The Dunk City Podcast
USCBasketball.com's Chris Huston and Mark Backstrom co-host the Dunk City Podcast, the only podcast that's devoted solely to USC 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
Rashaun Agee
Senior forward Rashaun Agee, fresh of a resounding 14-point, 8-rebound performance against Nebraska that included four 3-pointers, comes on the show to discuss his long journey from Chicago to Los Angeles by way of Las Cruces, Casper, and Bowling Green. We discuss his fast-developing ability as a shooter from beyond the arc, his relationship with Coach Eric Musselman and why getting the chance to play with the current Trojan roster is such a rewarding experience. Later, Chris, Mark and Sky recap the Nebraska game and look ahead to Monday night's tilt at Galen versus crosstown rival UCLA, a game that will see the return of erstwhile Trojan Kobe Johnson.
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.
Welcome to the Dunk City Podcast.
Speaker 2:And welcome back to another episode of the Dunk City Podcast brought to you by USCBasketballcom. I'm your faithful servant, Chris Houston, here with Mark Baxter and Sky Liam. We have a very special guest on this week's show senior power forward from USC, Rashawn Agee, fresh off 14 points, 8 rebounds in USC's 78-73 victory over Nebraska in Lincoln. The Trojans are now four and four with three big road wins so far in the Big Ten and one of the reasons for their stellar play of late has been the play of Mr Agee. He and the Trojans came back late last night on a flight from Lincoln. We caught up with him on Wednesday and here's what he had to say All night on a flight from Lincoln. We caught up with him on Wednesday and here's what he had to say.
Speaker 2:All right, we are here with Rashaun Agee, big man from USC, from Chicago, Illinois, just turned 24 last November 2nd, working on a degree at USC in digital media management from Bogan Technical in Chicago, spent his first couple seasons at New Mexico State. I was back in the before times before COVID. He is in his sixth season. He also had a stop at Casper College in Wyoming and Bowling Green in Ohio and now he is in LA. He is averaging 6.2 points 3.4 rebounds on the season in 15 minutes per game, but in his last four he's been coming down strong 13. Points 7.5 rebounds, 55 field goal 57 from three point land, 8 of 14. Welcome to the show ray, sean agey thank you, thank you congrats on the big win last night against nebraska usc.
Speaker 2:Amazingly uh maybe not amazingly to you, but to a lot of observers three and three on the road, three road road wins in the Big Ten before February. I didn't have that on my bingo card, but it's fantastic. What was the mood of the team like coming back from Lincoln?
Speaker 3:I would say our mood was focused, understanding that us winning that game is just a stepping stone. We know who we are, we know who we can be when we're great and when we're rolling and just understanding that we got another game coming up. You know UCLA at home. We need this game just as much as we needed Nebraska. So just understanding the focus aspect of everything, like we have to continue to push through adversity and continue to stay as a team and stay as one and trust each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mentioned earlier that you're on a kind of a bit of a roll right now. You're starting to really kind of round into form. Your averages are actually starting to sort of approach what you did last year at Bowling Green. What's changed these last four games? Do you feel more comfortable? Is it just you're getting more opportunities? What do you think it is?
Speaker 3:Comfortability. Me and coach are seeing eye to eye and the trust is there. Having a new coach, things doesn't always always just click. Me and Mus. We're starting to understand each other and we're starting to get to know each other more and understand like, hey, when you're here you're at your best. You know me and him have that, like he likes to say, the sewer rat. Yeah, him got that sewer rat understanding and we both are hungry and competitive and want to win.
Speaker 2:Well, you can get a sewer rats T-shirt at USCbasketballcom, which we made just so you know. You know it's interesting. You talk about getting aligned with Mus on what you guys both wanted. What was he telling you earlier? Does it something like it finally clicked with you, or you finally got what he was trying to tell you, or was it just you came to an understanding of what you both needed to do?
Speaker 3:I would say we always had an understanding of each other. My issue was understanding how I can help the team, how I can help the team win in every aspect of basketball. You know I do a lot of great things, but the most important things for the team is always having that guy who's going to dive on the floor, who's going to go get that loose ball, who's going to go get that rebound when we need it and just being the trustworthy guy of the team when needed. Floor is going to go to the loose ball, we're going to go get that rebound when we need it and just just being the trustworthy guy of the team when needed. And I feel like must is understanding, like hey, we see eye to eye right here. Go get that rebound. Hey, go dive on the floor. Hey, take that. Try to take that charge. Hey, wall up this guy. Them type of things is clicking more often now.
Speaker 2:When you take on that persona as a sewer rat, does it kind of make you kind of get into character on the court? You thinking about that yeah?
Speaker 3:for sure, I get into character. I love to win and I'm super competitive, and that comes from you know me. Having an older brother Like the competitiveness is just like. All that matters is winning. You want me to dive in the stands? Let's go. That's what it takes. We got to do it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, I'm going to turn it over to Mark Backstrom, who's our analytics guy. He does all the numbers at our site. Mark meet Rashawn Agee.
Speaker 4:Very glad to have you here, so delighted. Love the sewer rat attitude that you do bring. It's awesome to see. Love the sewer rat attitude that you do bring. It's awesome to see you were at Bowling Green last season. I was looking up. Bowling Green did not play a Big Ten team last season, so kind of a fresh thing for you. What's the biggest difference in Big Ten play that you're seeing now versus what?
Speaker 3:you expected, I would say the difference. It's crazy. I just had this conversation with my family. The difference would be height wise, more skill base. I feel like the physicality is kind of neutral, but the Big Ten is a lot of thinking and a lot of different schemes that go into trying to get the buckets and understanding the other opponent. Earlier, scouting, you know, focus points is kind of the same. You know everybody's trying to win at each level, but I feel like it's it's the, it's the difference of understanding, like when you need to score, when not to do this and when to do that.
Speaker 4:Gotcha Interesting. So I've got these player metrics and team metrics and I'm showing that you're 10% more efficient offensively than last season. When I was looking at the roster coming in, I remember seeing that you had a really high usage rate at Bowling Green and, big man, you had a kind of a much higher turnover rate last year than this year and I remember thinking it seems like there's a lot of pressure on this guy just to do so much on offense and it seems like if he's surrounded by you know, by more guys that can like do different things and, you know, handle a ball and score, he's going to be more efficient and I'm seeing that happen. So I'm wondering is this a matter of just having you know more guys around you that can do more? Or Mus has mentioned like an offseason improvement plan for you and, like I said, you're taking care of the ball better? Is you know, how do those you know? Do you see one of those factors weighing in more into why you're so much more efficient this season?
Speaker 3:Just put myself in a better aspect of when to score the ball and when to take shots, and knowing when to pass and make the one more, and just making better decisions. I feel like last year of course my team needed me to score, my team needed me to be that guy and take shots and make that home run play. I feel like this year, I feel like I'm more free and understanding of when to do those things, like I don't I don't have to force those things, like I have, you know, des, I have saint, I have uh buzo and I have, you know, uh west. These guys you know, help me and talk to me and give me that positive energy, like we believe in you just as much as you believe in yourself nice, um.
Speaker 4:So when I was looking before the season and you know these names are trickling in about hey, here's another transfer coming in I'm madly going through metrics trying to figure out who does what. So I had ideas of each player before I saw them come on the court. I'm sure that you did too, maybe from a metric standpoint. But before you first took the court, you're probably thinking, ok, you know Saint can do this and Dez can do that. Took the court. You're probably thinking, okay, you know Saint can do this and Dez can do that. Now that you're a little over halfway through the season, whose game is most different now than what you thought before you took the court with any of these guys?
Speaker 3:Wes Wesley. I didn't get to watch much of his game, but now that you know me and him play together, him and Buzo I'm getting an understanding of everybody and understanding where exactly where everybody's going to be. That's why I said at the beginning like I just didn't understand how I could help the team. At first I was kind of stuck in the middle and trying to figure out things. Now I understand like Wes going to take that shot right there, or Wes need this pick right here, or okay. Okay, buzzo is going to be corner. We know we can get him a shot in the corner. Hey, dez, when he comes off the ball screen he likes to go. They want to go under. We're going to re-screen for him and let him play in the middle of the floor, like just the things and Sank likes to post up. So them little things just has helped us in the long run of understanding each other.
Speaker 2:Is it, uh, when you're in this situation, with all these transfers, everybody coming in and you mentioning about getting to know people and getting to understand tendencies and what they can and can't do it? This is your first, probably time going through this extreme way with all these different new people, right? So is it especially rewarding to, as the season goes along, just sort of like you're getting to know not only everybody as people, but you're getting to know them as players, and so it's like everything's kind of unfolding as the season goes along. Is it pretty? It seems like it'd be a really interesting way to to take part of a team with a team.
Speaker 3:It's pretty amazing, to be honest, like I would say, the best part is getting to know each and one of the players individually. As a man, watching each person grow up is the best part about it, because each one of the players now I'll tell you from when we first met each other to now, the interactions of how we do things and laugh with each other and play. You'll be like man. These guys probably knew each other for years, right?
Speaker 2:It seems like you like each other a lot.
Speaker 3:We love to be around each other consistently. We don't have a game. We're in the hotel rooms laughing and joking with each other. We're just getting to know each other in every aspect of it. Of course we have our times when we bump heads, but the bump heads don't turn into I hate you or I demise you. I'm not gonna. It turned into my bad bro. I didn't understand where you were coming from.
Speaker 2:I got you yeah, I guess that's where having a lot of guys who've been around for a while some maturity level kind of helps as well I imagine, yeah, yeah, having a whole bunch of older guys.
Speaker 3:You know Wes is young, but Wes has that older mentality. I understand my bad. I got you Next play, I got you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's one guy well, there's probably two guys right now on this broadcast who knew how good Rashawn was at three-pointers, and one of them is not Rashawn Agee. The other is Sky here, who saw Rayshawn in preseason practice and he reported back here to the podcast that he can hoop it from three-point land. So we were waiting for it to happen. In the last four games, total vindication by Sky. So, sky, I'm going to let you ask a few questions of Rayshawn here.
Speaker 1:You know, I saw the scrimmage that you guys did at Galen before the season and the first play that I really remember is it was like a buzzer beater situation. I think it was tied or something. He put like a couple seconds on the clock and you hit this turnaround like fade away from the top of the key to beat the buzzer. I was like I didn't expect that to be part of this game. And then I went to the practice before the Gonzaga game and after the end of the practice there was a shoot around and I'm like I think I saw you miss one three pointer, that entire shoot around, and I actually asked Mus about it in a little post-game interview. So I'm really interested in knowing what your journey was to making that such a big part of your game this season. What things were you doing differently the last year, the last two years or whatever?
Speaker 3:I was out. I've always worked on it. I'm the type to do what's needed for the team. You know I stick to my role and I help the team do what it takes to win. You know I've always worked on my shot, like me and my brother, consistently understanding that. You know you're not always going to be playing a five. You're going to play some four, you may play some three. Just understanding, like being able to space the floor is your best aspect of being me. Like now, in this generation and age. You know a lot of people want to shoot threes and put the ball on the floor, so you got to open up your game and widen the span.
Speaker 1:Was there anything different this past offseason than previously? Because, I mean, so far, this has been your most prolific three-point shooting season.
Speaker 3:I would say the difference was more so. Focusing on and honing in on the aspect of the same form. You know, shoot it the same exact way. Repetition, understanding, know when you have your feet like this, it goes in. When you got your feet too close together, it may lean to the left, you may lean to the right. Don't fade Balance. A lot of things of like. Understanding how Clay Thompson shoots the ball and like, hey, he catches it like this. Or Stephen Curry, look how he catches it. You know all the great shooters in the world. They all have, like, certain things that they do well, they even debug. You know, when he catches it, he catches it on the laces a certain way. Kyrie Irving catches it on the laces a certain way.
Speaker 1:Was that stuff that the coaches were working with you on or stuff that you were kind of picking up and noticing?
Speaker 3:Just stuff that I was picking up and noticing. And me and Tali talk a lot about when to shoot the ball and when not to shoot the ball, and if you don't feel good about that shot, don't take that shot. You know and I work with another one of my coaches we just talk about a lot of you know when you catch the ball, like understanding, like we all believe in you to shoot that ball, so shoot it with free will. But understanding, like if you don't have that confidence in yourself in that one shot, then don't shoot it and it's okay. Just that that belief can can take you a long way interesting.
Speaker 1:Um, another part of your game that's impressed me recently, including last night, was your ability to play with four fouls, even extended stretches of time. I don't know that's not a backhand and compliment or anything. No, because you play effectively with it too. Is there anything in your mindset or your strategy that changes for you to still play so effectively even in that position?
Speaker 3:oh, playing with four fouls, I would say it's just like you got to do what it takes Like I know I have four and my mind is more so now is like okay, wall up, don't reach down. If he drives it's a 50-50 with the charge nowadays. Don't take the charge. You have to wall up at the rim and at least try to make it a difficult shot. He makes it, he makes it.
Speaker 1:But now you're not going down on the other end looking like dang, I got my fifth. Yeah, that's a really good point. I have one final question for you, and this is like a bonus trivia question that I have been asking myself ever since you joined this roster. You're from Chicago. Are you related to Arthur Agee?
Speaker 3:No, I'm not related to Arthur Agee.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how many Agees were running around Chicago. For anyone listening who doesn't get the reference, that's from the famous documentary Hoop Dreams. One of the main players named Arthur Agee.
Speaker 3:Was that something you?
Speaker 1:got growing up, or was that like a presence?
Speaker 3:Yeah, me and my brother did that a lot like asking that a lot. I used to get interviewed a lot asking like Arthur Agee, you know, is that your uncle or cousin? And I'm like, no, I met him a couple of times, you know. Yeah, so it's not, we're not related.
Speaker 2:I guess we would have known by now if it was. If it was, I guess I think about it. Um, okay, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say a city, rishan, and and I'd like you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind chicago, hometown, las cruces a start, the Casper, a new beginning, bowling Green, the understanding of life. Los Angeles.
Speaker 3:Oh dang, you caught me. You caught me Just resilience, yeah, just resilience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's what's coming to LA? Uh, it must be like uh, yeah, it's a bit of a cultural shock compared to some of those previous places, but what was it like getting recruited by Eric Musselman?
Speaker 3:Uh, what was it like it was? It was different, to be honest. Uh, he would call often, you know it was more so like not a day-to-day call. Give me a day facetime me and hey, how you doing. Hey, look at the weather going on over here. Show me the beach, you know. Uh, he's at the beach house and I'm like man it looks beautiful, like just to have that.
Speaker 3:And then just the relationship of talking all the time and getting to know each other, understanding, like goals aligned to him asking me questions like, hey, what do you, what do you think about this? Or what is your next goal of life? You know, just understanding that. Him telling me, hey, when you come here, I'm going to push you to the full extent. How can you take it? How would you respond? And I feel like he's done a great job of pushing me in and continue to help me grow as a player and as a person.
Speaker 2:Does recruiting really? I mean, is recruiting still take place like it used to in the sense, like I know there's all kinds of considerations, but like when, when, if everything is equal, and say you're say you have options that are pretty much equal and and are you then looking at relationship with the coach or tradition or media market? Like how does that all come into play when those kind of things happen?
Speaker 3:uh, if everything's equal. I feel like I look into relationships. You know, uh, how would the relationship go if I'm not playing well, you know, will we still be understanding each other and talking, and would you still be positive towards me and still try to push me to be a better person? Then it's also in your background. Who did you coach? You know, have you ever coached a player like me? Have you ever coached a player that played the same position and but did what I did?
Speaker 3:In the aspect of being able to spread the floor, put the ball on the floor, be effective, rebounding you know I'm a great rebounder and being able to be like the helper of everything. And it's also just understanding, like, what is it? What would I say? The difference would be the background, so the background of who he previously coached and who he's trying to coach. So a lot of coaches go into the aspect of well, I had a player in your similar ability, but you're better. So how does he piece me in to understand and to help the team? Like, where would he see me? Just as I see myself?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the Trojans are now 12-7 and 4-4 in the Big Ten Big game on Monday night hosting the Bruins. This is your first exposure to the USC-UCLA rivalry. What have you been? You know? No one else on the team except for Harrison Hornery has been involved. So what are you hearing about that historic rivalry and what is the rest of the team talking about as far as that goes, and what is the coaching staff telling?
Speaker 3:you, we haven't really got to talk with the coaching staff yet. Of course, you know we get to snip it right after the game, like we got UCLA coming up. It's very important to get this game rivalry, but the most important would be, you know, before we get out the locker room, harry is like hey, this game is very important to everybody around us and everybody in this town and everybody. So understand, like, this is the game we need. We need this game. This game can change a lot of things for us, even with them, you know, just beating Wisconsin, that's even a big plus for us because we got to come in, we got to play great basketball, understanding that this rivalry is way beyond our understanding, and we just got to come out and play our hardest, you know, and put it on the line for USC.
Speaker 2:Does coming into this rivalry kind of new and fresh kind of make it easier to sort of go in there with a little bit more loosey-goosiness, you know? Yeah, yeah, right Of?
Speaker 3:course I feel like coming in, you know, and not understanding things gives us a little more freedom to like, breathe and relax and play through the game and understand like one mistake can't change the game. At the end of the game, as long as we win, we can win by one. The objective is to win and we need to beat them.
Speaker 2:Very well said, Guys. Anything else to ask Rashaun?
Speaker 4:No One thing that I might reach out to you. Rishon, I'm more than twice your age, but I might have to reach out to you another time about the Bowling Green and the understanding, the meaning of life, Cause I'm not there yet. Hope to be there someday. If we can talk afterwards about that, I'd appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I got you.
Speaker 2:Well, rashawn, thanks for coming on the Dunk City Podcast brought to you by uscbasketballcom. You have quickly become a favorite both here on our message board and out in the fan base. Really appreciate you coming on the show and thanks for all you do for Trojan basketball and good luck against the Bruins.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Fight on Fight on.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 4:Well, that was fun, that was great, yeah, I got to say, man, everyone from the program coaches, everyone, you're just like God. This is such a likable organization.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very likable, just like.
Speaker 4:I'm sure the O'Neill years right. I didn't have that same exposure.
Speaker 2:He was a great guy to have Scott try. Actually, he was really entertaining to talk to when I was a student I went to a, a scotch Actually, he was like really
Speaker 3:entertaining to talk to.
Speaker 1:I went to a when I was a student. I went to like a Q&A. I'm like this guy is awesome and then I went and watched the game. I'm like what the fuck is that? No, he was. I mean, it's really interesting. This is not on the pod, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Of course it is. Oh, I mean, I'm not going to say anything bad. This is the Sky After Dark part. Go on Sky After.
Speaker 1:Dark. We were just talking about him last week. I don't even remember why, but he had like two solid seasons he did.
Speaker 2:He did, he was just, you know, yeah, yeah, it's like having Larry David as your coach, you know, but not yeah. Things are eventually going to fall apart is kind of the idea and he actually played nebraska twice too.
Speaker 1:Oh, he did, yeah, and I remember watching this his kind of best season when he made the first four with vucevic. They played at nebraska. I watched that game with my dad over winter break on TV and they lost by one point or something.
Speaker 2:There's no doubt that he was a very good defensive coach. For sure. I remember them playing incredible stretches of defense. They had some really good defensive players as well, but let's be happy that we are no longer in that era. But as you were talking, mark, and as Rayshawn alluded to, it seems like they like each other watching on TV and he pretty much confirmed they do like each other. They seem like a pretty good group of guys and Rayshawn especially seems to really be enjoying this new setting. So pretty exciting from him. And you know the Trojans beat Nebraska 78-73. Early on in the game I posted in the message board that I think this looks like a team that we should be able to handle and it kind of turned out that way. Even though that Nebraska didn't necessarily roll over and the game was flip-flopping as far as the lead, it never felt to me like I never really had that pit in my stomach like, oh, we're going to lose. What do you guys think?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of had that feeling, in fact, I think, when we predicted the wins. I predicted Nebraska as a win because I knew, like St Thomas had mentioned in an interview, he had that game circled on his calendar and I just felt like, well, this team, this is a tough USC team. On the other hand, it's not like Nebraska is a total pushover. I mean, they dominated UCLA.
Speaker 1:And this is the first time since, I believe, 2022 that they've lost back toback home games. So this win was by no means guaranteed, and there were a lot of lead changes, a lot of ties and the guys really fought hard for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the only reason the game was actually close was that we just didn't shoot very well in the totality of the game, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a good point, but you know, you look and see like Chibuzo Abo missed all of his shots from the field. The guy grabbed nine boards. They were determined to do whatever they could to try to win.
Speaker 4:Mark, immediately to that point, right there. What's interesting? Now, just on the season this is the first time I've seen this since I've been tracking in season stats With that game last night. This is the first time that I think forever that this team actually has the same offensive rebounding percentage as opponents, as they're giving up Now. We've always been like three or 4% behind. We've been closing that gap recently. So now we're actually there at at equal, which is good, because we're doing it in big 10 plays when we we've caught up, which is an especially um and on the road on the road too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're doing it. We've out-rebounded the nation's leading team rebounder in Illinois and also proceeded to out-rebound Nebraska as well on Tuesday night in Lincoln. Any surprises in that game? For me, it just really cemented the the rotation even further and it really looks like from a from a starting perspective of going in with Josh Cohen. We poke and prod with him and if he gets going, then basically he, he plays his, he plays his way, he plays.
Speaker 2:To stay on the court coming out is kind of how I see it. And if he's things are going well with him, he stays, and if they don't go well, then Rashaan Agee comes in, and then Rashaan just comes in on the normal rotation anyway as well. But if things aren't starting out well with Josh, then Rashaan comes in and then you just anyway as well. But if things aren't starting out well with Josh, then Rashawn comes in and then you just what you're really looking at is which of these big three from an explosive score standpoint, we have three guys who are phenomenally explosive scorers, in that they really seem to be able to just get buckets and gulps. So you got Desmond, claude Wesley, yley yates and, uh, chibuzo abo, all, all can just fill it up really quickly, so. So it's like come in, get one of those guys going and, um, see what's going on with with the bigs down low, and and then it just like proceeds from there I would say, uh, just to piggyback off that I was kind of pleasantly surprised by Josh Cohen's play.
Speaker 1:You know, braxton Mia is. He's a big dude, he's solid, he kind of had like a fairly good season at Washington and then he's kind of he's deteriorated quite a bit, quite a bit yeah. Well, he also caught an inadvertent elbow in the face, um yeah, early in the game. I don't know if that affected him or not. Uh, or maybe he just. Sometimes I've also seen games where he kind of just played himself off the court I've seen him just dunk, dunk, dunk on us like crazy like oh yeah exactly but, uh, you know, cohen, athletically not able to match up there, but he was just really fighting.
Speaker 2:There was a play early on where, uh, he tried to get an offensive rebound and he just he wasn't able to secure it, you know, but he was able to tip it off a nebraska player and usc got the ball back, which is really cool, and he he had some really positive contributions in that game yeah, he's got height but not size, and but as long as he just fights for position, then he's, which is really cool, and he had some really positive contributions in that game.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he's got height but not size, but as long as he just fights for position, then he's going to be a factor. Yeah, to the Braxton Mia point, I had similar flashbacks so I think between that and a lot of Riley Worcester in my immediate, near past tense I wasn't good with this one being in the bag until it was in the bag. We've seen too much from those two Worcester. I remember him one time just absolutely crushing us. I think it might have been Smith's first season there. I don't remember, but my gosh, he's really put it on us from time to time.
Speaker 2:I got to interject real quick.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's got to be like probably the most traumatic uh aspect of uh college sports is, um, you know, transition uh into this world where guys are going to to teams, uh, every year, and the fact that that you, you know, we, we left the pac-12 and I'm thinking, oh man, I don't have to play like kylan boswell or omar balu anymore. And then and then like, or you know, oh gosh, it's so nice not have to play that little kanan carlisle guy or something. And then you like run into him again. You're like, what, what do I do? Yeah, it's not, it's, it's a little it can be, traumatic, uh, uh, but it is actually.
Speaker 2:it's not. It's a little, it can be traumatic, but it is actually, it's, it's traumatic. It's both traumatic and cathartic at the same time, because many times they hurt you in different context and then when they get to that new context, they just they're not as scary anymore. Like Colin Boswell not as scary at playing in Illinois as he was at Arizona for some reason, although he was still good in Illinois.
Speaker 4:I might see that in a different context. Coming up just to foreshadow a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we all know what you're talking about. Well, I think the scariness will be coming from that side. Oh, that's fair.
Speaker 1:Another thing that surprised me about the Nebraska game in kind of an opposite direction was I thought Saint was just going to go totally alpha, you know, score a ton of points, which he actually kind of had a stretch of play in that Wisconsin game. In the second half he really keyed USC's run to almost tie that game. And it was quite impressive the way he was just kind of cold-blooded making shots. I thought we were going to see that against Nebraska. And he didn't force anything.
Speaker 1:He really played to whatever the team needed, including. It's funny watching the highlights. You see him make that two-handed dunk off the clawed assist. And then a few highlights. Later he makes a two-handed dunk. And wait a second, they played that twice. No, he just read the defense. He was in the right spot twice in a row and made this kind of unspectacular play. But just make the right play, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's kind of become like a Kobe Johnson player was when Kobe was good or when he had good games for USC.
Speaker 4:No, I like the first take better.
Speaker 1:That's more material, yeah.
Speaker 2:So back when Kobe was good or when he had his good season at USC, when he had his promising season the one that wasn't filled with dread anyway back in that year he would have games like this where he would score within himself and rebound and get assists and defend really well and get some steals. And Saint has become that kind of guy where he's playing within himself. Offensively. He doesn't take really bad shots. Sometimes the shots don't go in or they're really close, but they're generally not bad shots. He has a really good selection of shots. He's rebounding very well. He's passing very well. He gets a little too eager sometimes he has.
Speaker 2:He does have trouble. Both him and Claude had trouble with interior passing in the zone last night. That's why it's a zone, that's why people play zone, because it stops those kinds of things and it was hard to, you know to to get good clean passes off. So but nevertheless he looks to pass, he, he's, he's just got a great sense of spacing and understanding. And also on defense he plays very well and and I think he might be the most consistent defender on the team and also the most versatile, because he can really uh, you know he can, he can guard some bigs, or at least hold his own against some bigs, and can also play fairly respectable on the perimeter.
Speaker 4:You've kind of gone right to the point that I wanted. That's hit me in the face. The last few games it seems like and you guys know Exis knows better than I but it seems like teams are smartly, wisely doing whatever they can to slow down, if not stop Dez from doing the thing about just getting into the paint at will and then just lighting them up. And it's a logical adjustment by other teams. And it seems like, as that's been the case, it seems like we're learning more and more how to play off of that too. Not coincidentally, as Dez hasn't been stopped. He's been slowed a little bit, he's a little less efficient, but over those last three games, saints' BPO is 71, which is insane. Just for some context, juwan Gary seemed like he was just absolutely murdering us last night. His BPO was 53. So you are talking about four levels above that, and that's over three conference games. You know against, you know not the bottom three in the conference, I would say either although iowa defensively might be.
Speaker 1:It might be, but this conference, I think, is still going to see a lot of shake-ups. We just had minnesota beat michigan. You know, yeah, you have no idea what what could happen. So iowa might, you know, run off a string of wins, or who knows?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we're going to see a lot more. I think the playbook playing USC is you really? I mean, it's a no-brainer. You got to zone us right. You have to zone us because we don't, if Chibuzo Abo is not shooting well, we're not. You know, and we're not going to be we're probably not going to have a great volume of three point shots going in.
Speaker 2:Rashawn Agee had a great game last night and he's been shooting well these last four games, but I don't know if he's going to become. I think the more volume three point shooter he becomes, probably the less effective he'll become. He needs to to like shoot. This amount of three-pointers is probably his optimal where you're going to get the optimal efficiency out of him. So teams are going to be playing zone against us and I don't really understand why Nebraska went away from their zone in the game last night because they switched over to man-to-man again at some point. I mean they kind of went back and forth but like the zone we had difficulty with every time and it wasn't like you know, we weren't breaking the zone with our shoot, although AG was loosening it up for sure.
Speaker 1:I think that's why. Yeah, because both McCaffrey, the Iowa's coach, and Hoiberg, nebraska's coach, mentioned in their press conferences that AG's shooting changed their coverage and Hoiberg no sorry McCaffrey for Iowa said, oh, we shouldn't have reacted to that. No, I'm getting confused. It was Illinois. Illinois overreacted, according to them, and Nebraska reacted, I would say appropriately, because I mean four for six is like that'd be good for anybody on the team. That'd be great for Chibuzo to shoot that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So I think, yeah, like you mentioned, mark, we're seeing a little bit of focus on Des Claude from defenses and also, you know they're definitely the zone is designed to keep him from getting to there's that spot right, like on the left side of the. When he comes down he likes to drive left with it. Even though he's right-handed, he'll drive left and then he likes to sort of get to the, the little um like maybe like three quarters of the way down, uh, the key on the left and and just you know, work his pivot and and go in. So he's within range of going up and under and all that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And he's so like he has his interior moves and pivoting pivot moves and misdirection are are so uh, so clean and and and sudden, at his size and his strength, that that's where he's able to to do a lot of damage. And so I think if you're any defensive coach worth your salt, you're like, do not let this guy get to this point cleanly. Or once he gets there, you got to swarm them, kind of thing. Um, or once he gets there, you got to swarm them, kind of thing. And that's what's kind of been happening, I think, to Claude the last few games.
Speaker 1:I totally agree.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was just looking back here real quick. Last four games it's, it's, it's, it's working. He's still getting his stuff. I think he's just turning the ball over a little more. To that point. It's just, it's, it's tougher going in there. Last four games three that point, it's just, it's, it's tougher going in there. Last four games three turnovers working back here uh, five turnovers against wisconsin. Before that, uh, six against iowa and their vaunted defense. He said sarcastically and um, and then five against illinois. So it's tougher going. Now the. The thing that's great is he's not throwing in the towel mentally and saying, ah crap, it's just not my day. He still has good numbers. It's just, it's tougher. Great is he's not throwing in the towel mentally and saying, ah crap, it's just not my day. He still has good numbers. It's just it's tougher going. Um, he's pretty relentless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he just keeps like he. He gets like the big dog's going to eat at some point, and usually in the in the game, like whether you know he can just go in there. He's a very like efficient scorer Again. Doesn't take a lot of bad shots, doesn't hoist up a lot of three-pointers. So of course that three-pointer he had against Nebraska just before the shot clock expired was probably arguably the biggest shot of the game.
Speaker 1:I think that's the third three-pointer he's made this season to beat the buzzer. He made one just like that against Cal and he made another one to beat the halftime buzzer against, like CSUN or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know it's funny A lot of times you get a point guard who, when they're shooting, you're like I really don't want to see him shoot a three-pointer, even though you're like you want the person to improve the three-pointer, like I really don't want to see him shoot.
Speaker 2:Even though desmond claude, uh, isn't actually a good three-point shooter, I don't mind when he shoots three-pointers because I feel like I feel like he can actually improve at that if he started taking them, because I feel like the shot usually looks pretty good coming off his his, his hands. You know he doesn't look awkward like when isaiah collier, uh, early on last year when he started he was shooting pretty well from three point land early on in the season. But I remember thinking like deep in the back of my mind like it was fool's gold that cause because, like you know from the sample, once the sample size increased he wasn't going to he wasn't going to be at the same, anywhere close to that level, um, whereas I feel like, if, if, if Des Claude actually increased his volume, he would probably be fairly decent, because I think he's.
Speaker 4:I still think he takes good shots. Yeah, to that point. Remember, coming into this season, my concern was when I was kind of scouting biometrics you know, the entire roster he only shot like 26% or something and he was taking four per game, and that was my takeaway was like I'd like to see what he would do if he was taking four per game. And that was my takeaway was like I'd like to see what he would do if he was just taking less of these and maybe to use, you know, one of my favorite things to do is use a horse racing analogy. Sometimes you need to drop the horse down to its proper level to really get its confidence up and then go up up the up the class ladder and we might have that with his shooting confidence because it's, you know, to your, to your point, his shot looks a lot better now than I imagined it via 26 percent of a guy you know taking four per game. Yeah, that makes sense. So maybe it is time to dial it up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, he shoots like less than two per game. Yeah, right, and I feel like, if I feel like two per game is a good, I think he should take two per game, because he's shooting 32 percent, which certainly isn't, it's not horrific. Uh, yeah, I certainly think that he could take three, or like, or like he could take two, and then if he makes one of them he could, he should take three, right, uh, and then, and then just like if, but take two to try to get one, if you understand my understanding right, no I know, exactly what you're saying, if he makes the first one, then shoot three.
Speaker 2:If he makes the second one, then you're good, right, that's pretty much how agey was at the beginning of the season.
Speaker 1:He would take one or two shots and sometimes he'd make one of one, sometimes he'd go 0 for two. And now that, interestingly enough, now that he's been given the green light, that's when he's getting these 4 for 6 games, 3 for 5 against Illinois.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool to see just how confident he is now going out there. It's not a joke, right? It's not like oh, here's the big guy going out to shoot a 3, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the coaches have really empowered him. I mean Musselman says, like you need to take that shot, we need you to shoot that when you have it, which is actually similar to the NBA. Drew Peterson said he had to understand when he got to the NBA that if he had any space, he was basically required to take that shot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's two other guys I want to talk about in the Nebraska game. One, clark Slackert, had his best game as a Trojan seven points and nine minutes on three of six shooting, including a three-pointer. He did try four three-pointers A couple of them, I think were pretty decent. Looks One of them maybe not so decent, but he showed some things as far as being able to help the team offensively. But he also looked really good defensively and did a really good job on Connor Esedian who had lit USC up with three three-pointers in the first half. What do you guys think about the little emergence little, uh emergence here of clark slackert?
Speaker 1:one thing that was mentioned by the announcers and also by muscleman post game was, uh, being a smaller player, slackert had that ability to get around screens quicker and uh, it ended up being very effective, essentially kind of taking the cg and out of the game. I think was it a CG?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a CG and also better space. He said it allowed for better spacing as well, mark.
Speaker 4:Yeah, maybe the Josh Cohen of the backcourt in that you're going to get some stuff. But you know, once Nebraska was running stuff to post him up, it got pretty nervy there pretty quick, as they say in soccer. Um, nebraska was able to just. You know again going back to my Riley Worcester nightmares, that that's why this wasn't in the bag till it was in the bag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's. As a defender I'd say he's, he's. He's better as a, as a like perimeter guy, like chaser, Uh, but, but, um, if you do back him down, I don't think he's maybe the most adept defender in the post, but most guards of that size aren't.
Speaker 4:Yep absolutely.
Speaker 2:Nevertheless, it's good baby steps for him to kind of get his beak wet, so to speak, and he had a really nice. I think maybe a sign of him feeling comfortable was that little quick turnaround he had inside the key that that went in, which which you know, I would suspect I didn't watch a lot of games when he was at pen but I would suspect that, um, that's the kind of stuff he did there, right, and when you do that kind of stuff, you're probably feeling a little bit comfortable on the court, comfortable with your game. So, to me, that little instant where he did that, that shot, which, looking at it, I was like what's he doing? But it went in and so, yeah, so I think that's sort of a good little, gives us a good sense of that he might be able to do some, contribute, some more coming forward and then and then and then.
Speaker 2:Finally, I just want to mention Wesley Yates, who continues his, his tear. Since he earned a starting position for USC and that was back in against Washington, he's averaging about 15 points per game. He's shooting at a high clip. He's shooting pretty well from three-point land, although he's missed his last four. He had been struggling from the line and then he went 9-9 against Nebraska and sandwiched by a 6-6 against Indiana and then 2-1 for fours against Iowa and Wisconsin. So he's showing some, some freshmen inconsistencies, but, man, we're seeing some pretty explosive plays and then, like I said earlier, just the ability to score a lot of points in really short bursts and and his he seems to have a controlled recklessness to his play, which is really interesting. He just seems to be getting better and better on both ends of the court, despite, you know he's still making mistakes, but at least once or twice a game he does something that is physically impressive or he makes a play that really nobody else on the team can make.
Speaker 1:He's definitely growing. He's learning more where to pick his spots, like how best to do his damage. I still get a little frustrated when I watch him just over-dribble sometimes, but he, like I've said before, he is one of the best individual shot creators on the team in a different way than someone like Claude, so he's been very beneficial offensively in that way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, what's what's interesting to me is, you know you're seeing more definition or understanding of really who can do what among if you look you, you consider, like, of the starting five, if you take Cohen out, cause he's a big guy, basically they have four perimeter players. You know, okay, it seemed like Claude would be decent getting into the paint, abba was kind of an outside shooter, but it seems like the the roles are much more well-defined now. Um, which is great of the three between you know, uh, claude, ab, abo and Thomas, and then you have almost this wildcard jack-of-all-trades that can really just fill in any gap for anybody. I don't know if I want him to take five or six three-pointers in a game, although sometimes he might be able to do that on the right time, but it's just a really nice.
Speaker 4:It's weird to say a complementary starting piece, if you will, in that he does so much he can fill in in in any. You know any any kind of part of this deficient. You know one thing you didn't mention he had four steals last night too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he's certain he's definitely has the ability to assert himself in as far as in the steals game he's definitely. He has a great a knack for anticipation, anticipating cross court passes and those kind of things. But it was just interesting to me how both he and Claude are both so explosive offensively and yet neither is really a perimeter player. They both operate so well down among the trees and they both play taller than they are as tall as they are. They both play taller than they are as tall as they are. They both play taller than they are and they're both really strong and can play through contact and can both get to the line, have the ability to get to the line a lot, and Claude's a pretty good free-throw shooter and I think Yates will be, as he just learns how to control when he's tired and those kind of things. So two really interesting players to have as a foundation for the program going into next season.
Speaker 1:Absolutely One really weird thing that you just reminded me of. I was looking at St Thomas's stats and they mentioned last night he was a 66 free throw shooter on the year, but all of his previous college seasons he's been in the 80s solidly. I would look for him to go on a streak of making a lot of free throws oh, that's a great.
Speaker 2:that's a great point, uh, because again, when you look at that sample size and if he is that then as he gets more comfortable and so on and so forth, that is a number that is going to rise. So USC could have. And also, abo's a great free throw shooter. So you're looking at potentially Thomas being a pretty good free throw shooter from here on out, claude being a pretty good free throw shooter, abo being a pretty good free throw shooter, yates he might go 9 of yates, he might go nine of nine, he might go two of five, but but he's not horrible.
Speaker 1:um, ag also is actually quite a good free throw. Ag is pretty good, so that's 83 percent now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when you have the, really the only, there's just two things. The main thing this team doesn't have is just a lot of size, but you don't really always. You don't need a lot of size every time to win. You can win without size. It's just hard to do it. I think week in and week out, all right, ucla coming up next Monday. The Trojans are now 12-7 overall and 4-4 in the Big Ten, the big 10 conference. Amazingly enough, already three big 10 road wins. Trojans take on ucla at galen center at 7 pm on monday. The bruins are below. Are they? Are they about the same spot, um, as usc in the standings here?
Speaker 4:let me just double check yeah, with that win they're four and four also.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they're four and four um us and 13 and six, so very similar uh records going into this game. Uh, there's a bit of a log jam uh between uh maryland, usc and ucla at four and four, indiana, usc and UCLA at 4-4. Indiana is also at 5-4. So if USC can beat UCLA then it's going to be like one game out of Oregon, assuming Oregon wins its next game. But if Oregon loses its next game and USC beats UCLA, then USC is like right there with Oregon and Wisconsin, illinois, in the top six of a conference which if you had told me that USC would be top six of the conference after nine games in conference, I'd be like, yep, that sounds pretty good. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You know we were joking around a bit about Kobe Johnson earlier, but he has had some big performances in big games. I think in the 2023 NCAA tournament he played Wisconsin and he scored like 21 points even though that was a loss. But I wouldn't take him lightly, to be honest, and who knows, who knows what happens. But I hope that, uh, that's an aspect of the scouting that's taking place, going into his kind of history and games like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point. Uh, uh, there will be a definite sort of narrative hanging over over the game as it relates to him and and he will be the first, from what I can recall, or from what I know of my history of USC basketball, he will be the first former Trojan to to play against USC as a Bruin, probably since World War II I think there were some individual cases on the football side, maybe on the basketball side.
Speaker 1:There was a basketball player around World War II who, I think switched from UCLA to USC. Yeah okay, he was actually like I read.
Speaker 2:He was attending USC med school Right right and I guess at that time he played on the basketball team. He was patriotic, it was the war, but yeah, so it's going to be interesting because he's a pre-NIL I mean, he's not pre-NIL but he's kind of pre most of this stuff. He came to USC because he was recruited there and he didn't really have a lot of options. So USC wanted him and he developed at USC. He did some things promising as a freshman but then really had a great sophomore year, really turned into a really high level defender, pretty good, a pretty decent score, a good all around player. And then of course he was so promising going into his his next season, his junior season, uh, with the idea that he might be the kind of guy who who could even play his way into the first round because of his ability to be a three and D guy. And last year was just kind of a disaster for all parties involved.
Speaker 2:But Kobe particular really just kind of fell off the cliff, I thought, as a player. In many cases he still had flashes of his old self but really fell off as a player. Now, over at UCLA, through 19 games he's averaging 7.8 points, 5.7 boards, 3.2 assists, 1.8 steals shooting, 44.6, 68%, free throw, 33.9. You know, he's kind of just become a guy. He's become a guy who occasionally has a pretty good game, but we thought at one point that he might turn out. Occasionally has a pretty good game, but we thought at one point that he might turn out to be a really good player. So I'm curious to see how the fans at USC will treat him if he's going to acknowledge that when he's down there on the court. And I don't know, maybe it won't mean anything to anybody because, as Rashawn mentioned earlier, a lot of these people don't really care about this. I mean, they care about the rivalry, but it's not. You know, they haven't been part of it.
Speaker 1:So maybe it's easier to handle. Yeah, I don't think any of the players are going to be thinking at all about kobe johnson's past allegiances uh, except for maybe harry. There was some sound bite at the beginning of the season where some reporter asked harry about that and I I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I recall him saying that he's going to talk that much, so take that for what you want, I you should have said I wish we could have come up with some Australian pejorative.
Speaker 2:He's a tallywhacker, that one or something. And you're like wait a minute. Is that good or bad?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you just forgot to mention. I guess maybe you're being generous. You overlooked the fact that he actually lost his starting Role for about three games there. When I said he was kind of sent out to the wilderness To do his walkabout, which was kind of rock bottom for last season. Too Interesting for a team captain to be put in that spot. That's not something you see every day. I'm pretty sure that's why he left too.
Speaker 2:Well, last year he played just well enough to get Enfield fired. Enfield wasn't fired but that's how well he played. It's like he wasn't actively, actively, you know he wasn't, you know he was just good enough, like he was too good. Not, he was too good not to play, but he wasn't good enough to start and he thought he should start. But when he started, the more he played, uh, the worse the team did many times so uh you know UCLA this season.
Speaker 1:I've watched a little bit of them, I've looked at some box scores and they are quite a good defensive team. They get a lot of turnovers. Offensively they're very hot or cold. They've had some really good games and then they've had some really bad games. So it's a little bit tough to predict how they're going to play Well.
Speaker 4:I know this is a little out of character for me, but I actually have a scouting report on this game, not metrics. I've actually got like a scouting report, so yeah. So take it for what it's worth. You know, my scout says that this team lacks energy, pride and passion. They don't have guys that'll play hard enough to win a big 10 game. They can't get a rebound. Uh, they just don't play hard, they're soft and delusional. And my, my, my scout is named Mick Cronin, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Right at the end I was like wait a second I've heard this
Speaker 2:Well, he's, uh, you know, he, he, you know, he knows what he's talking about, doesn't he?
Speaker 1:He does. He knows it better than we do.
Speaker 2:Well, look, as far as like matchups go, I mean, well, there's some. There are some fundamental issues with the whole concept of UCLA basketball this season. We talked about this a little bit on our offline text chain but people got very excited. The usual suspects got very excited about UCLA basketball this year, but it felt very like you know that the enthusiasm felt very artificial. It was like, you know, ucla basketball was many. You would see right preseason rankings. In some cases they were top 15. You heard stuff about Kobe Johnson being the best player, defensive player of the big 10. Is anybody talking about that now? I haven't heard. Maybe they are, but I haven't heard anything about that. So you know, it's like it was just like this completely hype filled situation. And you're bringing in Sky Clark right, and people are like pretending that Sky Clark is an answer, right. And you're bringing in Kobe Johnson and people are pretending that the Kobe Johnson, like Kobe Johnson, wouldn't be leaving USC if he was doing well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yes, and no, you're right, because I was going to say in fairness to him, the coach that recruited him left, but he entered the portal before any of that happened. Yes, um, yes, one big wild card in this game is adai mara. He has basically done absolutely nothing all season and suddenly, against wisconsin, he scores 22 points. I have no idea if that means anything, but we'll see after the game if it meant, if it meant something.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope that they they try to pound the ball into him. I hope they do.
Speaker 4:I will also point out that last two games you know they lit up Iowa and they beat a good Wisconsin team. Maybe Cronin just lightened them up, actually finally took, you know, it kind of took hold, and maybe they're a different team now. Now the other thing is those are two home games. They've won one road game all season that was at Oregon. They've won one road game all season that was at Oregon. So, for what it's worth, it'll be interesting to see how different they are at Galen versus at Pauley.
Speaker 1:That Oregon road game also was won by a buzzer-beating three bank shot. So if USC just keeps it within two, two possessions, no chance of losing.
Speaker 2:Like that he's a two, two possession lead there's a couple guys I like on their team. Um, I like dylan andrews a lot. Uh, I may not be putting it all together, but I I he's just, um, I think he's one of the fastest players, uh guards, on the court with the ball that I've seen. So he's going to be a challenge, because most teams have difficulty with quick guards anyway. But our difficulty with quick guards is compounded by the fact that our guards are larger and maybe have all the advantages that big guards have, but have some of the disadvantages that big guards have, but but, you know, have some of the disadvantages that big guards have as well, which is having trouble keeping up with smaller, quicker guards. And so Dylan Andrews is somebody I would keep an eye on in this game as being someone we need to worry about. And then I mean, I'm not worried about Tyler Bilodeau or Eric Daly.
Speaker 2:Sebastian Mack is a is a scorer, he's someone who who could potentially go off in a game like this. And then Kobe Johnson, of course, as we know, is very mercurial. He might have the best game of his life against us, or he might be the reason we win. And then I don't really worry about Lazar Stefanovich or Sky Clark. To me these are just guys. You know they're not. They're not guys, they're not killers. Watch them go off and then you know I really like Trent Perry. Of course, I'm hoping that Trent Perry.
Speaker 1:Transfer's back.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I think we talked about this too, sky that maybe he wasn't style wise, someone that coach Musselman wanted to bring in. But if that wasn't the case and if he, if he, you know, wanted Trent Perry, then maybe one year under Mick Cronin it might be enough for him and want to come write the situation over at USC next year for him and want to come right the situation over at USC next year. So I do think that this is not a very good UCLA team and I think that Galen Center will be rocking, to the extent that it rocks, and I think that USC is more likely to play its best game than UCLA is, because there's some things matchup-wise that, even though that there are matchups that UCLA has to exploit, potentially against USC. Dylan Andrews, for example, like I mentioned, sky Clark's also very quick.
Speaker 2:Ade Mara, who's very tall and who you mentioned, is playing well right now and so he's going to be somebody they're going to try to, you know, utilize as a way to take advantage of their size advantage over us. But if they're playing man to man, which Mitch McCronin likes to do, and you have Rashaan Agee in there and you can draw Ade Mara out there on Agee, I kind of like the idea of just drawing him out there. Now, if they play zone, which is something that one should do against USC, I don't know has UCLA played any zone this year? Has anyone noticed?
Speaker 1:I think they have, but I haven't watched enough of their games consistently yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, it seems like that mick will play zone as much as usc plays zone, which is, you know, because uh must did talk about at one point earlier say, maybe we need to play some zone and I don't. I think we maybe we played a just a touch of it a little bit, one or two games. We might have brought it out a little bit, but I think we've pretty much quickly gone away from that and haven't really seen it since. And so I wonder if Mick will come out with the zone, because they have a lot of guys that are, I think, very similar to USC size, like Eric Daly is a big guard and Tyler Bilodeau is 6'9" and Kobe Johnson is 6'5", 6'6" and Sebastian Mack is 6'3". I mean they don't have a ton of tiny guys. They don't have a ton of big guys. They've got like one or two, one or two, two and the rest are kind of USC size guys.
Speaker 1:So I like our USC size guys better than their USC size guys um, I agree and with everything you said, except for one point, which is regarding Tyler Bilodeau. That guy is a machine in the post. He can really score in the post. He has a lot of different moves. His weakness has been he's their de facto starting center. As a 6'9 power forward. He's gotten really worn down playing defense against some of these big guys. Usc doesn't have the big guy he has to play defense against so offensively. He's someone to look out for Defensively to put on him. I think Chibuzo actually could be effective, because Chibuzo has the size and length and the lateral quickness too. Potentially.
Speaker 2:I think we have better switching opportunities than they do. Both teams like to switch. I think we're going to be better at that, Like if they have Mara in right, I feel like that's going to be a real problem for them, Even if he gets his. If he continues playing well, even if he gets his, I feel like it's going to be a problem. He might be a liability for them in this game. I agree, Mark. Thoughts analytically on how the teams match up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the one thing I would maybe take issue with is and this, maybe he's more of a my kind of guy, since I have not seen him play yet Eric Daly, super efficient BPO of 59, which is, you know, it seems like the guy that could almost silently get like 16 or 17 points without turning the ball over. At the end of the day you look back it's like, yeah, that's the guy that kind of was the silent assassin. Um, that's what concerns me the most and you know you hit on. We just hope that we, we get, you know, that kobe game instead of uh, this kobe game would seem to be kind of the path as well. Um, bilodeau, that is interesting in that he seems to be a much better player now than than before he was at ucla.
Speaker 4:Now that might be kind of like what we talked about with rashaan agey. You know more talent around you. Clearly it's a different situation at Pauley Pavilion than Corvallis. But I would wonder, even you know I might take issue a little bit. Not that you know, anyone's going to confuse Josh Cohen with Moses Malone for those of us that are my age and older, but you know, josh can handle the ball and maybe just make Bil bill to move around. I mean that that as much as just you know maybe it's not not bumping and grinding, but just making him just actually move a little bit and chase him a little bit could be um, you know one path to wearing him down as well yeah, yeah, it could be a good matchup, size-wise, for Cohen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know UCLA, they're not like a tremendously great rebounding team. They're rebounding at about the same rate. Usc is, at least as far as rebounds per game.
Speaker 1:This might be like the first Galen home game of the season. That's a legitimate home court advantage.
Speaker 2:Right, you were at the game against Wisconsin. Right, there was a decent showing. You said, oh man.
Speaker 1:Dude, it was like 50-50. There were so many Wisconsin fans and you couldn't tell necessarily who was who all the time because everyone's wearing red, but the Wisconsin cheers were just as loud as the usc cheers, and I was. I was actually really surprised how many wisconsin grads and wisconsin fans are in la. It's like you know, wisconsin is farther from los angeles than, say, u-dub, but you would never see a large University of Washington fan showing at Galen.
Speaker 2:I still think that USC needs to. This is a missed opportunity they had in the preseason Not preseason, maybe the preseason like the preseason games at Galen, but also in the early part of the season, maybe against Southern or whoever it was. Usc needs to have one game where they get a pizza for every student. Just fill the student section right, and then when you but you tell them you have to come get your your um pizza, you got to be there an hour before the game. Right, let them come in an hour before the game. They all get in. There's a pizza sitting at their seat. When they come, an hour for the game, everybody gets in. So right, so the student section is filled and now you have someone.
Speaker 2:I don't care if it's the DJ or it's the, you know the yell. I wouldn't have yell leaders. We don't have cheerleaders like people who actually like coordinate cheers, but someone should be out there and say, ok, when this happens, here's what you'll say. Or when this is happening, here's what you'll say. Texas A&M does this in football. On Friday nights, before football games, they get like 50,000 people in the stadium to practice the cheers for the next day. And the cool thing is, you know, theoretically USC could do this as an event.
Speaker 2:I'm having like ideas as we speak here but, like in March, midnight madness if you like ideas as we speak here, but like in march midnight madness, if you kind of like a midnight madness where you but you go and and you, um, you prep for the next game, um, but you but you just get everybody there, uh, but it's actually better to do it before the game because you know then they're at the game and they're going to stay for the game. So you come there, you get a pizza, you know you learn what to what to cheer, what to chant, when to make noise, and you say this is what, how we're going to do it every game, right, and so, like, when the other team gets the ball, you're on your feet, making noise until they, if, or until they score. When usc has the ball, you're dead quiet, right, um, when this guy has the ball, you're going to say blah, blah, blah, right, and you have a coordinated thing, and and that kind of like coordinated cheering is a little bit contagious. People who show, you know the, the old blue hairs who show up, are like the 45 to 54 year old corporate executive who, who makes his way to the game, you know, who probably still wants to relive his college days, like, start seeing that. And he's like, oh, that's pretty fun, I'm going to start saying what they're saying.
Speaker 2:So it's like you know you have this sense of of like something's happening, something's happening in the, in the stadium, that that you want to be a part of, and uh, and I've always said that you know the problem with the DJ is that not that like he, not that he isn't entertaining or doesn't serve a purpose or doesn't fill airtime or doesn't entertain the crowd, but as far as getting the crowd to make noise, his dominance of the sound space in the Galen Center actually discourages people from making noise, because when someone is playing a song or when someone's talking, you tend to like listen, sit down and listen, or you're used to listening.
Speaker 2:You know you're sitting listening to music. Right, you're not like watching about, you're not like cheering at a basketball game, you're just like hanging out, listening music and there's a game in front of you and that's how the game is for most of the fans of galen. But you know it's like they just got to do something to fire up the crowd and inspire them. Just more thoughts. If anyone's listening out there, let's get it done.
Speaker 1:Hopefully there will be some creative ideas to get the fans engaged for next season.
Speaker 4:Would you say that Illinois had a good crowd when we played them?
Speaker 2:Pretty good. But I think also I remember reading that it was the crowd the students had not been back at school yet oh that's right.
Speaker 4:Okay, because I was going to suggest maybe we should try a tractor giveaway at halftime, like they did.
Speaker 1:Mark, I thought of you last night at the game because there was a giveaway it was for a Porsche.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 1:That sounds pretty LA Right.
Speaker 2:No, they could have a sock hop after the game or whatever it is the kids do. You know you can have a sock.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what the kids do after the game. They leave at halftime.
Speaker 2:No, I know but I'm just saying that. You know, I remember back in uh 2005, when I was at usc and I was the basketball sid and um they were actually doing the plans for galen center and um they, what they actually did was, but though they wanted to promote, they had one more year in the sports arena and they wanted to promote the final year. So I gave them a slew of ideas about, like you know, bring back someone from the, from the history of, of, of the uh, of the school, um, uh, the basketball program. You know, each, each game, and like they used to do that actually I don't know if you remember that uh, mark, uh, they used to do that at the sports arena they would bring out, they'd bring here's a Trojan of old and they'd bring out halftime and they now, what I was talking about was something a little more involved but um, uh, that and uh, you know, bring in, bring in, um, have, like uh, anyway, all my ideas, because maybe 10% of them aren't good, so modest, but nevertheless, I worry that we become like those hippie parents of Ned Flanders from the Simpsons We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas, or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's like I just feel like there's nothing to lose. It's we're all out of ideas, you know, or something like that. It's like, you know, I just feel like there's nothing. There's nothing to lose, you know. It's like you roll out of bed and you've got 2000 people and you know you make no effort and there's still 2000. So you might as well make an effort to try to get to three and four and five. So you guys can do it, I know you can.
Speaker 4:Well, I would argue, I would argue, that hiring Charlie Parker was a gimmick. How's that sound?
Speaker 2:But the jazz, the jazz was wonderful.
Speaker 4:Smile right off your face here. This is where the pod needs to be videoed. How could you not?
Speaker 2:How could you not hire a guy named Charlie Parker?
Speaker 4:Bird, man, bird, yep All right?
Speaker 2:Well, that'll do it for this week's episode. Thanks to Rashaan Agee for coming on the show kicking off the first segment. Thanks to Kristen Keller, sid, for facilitating that Much appreciated. And these are all friendly bits of advice we're giving. Everything is with much love, so don't get upset. And again, once everybody out there, thanks for listening. Be sure to like, review, subscribe, do all the things you do with the podcast. You can see us on all not see us, but hear us on all the streaming platforms.
Speaker 2:And, of course, usc basketballcom is the place for all the Trojan discussion online, the oldest uh website on the internet solely devoted to USC basketball. There are other sites that talk about USC basketball, but they might have different names that are about football or they, they, you know they really don't talk about basketball all that much. And there's other sites that you know maybe not. They'd kind of come and gone and so on and so forth. But point is is that if you want to talk to USC basketball, this is a place to go.
Speaker 2:We've got some great t-shirts. Must bus. It's time to get on board. Mark is wearing it. You can't see it, but it's a beautiful shirt and I think the team is going to be wearing it at a shootout. Shoot around on the road sometime later in the season, as Now. Shoot around on the road sometime later in the season, as we're in talks to doing so. Don't be caught without the shirt. If the team is wearing it, go to uscbasketballcom and give it a buy. So, all right, everybody, on behalf of Mark and Sky, I'm going to call it right there. Fight on everyone, fight on Beat the gutties.
Speaker 1:Fight on. Beat the gutties, fight on you.
