like deception and taking a little off and on and hesitation , and he gets in a good position . He gets square to the basket when he releases it . He's so good at that . Even though it's it's again , it's not overpowering , it's not speed , it's just , it's just smarts and basketball IQ .
Speaker 2One thing that helps him too is he's actually a really good mid-range shooter .
Speaker 1So even if he's not going to take the three , you can't sag off of him too much , because if he gets to the free throw line or anywhere in that general vicinity he's deadly yeah , he , he uh did a great job at finding his spots in this game and also , uh , it was actually a little bit surprising just because kyle and boswell is a kind of a big , strong guy and yet a lot of times he was able to get past him , get to the , get to the next level and , you know , once he's in that kind of free throw area it's such a nice spot for him because he can , he is good at just pulling up there or just . You know he's great at the hesitation stagger step . Uh , all the , you know he's just , he's just , he has a nice , like you said . He know he's great at the hesitation stagger step . Uh , all the , you know , he's just , he's just , he has a nice , like you said , he doesn't he's not really like outquicking people , but he is fairly quick , uh , for his size . Then he's just got the big broad shoulders and the ability to just kind of like use his , his size to to get around people . Um , and of course he's physical and pushing and he's constantly pushing and grabbing and doing that kind of thing and which you know in this league , in the Big Ten , where they allow that kind of stuff . Now , it's very beneficial for him .
Speaker 1Another player I want to talk about who has been fantastic for straight double digit games 13.7 points per game since starting , shooting 49% from the field , 38.4 from three-point and 84% from free-throw line . Wesley Yates had another strong game against Illinois 15 points on seven of eight shooting Really was just . You know , he did a lot of things in that game that it's almost like he's just a he's . He's just a great little cherry on top of everything , of everything they do , cause when he's , when he's , when he's on , it's like I feel like the other team just has a , has a , has kind of a really hard time because because he just , he just can score in bunches and bunches .
Speaker 3Go ahead , Scott , please .
Speaker 2Oh , I feel like you know he really paces the offense because the offense can be very Claude dominant and the team runs a lot of clear outs for Claude . But then you get a possession where he goes down the court . Yates gets the ball , he just jukes someone and creates his own shot and that really keeps the opposing defense on its toes a little bit , which has kind of made this team more multidimensional .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a great point . He really does . He is like the counter to Claude If Claude isn't setting the tone , then it's Yates .
Speaker 3Claude . If Claude isn't setting the tone , then it's Yates , both clearly having mastered the Eurostep
Player Development and Team Strategy
Speaker 3as well . This is nuts . In what I'll just call the Lost Podcast , I referenced a series of numbers of Yates having very up and down and some really bad games from a BPO standpoint , like know , like three of them below , below 30 . This is really unexpected because when you have your freshmen , you think they're going to more like shine and thrive at home and struggle on the road . For this road trip in two difficult venues , for the whole road trip , his BPI was a composite 69.1 , which is just ridiculous . I mean that it's yeah . And he did not turn the ball over , uh , at Indiana I don't know if you guys caught that too Um , which is that is really big for a freshman , um sure .
Speaker 2One thing I want to say about Yates is that , as much as it hurts to have Terrence Williams out , it feels like him starting was a turning point for this season , just because I love Terrence Williams and he's a great player on this team , but his skill set is roughly duplicative of Chibuza Wabo . They're different players but they both kind of bring similar qualities to the table , at least talking about a box score , whereas Yates just provides a totally different look that the defense has to cover and it unlocks more of the floor .
Speaker 1That's a great point . Yates is a better perimeter defender , at least a better one-on-one defender . Maybe not as good of a team defender right now , but a really good one-on-one defender . Maybe not as good of a team defender right now , but , uh , a really good one-on-one defender or has the ability to to do well in one-on-one situations and he is a . He is a as a guard . He is a better rebounder for his size than um and a better even just like being able to switch with guys who are like he can switch with guys who are bigger than him easier than Terrence Williams can switch down to guys who are smaller than him , if that makes any sense , right , so , like . So I think there is like a net plus overall . You actually I think he's actually a better rebounder Probably . I think he rebounds more than than Williams did . Williams wasn't really much of a factor on the boards and so I think it's pretty close as far as average and all that . So , yeah , I think he's , I think he him . If the Trojans can keep Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates on this team next year , I think that's a nice guard pair to go to war with .
Speaker 1And then you got some other intriguing players . Kevin Patton Jr , I thought , has started to do things on the court that are , I mean , he's starting to look really comfortable out there playing with these guys and he's starting to do things that are really like no one else on the team can do like he's . He's , you know , he can finish probably as good as anybody down low , uh , and he , of course , brings just that length and some shot blocking ability down low as well , so , and some some nice ball skills too , like he can shoot , got a nice arcing shot . Um , he's , he's not , you know , he's not a detriment from an offensive perspective because he plays within himself . What do you guys think about Kevin Patton Jr ?
Speaker 2I think Patton is a better shooter than I expected and over the last few games it feels like he's really embraced the concept of playing your minutes , which is something Musselman stresses . At the beginning of the season , musselman said Matt Noling is great at playing his minutes , just going in there , playing within the system and contributing in the ways that he's comfortable doing . And that's what Patton Jr has done , I think , which is mostly making threes and dunks and playing hard defense and it's really helping the team yeah .
Speaker 3I just I watch him and I don't know . I can't imagine how he didn't have just much better numbers last year . He was at San Diego .
Speaker 1Yeah , he did pretty well . He averaged like 10 points a game .
Speaker 3Okay From an efficiency standpoint , 45 BPO , but that's a freshman kind of thing too . But you just look at the skills and the size . I don't know if he grew a lot over the summer . That just doesn't seem like a real fun guy to guard in the Big West .
Speaker 1He's all arms and legs .
Speaker 3They're the West Coast Conference though , right , san Diego . Yeah , west Coast Conference . Sorry , I'm confusing them with UCSD .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , so excited about him . I mean , if you look at Claude and Yates and Patton , and then we get to Elohim and Shelly , which is an interesting , I don't want to say dilemma , but it's an interesting kind of like development how they they're both being placed in certain situations , sometimes in key situations , sometimes early in the game , and sometimes they don't get in the game at all . And I'm curious what's going on with them from a developmental standpoint . Are they just not getting enough minutes , or are they not going to have minutes because they're not showing it in practice ? Any thoughts on that , scott ?
Speaker 2Yeah , I think it's clear that there are simply other players ahead of them and I don't think that that's anything that they would necessarily disagree with . It doesn't mean that they're bad basketball players . Literally everybody that's playing ahead of them are , you know , classes one or two classes at least higher than them . Even Wesley Yates , you know he's been in college for a year already and I think personally it's smart that Musselman is even trying to get those guys even a couple minutes per game , because I think that does pay off and it keeps them engaged . And you know , there's those games where Rashawn Agee's gotten like two minutes a game and then he gets like 30 minutes in his last game . I think Musselman's trying to keep a lot of his bench just warm and I want to hear your thoughts on this too , mark . But not to digress , but it does seem to me that the one player who's mostly kind of fallen out of the rotation is Clark Slatton .
Speaker 3Yeah , definitely Agree . It almost seems like he and Pope were fighting for that last spot in the regular rotation before you get the random Elohim or Shelly cameo or walk-on or whatever we're going to call it or Hornary .
Speaker 1I never thought I would see . Sorry to interrupt , but there was a stretch against Indiana where USC had Hornary and Patton on the court and I just didn't think I would ever see that during the competitive phase of a basketball game .
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1Sorry , go ahead .
Speaker 3No no , somebody on the board was asking this kind of goes back to the whole Josh Cohen AG thing too , about just the allocation of minutes to the bigs . And I just kind of walk it through and I said , well , it seems like Cohen starts until it seems like they try to use him to get cheap baskets , until the other team just take advantage on the other end of the court . Then it becomes AG and or Patton and or micro ball .
Speaker 3It kind of didn't even really include Hornary in that scenario . I feel kind of bad about it too , but it didn't seem like he was kind of had a role .
Speaker 1He was in for two for a while . Yeah , yeah , or just overall , like in games where the opposing big is a threat to score , more of a threat to score . Maybe that's more stress on Cohen . I think , with this Iowa game coming up , I feel like this is going to be a Josh Cohen game , because you know this is going to be . I think we have a chance .
Speaker 1You know both teams might get over 90 in this game Potentially . You know it's good , it's going to be a high scoring game . You know I was like the second best scoring team in the country or something like that . So they , they are used to scoring . That's their culture , they're . They don't play defense and they score . I think USC is obviously going to try to slow Iowa down as much as possible , like more than they are going to try to outscore them . Right , because I think that maybe USC , without some of these other guys that have been playing Terrence Williams , without Matt Noling I don't know if Noling's coming back or not , but I think if you're going to try to get a shooting match with Iowa , you've got to have all your firepowerpower . So I think maybe the emphasis is going to be on trying to slow them down .
Speaker 3Uh , if possible what are you guys ?
Speaker 1thoughts on this iowa game .
Speaker 2Yeah , um , I was gonna ask do we know any updates on noling ? The only thing I remember hearing was like a knee injury .
Speaker 1Yeah , I haven't heard anything on Nolan .
Speaker 2So Iowa obviously , like you said , great offense and I'm sure , Mark , obviously you have some great numbers on that . Yeah , but one thing I just noticed that's very interesting is that out of their four losses , two were away games . There are four losses , Two were away games , One was neutral site and the remaining loss was to the number three team in the nation at home , Iowa State . So they haven't played a ton of road games . Does that work in USC's favor ?
Speaker 1even at the Galen Center . It might it might , although USC seems to play better . Just having people in the building is important . It doesn't matter whether they're cheering against him or for him . Just be in the building and we'll play better .
Speaker 3Very fair point . Looking at Iowa , things that stand out to me . As you said , they just do not play defense . Big Ten play Team BPO defensively a 53.5 . That's really generous . That's a good game for an offensive player . Basically all of your conference opponents play at that level over a five-game stretch , which is really generous . Gave up 116 points to Wisconsin . My goodness , I don't know how that's possible . Yeah , defensive BPO in that game was 73 . Congratulations . I don't even know how that's possible . That's like I don't know . That's like kind of um , that was it like paul westhead just gone completely off the rails , I guess .
Speaker 1So so how does that work for well , I mean they . How does that work for you when you look at usc's metrics coming off the game against illinois , heading against iowa , like how does that shake out on the metrics ?
Speaker 3We are not nearly as efficient and I'm just using now that we've got enough kind of connectivity in conference play , just in conference games we're nowhere near as good as them offensively . Their team BPO offensively is 56 . Like I said , their defense just stinks out loud . What's going to be interesting to me is basically um , you know , are we going to be able to ? You know , we're not a great defensive team , but we we do well somehow . It seems like defensively , the the whole is much better than the sum of the parts , if you will . Um , and that's just coaching . I think that's going to be interesting .
Speaker 3Um , it'll also be really interesting because mcafree is one of these guys that's kind of a jerk and really likes to yell at everybody , um , so it would be nice to frustrate him and really see his face turned as as red as you know , brian kelly , to go across sports again . Um , just , you know that kind of orange , purple , red , um , other metrics that stand
Big Ten Matchups and Season Strategy
Speaker 3out . This is crazy conference play . They're shooting 41.4 percent from three-point range , which , what ? Yeah , yet . And yet they're also giving up in conference play , the same 41.4 percent on three-pointers , um , which , yeah , that's just . Again , I don't know how you do that .
Speaker 1No , maybe I mean , I just don't know if we have anybody to shoot them .
Speaker 3Can we borrow somebody from Wisconsin ?
Speaker 1Wisconsin was 21 of 31 from three . Wow , that's incredible . I mean , like Abo could like shoot 40% in that game , but we need like five guys to shoot 40% , or something you know .
Speaker 2If we're talking regression to the mean , we actually saw Rashawn Agee regress to the mean , or at least the mean that I kind of predicted , because I , I , I saw him . You know , shoot very well from three in practices and he kind of I guess he was . He went through some kind of streak , he missed six or something . He missed six straight . And then , you know , he went through some kind of streak , he missed six or something .
Speaker 1He missed six straight and then , you know , he went three for five . He had a huge game . Huge game I would . We didn't talk about uh rashawn agey in that , in that game . No , I think we need to .
Speaker 2I think we need to make sure he gets his flowers absolutely just the hustle he was rebounding , he had a huge blocked shot . He had that crazy sequence where he I want to say he hit a three , he blocked a shot and he made a dunk or something .
Speaker 1Yeah , he just took over the game for a moment , which it's awesome because , you know , certainly some of these guys are capable of taking over the game . I wasn't certain that Rashawn Agee are capable of taking over the game . I wasn't certain that rishan aji was capable of taking over a game , especially a game like against a ranked team on the road . Uh , but man , he had it in him and and , uh , I think that was , I mean , that was probably in the end his , his grit and and hustle and and his his three . I mean those , his three pointers . I mean those were big time contributions for that game . I don't think we would have won that game without him . Yeah , although it's interesting , usc didn't shoot a free throw until the last minute of the first half and so , like usc had like , like something like 10 I can't remember how many a lot fewer free throws and still won by 10 . Yeah , yeah .
Speaker 2That just feels like . I don't know if it's a reffing thing . Obviously I'm not blaming the refs , but it's not like USC wasn't going to the hole . I mean , they were driving a ton .
Speaker 1That's what's so weird .
Speaker 2Yeah , maybe Illinois was really good about not fouling that game . I don't know .
Speaker 1We shot 10 fewer free throws in that game , but at one point it was like super imbalanced . It was pretty crazy . But that just goes to show you how , how much we kind of kind of like you know , kind of dominated the actual basketball portion of the game , you know , the part that wasn't dependent upon reps making judgment calls . So sorry , mark , go ahead . Continue with the analytics yeah , oh , no worries .
Speaker 3Um other thing that really , you know , sticks out to me about iowa , uh and this just goes hand in hand with being a poor defense defensive team is they're getting out rebounded in conference play by 7.6 rebounds per game . Um , so I I think you've got I don't know um haven't seen them play , but it just it seems like a very finessey kind of team , like a bunch of guys that can really probably take care of the ball . They don't seem to turn the ball over that much and really shoot , and um , not so fond about , uh , about doing much of the dirty work .
Speaker 1They're constantly , they're always in motion . On offense they're like super , they're always . They find ways to manufacture shots . It's a pretty well-tuned offense for sure . Playing Iowa Okay , yeah , okay and then so anyway , the Trojans play Iowa on a Tuesday night at seven 30 in Galen no-transcript . Uh , odds on the , also in Galen on the big 10 network . Wisconsin is kind of another one of those teams . Uh , that um is looking better than people thought uh before . Before the season Um , another high scoring team . Uh score 83 points a game . It's a pretty good . They have five players and averaging double figures Been pretty impressive so far this year . Guys , thoughts on Wisconsin .
Speaker 2They're deadly from the free throw line . I don't know how you play defense without fouling , but that would probably be a premium , and USC has kind of fouled a lot on defense , I think which is you know it worked against Illinois , but Wisconsin will make you pay if you do that .
Speaker 3Yeah . Yeah , they are actually first in the entire country 85% as a team . That is nuts .
Speaker 1God , and we're shooting 75% , which , if we keep that pace , will , I think , be our best free throw percentage since the mid-70s .
Speaker 3Wow , and especially what we've had versus the past few years . It's just a godsend , it's just like they're dropping in two or three extra points a game for us .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2So it's not going to be easy .
Speaker 1But maybe there's some momentum building , you know .
Speaker 2I mean it's all about . I wouldn't even say it's necessarily about matchups with this team , that's part of it but it's more about how they can execute their strategy and how they can stick to that strategy or adjust that strategy . In the second half , I felt in the indiana game they executed really well in the first half . In the second half , you know , it looked like indiana kind of made some adjustments , you know , and that was all she wrote . So how can , how will that bear out this week ?
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a good question . Um , uh , I think that this victory over over Illinois is another piece of the puzzle as far as , like you know what this team is going to become . Uh , I don't know if , if Illinois , the Illinois win , is like a stepping stone to something bigger or if it's just kind of like a temporary blip , and this homestand , I think , will help us answer that question yeah , you know , um , which kind of to that point you know it's a good , good time to assess where we are in big 10 play .
Speaker 3Um , you know , if we use that whole thing that Tim Floyd used to say about , you know , home win is zero , road loss is zero , road win is one and a home loss is minus one . And he said , you know he wanted anything being a plus five . I think , realistically this season if we're just at a zero , if we're basically a 10 and 10 team in conference , that would be a tremendous accomplishment and I I pretty sure that gets us in the tournament because we we'd be a big 10 team , probably the second best conference this year with over 20 wins um .
Speaker 1So to your point these .
Speaker 3You know these are important games . Um . One other thing I do want to mention too , um , just for some context , about our two and three record . Two and three , not awesome , but again , you know we're we've had two home games , we're kind of on schedule to finish at 500 , but the composite , the composite conference record of the five teams that we've played is actually 18 and 12 in conference . So we've , we've played a lot of tough teams . It's not like we've we've , you know , we've had the easy games now , except for Washington . Clearly they're going to be , notwithstanding that bizarre Maryland game . I think that's going to be a tough year for Washington , but other than that , we've played teams that are just well beyond just competent .
Speaker 1Yeah , these might be the biggest two games of the year if you think about it , because the Trojans have been struggling at home in conference so far , have two losses in conference at home Oregon and Michigan , both games that conceivably the Trojans could have won , or at least were in the game for much of the game . Iowa and Wisconsin is about reestablishing some level of home court advantage . Perhaps students need to show up , help out the team . And then the other thing is look , what you hinted at , Mark , is if we're 10-6 right now and 2-3 in conference , you somehow find a way to sweep at home and you're up 12-6 and 4-3 , and you're going to Nebraska Now .
Speaker 1Nebraska is a tough place to play , but if you can win at Illinois , you can win at Nebraska . It's not like an impossible thing . And then you have UCLA at the Galen Center . So the Trojans have a chance . If they can sort of coast in the wake of this Illinois victory and get on a bit of a roll here , they can establish right away . They could go win four games in a row here and be 14-6 and 6-3 in Big Ten , and suddenly the whole tone of the season just changes right .
Speaker 3Yes , I think you're overlooking that . We kind of are in a bad psychological spot for that UCLA game . Mick Cronin has put all the pressure on us , as he's basically just called this team a bunch of soft losers , you know that just all the pressures on our experienced , a good guy team now apparently with with . Well , he obviously does our outburst .
Speaker 1It's so funny Cause he obviously doesn't believe they're losers because only , uh , you know , because losers would would agree with him , you know , deep down psychologically , and and and people who are not losers would , would , are going , the idea is that he's , he's , he's injuring their pride and is going to get them to play harder by by doing this right . So it's just , it's this completely dishonest kind of psychological ploy to try to get them to play .
Speaker 3And that manifested itself how at Maryland , 21 turnovers , yeah it doesn't work .
Speaker 1It's like it's not really . You know this doesn't really work in this day and age . You know Might have worked in Assembly Hall in the 70s and 80s , but uh , didn't work didn't work .
Speaker 1Uh , it doesn't work at poly pavilion , you know . So , um . So yeah , I think that certainly . Uh , it's always tough to play ucla , no matter what , but it's certainly a winnable game . There's some winnable games coming up and considering that usc's played in a winnable game there's some winnable games coming up and considering that USC has played in some winnable games against some pretty good teams , you got to think , if you know they just keep playing some winnable basketball , then they could be within , within striking distance .
Speaker 1You know , I just want to say something really quick because I'm looking at the schedule . So far this year USC has played on big 10 Plus the Big Ten Network , Peacock , True TV , slash Max , which was the Acrochure classic in the desert Fox , Fox Sports One and that's who all they're going to play on . But you know there's this game with Michigan State coming up , Peacock Network , and it's the last Peacock . You know I deleted my Peacock Network because I was like I thought I think this is all I needed for that stupid San Jose State game . So I deleted it and now I got to get Peacock again to watch this Michigan State game if I want to watch it in comfort .
Illinois Basketball and Player Impressions
Speaker 2Well , simple solution for most fans is go to Galen . Sorry , sorry .
Speaker 1There you go . Chris , I know that's a little tough for you . A little tough , but you're also welcome . Yeah , that's true . I am on the East Coast .
Speaker 2If I could hologram myself over there , I would yeah but I was actually really surprised when that Fox game came on . That was pleasant , because I don't remember the last time . Usc is not usually on the major networks .
Speaker 1By the way , have you guys noticed that the Big Ten legacy announcers are kind of like very big 10 set drink in their in their discussions ? And then the PAC 12 legacy announcers tend to be like pretty , like you know , as you would expect , I guess , but these tend to be very favorable toward us . I remember , like Casey Jacobson I think it was Fox , but he's still a PAC 12 guy and he was definitely I thought I thought he was saying some more like charitable things toward USC in that telecast than he was toward Michigan .
Speaker 3Yeah , I agree , you know . That reminds me this has to be the first time , as we're going to have this quite a bit , I think , as we're doing this initial season in the Big Ten . This has to be the first time , I think , that USC has ever played in a game where the halftime promotion was the , the prize was a tractor .
Speaker 2I'm just guessing .
Speaker 3I'm pretty sure that's the case , have not done that before , you know . The other thing I just want to ask both of you guys this Illinois is a basketball school . I'm pretty sure that , brad . The other thing I just want to ask both of you guys this Illinois is a basketball school . I'm pretty sure that Brad Underwood very good coach . I'd imagine he probably makes more than Brett Villamil , the football coach . So I'm going to say he's probably the most well-paid person in the greater Urbana-Champaign area , probably have the best of anything that's offered in that area , fair to say . So I'm just going to conclude . There are no good barbers in that whole area . I'll just keep it .
Speaker 1Well , you know , I think sometimes hit the nail on the head . Mark , I think you're really fast to you , Mark .
Speaker 2Mark , I want the Booskar on the angle above his ear .
Speaker 3He is so so Rico yeah .
Speaker 2I you know , since you brought up Illinois . There's one more thing I want to say about that game , which was actually how much St Thomas impressed me and that might sound a little counterintuitive because he I don't even think he scored in double digits , I think he scored nine , but he tied . He was tied for the leading rebounder with eight , and just watching him down the stretch it was really kind of joyful for me to see , because he didn't try to be the man , he didn't try to dominate the ball , he fully just gave over to you know .
Speaker 2Okay , it's Desmond Claude's time to shine , but then he crashed the boards .
Speaker 1He went in there just to be , you know . Okay , it's Desmond Claude's time to shine .
Speaker 2But then he crashed the boards . He went in there just to be , yeah , that experienced leader . Yeah , he got like two deflections in a row on the Indiana side Sorry , Illinois side and I thought he was a big factor in that game at the end .
Speaker 1Yeah , no , he's turning into . Just he's kind of turning into what I thought Matt Nolan was going to be he might end up being the glue guy .
Speaker 3Yeah , blue guy , plus , plus though .
Speaker 1Just in terms of the upside .
Speaker 3I'm glad you mentioned that side , cause I actually written that down as something else I wanted to . You know , I think he was getting overlooked . 7.5 rebounds per game over the road trip , and 39 minutes a game too , that's , that's a lot . Uh , led the team more minutes than Claude .
Speaker 1He doesn't foul a lot he's he's good at , he's pretty good at uh , he can , he really can defend pretty well and then he's and he's good at not fouling . Um . So , and then also a former Trojan , trey white uh , it looked exactly like the player he was when we , when we last saw him , uh shot uh four or 12 overall , I think he was oh four from three point . Uh certainly shot more than any other player on the Illinois team and uh really just , I think down the stretch just looked pretty . His shot looked as listless as it did uh in his in his years as a Trojan . So , um , big thanks to Trey White for helping us out .
Speaker 3Yeah , Once a Trojan always a Trojan . Since , since this is now a big 10 , uh podcast , I got to quote the great uh , longtime conference , great uh . Jalen Rose . He called guys like Trey White , I think he called them looters in a riot where , like , if you're , if you're winning , if you're in a game where you're going to win by 30 , he will run it up , but if you're , if you're in a dog fight , I don't know how many times he's going to make that tough shot .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's a great way to look at it .
Speaker 2A friend of mine late friend of mine used to say about guys like that he would say he's , he went to like four high schools , I think , in his high school career . Clearly that's just , like you know , his default and I don't think it's anything malicious . I think it's just like that's kind of been , like , you know , like established for him as a pattern and it's doesn't seem like it's helping his development . I enjoyed watching him when he was a USC and you know I enjoyed watching him when he was playing USC and you know I enjoyed watching him when he was playing USC this time .
Speaker 1Yeah Well , it's funny there hasn't been any player who's left the program .
Analyzing Team Dynamics and Future Predictions
Speaker 1Maybe I'm forgetting , unless I'm forgetting who has left the program for another school , who ended up going to another school and me saying , oh man , I wish he was doing that here .
Speaker 2Good point . And a similar thought that I wish he was doing that here . Good point , and a similar thought that I actually had was that there's no one on this year's team who is for lack of a better term the whipping boy . Oh no , so-and-so's in the game You're going to screw it up and I don't want to name all the past players , but you're all thinking of them right now . There's no one on that team this year , where you see them come in and everybody on the board freaks out Right ?
Speaker 1Which is kind of cool . What's he doing here ? Yeah , it was Morgan , and it was Ogban Polo and Ethan Anderson . Yes , you guys , you name them .
Speaker 3Noah Bauman , noah Bauman , oh yeah , the Columbia kid . There was that one game where even Doug Gottlieb said he can't dribble . You got to take him out of the game .
Speaker 1I don't know if you remember that one I can't remember .
Speaker 3I can picture his face . He was voted team captain too , which is really weird .
Speaker 1Yeah , all right . Well , anything else you guys ? I think we need to order a few order orders of business here before we go . We need to mention Wisconsin and Iowa . What do you guys think ? What's ? I think ? Is it a split , a sweep , either way , what do you ? What do you think ? What's your ? What's your gut ? What's your gut , tell you .
Speaker 3I completely whiffed . I thought that we would . We would do well in Indiana and have no shot at Illinois . So you're asking the wrong guy , but I'll generically go with a split and I will decline to say which is a win and which is a loss .
Speaker 2All right , you know , I thought the exact same thing . We agreed on the last podcast , mark , and it's kind of interesting , right , because if you were going to pick one game to win and one game to lose on that road trip , you would have rather the team won at the 13th ranked team in the nation . Right , yeah , that worked out better so that was kind of cool to see . Part of me wants to say a sweep , but I'm going to go . Win against Iowa , lose against Wisconsin .
Speaker 1Yeah , I'm going to say the sweep , just because someone's got it . Someone's got to reap the glory if it happens . So I'm gonna , I'm gonna do it . Um , and then you know , the thing is is we went , we , you know , we went back and predicted the , the team's record , before the season began , and I think we're we're head one right now with this win . So I think that was , I think it was 5 and 15 was our prediction for the conference .
Speaker 1So now we're at 6 and 14 okay , right well yeah , it's like the old you ever watch Arrested Development . Yeah , that show where the this , uh , this real estate development company , they , they were in the tank and uh , jim kramer , the msmc guy , like elevates them from like , from like . You know , get rid of this to like . Don't buy , you know like a chart where it's like don't buy , you know , stay away from you know , and it's like they're like they finally get elevated to a don't buy and they're like all right , don't buy , we're turning the corner . I .
Speaker 3I , I , I think , even though it's only one game , I just think , like just psychologically and just just just level of play , we're way , way ahead of what we anticipated when we went through that exercise . Um , like I said , I mean the five teams we've played in conference are composite 18 and 12 . In conference We've we've had one , one from the bottom half .
Speaker 1Yeah Well , this is another lesson . This is another lesson for us , and it's funny because it seems like , no matter the season , I feel like we , we , the collective , we in the people who watch basketball , we really never learn , because you can't really learn , because there's really no rhyme or reason to a lot of it . Right , like , like , if I was going to say , like , after that debacle in the desert , um , after the Trojans went South in the desert , uh , against St Mary's and New Mexico , at that point we're thinking this is enough of a sample to see what this team is like . So , therefore , we can then project .
Speaker 1Now , sometimes , another saying that I always adhere to is that your first call , the one before you second guess , ends up usually being the closest in the end , usually . So , in a sense , maybe we're going to be wrong , but maybe we're not going to be as wrong as we thought . As much as we thought you know what I mean we could be pretty close to end up pretty close as much as we thought . You know what I mean . Like , like , we , we could , we could be like pretty close to end up pretty close , like , right now , it could still end up being pretty close to what we predicted , while not being what we predicted .
Speaker 3Well , let's do this . After this this , these teams seem good , but kind of in the middle of the big 10 . After this , after this upcoming homestand , let's go through and just say , okay , let's each of us pick what's our conference record going to be . Let's start it again .
Speaker 1That's a great point . Well , here's a question Individually and I will track it .
Speaker 1Do you think that , with just from a purely analysis going forward , if you took the same situation with the number of transfers that we have and you ran the next season , would you then expect , let's say , that this season turns out to be fairly deep ? Let's say we go to the tournament . If we go to the tournament , then the winning against Illinois will be seen as the turning point , the point at the season when the team gelled and became good . Could you then look at next year's roster and say we won't be able to say for sure how good the team is until this point , like like till the january . We're not going to know till january . So like will we , will we , like do we ?
Speaker 1Would we ignore what we see in november ? Because by not ignoring it this past time we sort of got maybe potentially got burned by thinking that this is a team that's going to go five and 15 in conference . But what if they go 10 and 10 , then our , then our observations based on seeing them in November were completely misplaced . But is that something that's replicable , as I guess , is what I'm asking . Is this a replicable kind of idea or just every ? Is every team different ?
Speaker 3I think this team is so unique because it's got all these upperclassmen that are in there .
Speaker 1There's no template and I don't think it's a template for any other team like going forward but what if I'm saying what if next year's team had the exact same class makeup , would you also ? Would you also wait till january , to just to until January , to assess them ?
Speaker 2I think yes , because at that point you're saying this is kind of the muscleman trajectory .
Speaker 1But to clarify that question , you're presupposing that , for whatever reason , like Claude and Yates in this exercise are not returning . Yeah , like in this exercise . Let's say that whatever um there's that next year there are there are not counting the freshmen , cause there's two freshmen this year that there's like 11 , let's say there's 10 transfers next year that come in and there , and then there's the two freshmen or whatever . I'm just making the case . I'm just trying to like kind of duplicate the roster . Let's just say we just imprint the roster next year , forget the details of how it got there . I'm just curious if this is something that we could replicate from a predictive standard .
Speaker 2It may be part of the muscleman experience .
Speaker 3Yeah , the other thing , too , is I just not to be like that guy who's like the jerk and philosophy class . But even next year you're going to have an idea about okay , we're going to build around Yates and Claude if they're on the team , I don't think they even knew , like , what they were going to build around . I think the thought was okay , we're going to build around St Thomas and build out from there and you know the , the , the whole strategy has evolved where I think you're going to be a lot . It's just going to be so much , much more accelerated in that specific instance next year .
Speaker 1No , I agree , I agree . Yeah , certainly I don't expect the roster to look anything like it did this year . Certainly I don't expect the roster to look anything like it did this year . I was just curious about what stories we tell ourselves . When we're assessing a team , they lose twice badly , and I think , man , I just can't see this team competing in the Big Ten . And then a month later they beat Illinois on the road and you're like , huh , maybe they can competing in the big 10 . And then you know , a month later they beat Illinois on the road and you're like huh , maybe they can't compete in the big 10 . So I'm trying to figure out is how do what ? What should I be looking for ? Like , where , from , from what point should I logically assess a team ?
Speaker 3I think this , this team there's a there's a decent chance that even at the end of the season we don't even know what it was Past tense , Because it's a confusing team , I guess .
Speaker 1obviously , what I'm trying to say is I've been very confused by this team because they are all things to all people .
Speaker 3I call these like the Rorschach teams .
Speaker 1You're going to see in it what you want to see in it . Great point , great point .
USC Basketball Season Wrap-Up
Speaker 1Well , boys , we uh closing in on on a full hour . So , uh , I guess we should uh call it uh . Thanks everybody for listening . Be sure to like , subscribe , review , check out uscbasketballcom for all kinds of great basketball coverage . Uh and uh , I'm sure we'll probably . I think we've been trying to get St Thomas on . Hopefully we can get him on soon , get some inside scoop from from the roster itself , perhaps a coach coming on soon as well . So , fellas , anything you want to close out with ?
Speaker 2Just looking at the big 10 standings right now , even the next couple of weeks , usc is all playing teams in the upper half of the Big Ten . So I'm looking forward to these , like Minnesota Rutgers games , yeah please , sentences .
Speaker 1I've never , I'd never thought I'd hear Amazing . Well , everybody , thanks again . Hope you're enjoying your January and fight on .
Speaker 3Fight on , as always , fight on .
