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
Down Goes Sparty
Chris, Mark and Sky discuss USC's wire-to-wire 70-64 victory over No. 7 Michigan State. Also covered: the UCLA loss, the commitment of 5-star recruit Alijah Arenas and whether the Trojans are serious contenders to make the NCAA tournament.
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:Trojans, usc is on to the Sweet 16 for the first time. All right, welcome back to the Dunk City Podcast brought to you by USCbasketballcom Chris Houston, here with Mark Backstrom and Sky Liam Well, the Trojans, after a resounding 70-64 victory over no 7 Michigan State at Galen Center on Saturday, have now moved to 13 and eight overall five and five in conference, eighth place in the Big Ten. Trojans have 10 games left on the schedule. They have to their credit wins over Illinois and Michigan State, three and one on the road this year. Can the Trojans win six of the next ten? I think it's doable.
Speaker 2:The last week we saw UCLA beat USC in Galen Bruins shot 55%, made 20 of 25 free throws, won 82-76. Usc attempted a season-high 31 three-pointers but only went 11 of 19 on free throws. Wesley Yates led the Trojans with 19 points. And then this past Saturday against Michigan State, a game that I think maybe no one was expecting it to be this easy. A wire-to-wire victory for the Trojans thanks to Desmond Claude's 19, wesley Yates' 15, jabuzo Abo's 14, and St Thomas with 8 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists.
Speaker 2:The Trojans this week take on Northwestern in Chicago on Tuesday at 6 pm on the Big Ten Network and then at Purdue on Friday at 4 pm on Fox Sports 1. And in the last bit of news, before we get to talking about everything, the Trojans secured the pickup of a very highly regarded player for next year's recruiting class, elijah Arenas, who of course is the son of Gilbert Arenas, who Eric Musselman coached during his NBA career Arenas is considered a top 10 level player, I think. He moved up in the class schedule, so I think he's a little bit young for his age, but a huge get for the Trojans. We'll talk about that too. So, setting the stage for what was a pretty fun week, or at least an interesting week, as they say, let's talk a little bit about the UCLA loss. It seems like it was ages ago at this point, but let's go a little bit into it and then we can talk about this wonderful Michigan State win. So analytically, mark, what'd you see in that UCLA game?
Speaker 3:I hate to say this. Ucla's most efficient guy was Kobe Johnson. Just get out of the way and we'll move on. That was not pleasant to see, you know. Surprisingly not a good defensive effort by the Bruins. Our BPO as a team was 56, but defensively we really struggled. Our defensive BPO was 61, which is just really bad.
Speaker 3:You know UCLA, when I just saw them they kind of struck me as a nice kind of upper middle class Big Ten team, but not one of those dominant teams. I'm glad we get them again. I'll put it that way A lot of these teams, especially the ones that we've beaten, I'm happy to just play them once and move on. You know, just your traditional big 10 teams, but just thinking that we caught them on a good night for them offensively. Now, having said that, I don't know how we solve for the and it's just it's, it's horrible to say this how we solve for our die mara problem. Yikes, that's just a horrible concept to even think of that. We we had some problems with him, but um, you know that that's the one thing I want to see about how we, you know how do we fix that for next time?
Speaker 2:good points all around.
Speaker 1:Sky your thoughts yeah, so many great points on that. Mark. You know, just since you left off with Mara, he didn't actually at least in my mind, he didn't totally destroy the Trojans. I mean, yeah, he really pops being out there as a player who's taller, like legitimately taller than seven feet. I think he scored 12 points or something he did. You know he had a double-double, but it's not like. I mean, think about Danny Wolf, right, he didn't give a Danny Wolf performance.
Speaker 2:He's become George Zedek in his senior year. I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know, because being at that game, like there were times where he'd miss like two or three bunnies in a row, but he's just so tall that he can kind of gobble up those rebounds.
Speaker 2:And he's skilled too. He's got some skill.
Speaker 1:a little bit of passion, he's got some skill but he's not like the second coming of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar yet, yeah, yeah, you know he just he broke in the rotation legitimately, like two games ago. Right and suddenly it's like wait a second. This guy's great. Why hasn't he not been playing the whole time? No one knows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:UCLA is a weird team because they started out the season they looked, you know, the first few games they looked like the most dominant Bruin team since Lonzo Ball, apparently. And then they very quickly lost to an unranked New Mexico, they lost to UNC, right, and then they had this huge losing streak where it's like, and all their fans were like, we're not even making the tournament this year, this sucks. And you know, they lost at Nebraska, which USC beat, they lost at Rutgers, et cetera, et cetera. They got destroyed by.
Speaker 1:Michigan, and then now they're playing really good basketball. They beat the Brakes off of. Oregon. So they're really like feast or famine. That night their guys were making shots.
Speaker 2:They were just making shots. That was the thing you can actually tell, and we'll talk more about this when we get to talking about Michigan State. But I have a theory about Desmond Claude which we don't have to get into yet but which is basically if he doesn't get a certain number of shots in the game, usc is almost probably going to lose.
Speaker 1:I totally believe that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you look at the Wisconsin game game and you look at the ucla game, I think he had seven attempts in both those games and um, and you typically uh, he needs to get like 13 or 4, at least 13 or 14 shots, I think.
Speaker 2:Ideally you want like more, I think, from him.
Speaker 2:Because if he's, it's, it's a thing where, like, if he's because he is a good uh shot selector, pretty disciplined shot guy, if he like he doesn't, you a good shot selector, pretty disciplined shot guy, if he like he doesn't, you know, jack up threes unless he really needs to or unless he's feeling it. But if he's, if he gets 15 shots, it's an indicator that he's getting to his spots. And if he's getting to his spots, that's like that's kind of like I don't want to say ball game, but when Desmond Claude gets to his spots, the chances of USC winning a basketball game are probably like 85%. I would say like 85%, right, if he gets to his spot. So the teams that prevent him from getting to his spots and getting comfortable shots are beating USC, and early on in that game, like you said, they were making their shots and then I could just see that. I could tell that Desmond Claude was not getting to his spots, was not getting nice comfortable shots, and they knew what to do and for some reason Michigan State couldn't pull it off.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the craziest thing to me that, honestly even though it felt like kind of a crushing loss on Monday but it was last Monday but I almost think as a USC fan, you might not feel quite as bad because, despite everything we just talked about, USC practically won that game.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think everybody in the stadium thought USC was about to win and they just bricked free throws which has not been a huge issue this year there have been a couple games where it happened, but it was.
Speaker 1:It's not like they had some great free throw shooting games. Yeah and um, despite everything that we just said, usc was right in there, but what was what uh happened in the ucla game and the wisconsin game was was that they got to such a huge deficit Even when they came back. I don't think they expended so much energy, especially with such a shrunken rotation, that it's really hard to win like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Any further thoughts on UCLA Mark to consider maybe for the next matchup in poly. You know I agree so much with what you guys have said about Claude and I'm going to pick up. I've been very I've been trying to grab his game log as you guys were speaking, just to kind of back up what you're saying. But to that point I guess it doesn't surprise me that a good defensive coach like Cronin is able to do that and just really keep him from doing what he wants. Especially I know it's been talked about a lot I'm very, very comfortable with what Claude does, but it's just it's, it's it's evident that he's not, you know, a true point guard and that that's the game where kind of like you see that get a little more exposed and when you get to the full blown Desmond Claude, you know the theory I'll I'll kind of get more into that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think you know theory, I'll kind of get more into that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I think you know, just before we just a little more morsel.
Speaker 2:Another morsel of that, before we get to it, um, to the main course part is just that he, if he gets to his spots, he also becomes a better point guard, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 2:Like he's, when he's at his spots, he has mastery of the floor in a way, because it's almost like um, it's like a chess and chess when you want to control the center before the four center spaces, and chess right, that's what they say, if you can, whoever controls the center wins the game. And it's like when, when, when he gets, there's something about the angle, angles that he's able to to work off of when he gets to these particular spots and we all know these spots right and when he gets those spots and if he gets by that guy, then you know his vision opens up. You know he he makes about, probably once he gets into that paint. He probably makes like 80% of those shots I feel like on the season, the ones where he's just, you know, doing runners and floaters and and and little pull-ups, maybe to 80%, but he's making like a high percentage of those shots, um so uh yeah, I think that makes him a better point guard as well, uh, onto Michigan state.
Speaker 2:It was really weird because, uh, you know, I was going to open this podcast with, uh, the explosion of alderaan in star wars and, and I was going to equate it to the, the sound of all those peacock subscriptions dying, weathering on the vine after this game, from usc basketball fans, which reminds me I've got to remember to delete it before it charges my card again.
Speaker 1:Don't forget everybody.
Speaker 2:Don't forget. But it was eerily quiet For USC playing probably one of the most anticipated games of the season. At least for those diehard usc fans, it was probably like the quietest game thread we've had all season, right and uh, just generally, and I attribute that to just people not watching it because of peacock, people just didn't want to download or didn't know how, you know, some people didn't know how, um, and so all this happened and a lot of people just either missed the game or didn't see it. And yeah, it's just kind of, it's interesting, just just how, how, how pot. It's a very positive reaction to winning the game, but it's almost really moot, like there's no, like no one stormed the court. You know, it seems like this would be your, your, if you're students at usc, this might be when you want to storm the court, but I guess there wasn't enough people to storm with they've been actually roping off the court after games like I think every game.
Speaker 1:They're doing that now. It's got this yellow like cotton tape type stuff so they're trying to really discourage that, or I guess, there's reasons to discourage that, but um, to your point. I think, yeah, frankly, a lot of people did not see it because it was Peacock, except for Michigan State fans because they have like four or five more games on Peacock still to come this season. I don't know why, if it's a Michigan State thing or I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's weird. Yeah, the whole game was interesting because it was like the inverse of the UCLA game. Early on the UCLA game I could see Claude wasn't getting into his spots. I could tell UCLA was hitting their shots and they look really sharp. And in this game we come out. Claude is having no problem getting exactly where he needs to go and is making these great shots and he's doing stuff that in the open court. You know that little uh, you know the highlight play he made early in the game, that the behind the back uh wrap around to himself to to get to get clear, and um, yeah, you could tell right away that this was a different USC team that had come out. And so you know it was strangely. I was strangely confident the whole game because Michigan state also didn't look that good. They did not look as good as I remember them being a couple of years ago, for example, in the tournament game that we played them. Their guard play, I think, is not as good as it has been.
Speaker 1:Some thoughts yeah, a lot has been said, uh, about michigan state's schedule. It's kind of one of those things where they look super dominant and everyone's like, well, they're one of the best teams in the country, and then when they lose, all the facts come out well actually this happened and that happened and I guess they've had like a very soft, uh, big 10 schedule, and they haven't beaten like that many tournament teams from last year in this remarkable run that they've had not to take anything away from iso, but just that their schedule coming up the next couple months is going to be a lot harder than what it's been the last month or two yeah
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah there was a there's a good factoid on Peacock. Sorry to give them any credit at all, but this is the first time ever and what a time for us to just to come running in and ruin this. We didn't ruin it, this stayed intact. First time ever in Izzo's career that he was undefeated for both December and January Wow, which says something, even if he's kind of gotten the easy you know, the easy draw of the conference schedule. That's crazy, and it did seem like we just caught him on the right day. They seemed to leave a lot of points at the line, which is. I don't know if it's a leading indicator or a sneaky indicator, but sometimes it's just not your day and usually the free throws can be a tell in that situation.
Speaker 2:No, I think there was obviously a big factor as well. Just one team was on't wasn't quite on and the there's some oppressive players. You know Richardson looks really good and Xavier Booker looks really good, and who am I missing? Who was the other? Who was the? Who was the other guy? That was really good for them, but like they're bigs, you know Jackson Kohler.
Speaker 2:We recruited him out of high school and I thought he would be a bit more of an impact guy by now. I know he's rebounding pretty well. But Jeremy Fears you know he didn't strike much fear into me and um, but they, they just, they just didn't really have any like guys who I'm like oh man, we have no chance to guard that guy, kind of thing that like, like, like they had, um, akins I think Akins was on the team a couple of years ago, uh, when USC played them and that team had a trio of like. They had a great trio of like shooters. They were a really good three-point shooting team and they just didn't look like very good shooters to me. They looked like a real grinded out kind of team.
Speaker 2:And they probably just had an off game, but I'm glad it happened when we had a good game.
Speaker 3:Definitely Keep going.
Speaker 1:Mark.
Speaker 3:Fears by far their most productive guy BPO of almost 71. Alas, it was not enough, so there was tears for Fears at the Galen. Oh my god.
Speaker 1:I'm glad we got that in there. Thank you, oh man. Well, I wanted to say you know that you can say that it wasn't Michigan State's day and they did miss a lot of free throws, and that's true, and you can also say, okay, by that same logic, then USC should have beaten UCLA a few days ago because they missed uncharacteristic free throws. But what really stood out to me was Tom Izzo at the top of his postgame saying USC was tougher than us. They out-physicaled us, and that doesn't happen very often. And that doesn't happen very often and that was a big point of emphasis for Muscleman this whole week, I think, because he was pretty pissed off at the way they came out.
Speaker 1:They started the game against UCLA really flat and they took it to Michigan State right at the beginning. You know, eg at one point took a charge against Zapala which is their backup center, I think, and he looks a good 6'11", 7 feet feet and he came out way the worst for wear. I don't know if he went back in the game after that. How often do you see a seven foot ish guy going against a 6 6 dude in a charge?
Speaker 2:call and right bigger guy comes out the worst for wear ag by, of course, after appearing on last week's episode, the good luck of the Dunk City podcast rubbed off and he came out with 21 points season high.
Speaker 1:Career high.
Speaker 2:Career high, yeah, career high. 21 points, five rebounds. Had a steal in there. The only downside was he had like three air balls and went 0 for 4 from three-point range.
Speaker 2:But he was outstanding in that game and then he followed it up with, just like you said, some real gutsy play against Michigan State. Just a real junkyard dog he has become right now for USC and there was like at least a couple of the fouls he ended up fouling out. There was a couple of those fouls that were just like he was, like he didn't even touch a guy and they gave that foul to him. We. So we, we are good.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just wanted to say about AG, because I watched him really carefully and I think he got like one rebound or something in the game Seems like more. If you're looking at the box score it does seem like more, but I watched what he does. Every single shot he is boxing out the biggest guy on the court and that is allowing other people to get the rebounds. They would not be getting those rebounds if not for him. In fact, the kind of game ceiling rebound which was, uh, offensive rebound by abo on a missed free throw yeah ag boxed out, his man was able to tip the ball that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, he's doing these little things, and this is what makes this team so fascinating to watch is these are mostly. Most of these guys are finished products, right, and they brought their finished product over to USC and it's taken time for them to figure out where their finished product fit in with all these other finished products, and so these are like refinished products, and so you're, you're seeing like just this new version of you know, roshan talked about this on the show, where he kind of had to make a new version of himself to fit in here, and so now, like this is what he's become, and so it's kind of fun to see that in him and it's fun to see that. You know, like St Thomas went through kind of this, through the same issue, I think, and now he's found his role and yeah, and I think this has really accrued to the benefit of the team. That's why they're playing so well right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, just to Sky's point too, if there's one team that really scared me in terms of we've not been a good rebounding team at times earlier in the season and just literally this is the game where I thought this would just come to completely bite us in the butt. You know, when we played them in the tournament, they kind of owned us on the boards and it just seemed like we were not even close and when we would struggle. I would just think we just needed a Michigan state drill that they're famous for with the, you know the what, the cap on the basket, and we stayed within two of them and we actually got one more offensive rebound than that team. And and we actually got one more offensive rebound than that team. And it's not like we have a bunch of seven-footers out there that are just getting the easy a-die-morrow rebounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because rebounding is I don't know. I feel like there's a qualitative difference in rebounds, and I think there's kind of garbage rebounds and just rebounds that get counted, and then there's sort of like the rebounds that you, you really need to get and I don't. I don't know if there's any way that they have good metrics on that kind of thing, but you can. You know, with effort and just putting bodies on guys and if you're lucky, the way the ball bounces sometimes, or just the angles that it comes off the rim, sometimes you just end up getting more rebounds. Whether you're taller, a really tall team or a short team, it's really. It's kind of weird um and uh. There's. There's really no way to guarantee that you're going to be a good rebounding team, even with size yeah, you know, the other thing about effort is it really stood out in that game.
Speaker 3:I just remember it kind of seemed um after that, the after we you know quote went south, um at accresure, um, it seemed like there was a little lull, not that that this team wasn't trying. But you know, right now you can just see, all right, you might have players that were highly recruited or whatever. It can just do more things, but it's, it's almost like the players have no choice. You can now see it. No team is going to beat us just on effort alone. You need to be just better at something else too, or it has to be. You have a great night, or we just have an off night too. But these guys, it is back to the peak sewer rats, if you will.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and we're kind of fighting through Jabuzo. Abo is still kind of struggling with his shot, even though he's he's still kind of shooting his way through it. But he was two of nine from three against Michigan state and against UCLA. He was two of six. So what? Four of four, 15 been kind of a little bit of a slump from three-point land, but he's still finding ways to help the team in other ways. So again, that maturity has paid off for USC.
Speaker 2:Some of these guys are really like I think something that really strikes me is you don't really see a lot of bad shots, except from like Wesley Yates or something. Most of the shots are every once in a while you do, but most of the shots, I think, are it's understood that this is the kind of shot this guy should take. That's the shots they take, right. So you don't see Abo doing things that are like why is he doing that shot? Most of his shots are spot-up threes or maybe he kind of works a little bit, just a little bit in the mid-range when it's open, but he doesn't really force it that much. Desmond Claude doesn't really force things that much. St Thomas is very prudent with his shooting. So yeah, it's just. But the great thing with Yates is that he's again so explosive as he showed, because he sort of fought his way or shot his way out of some bad shooting UCLA at times, and so yeah it seems like no matter what he's going to get his at this point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, and that just reminded me of something else. I've seen there's been kind of a you know, I don't know if it'd be a resurgence or initial ascendance or whatever of Clark Slackard here, and I think one of the things that you know that he brings to mind is you know, this is not the Ivy League. All love and praise to the Ivy League but it's you have to get your shot up a lot quicker. It's not as easy. And I think I was just thinking about today when I was at the gym.
Speaker 3:I can't help but wonder if we still had Terrence Williams, because he's he shot thirty nine percent from three in this conference. So not just he can make the shots, he can get those shots up. You know, at this speed of play, at this pace of play, and I can't help but wonder. You know, what really brought this to mind was how many times I see we run something and we get Abba. I'm like I'm great with him having that shot all day, every time, not ill-advised. It would just be so great if we just had one more guy that you could actually run stuff for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he does get tired right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so well. The other big news we mentioned the commitment of Elijah Arenas for 2025. He is from Chatsworth, High in the Valley, son of Gilbert Arenas, who Eric Musselman coached in the NBA Huge commit. For the Trojans, they now have a top 10 class as high as number six by on three, number seven, by two, four seven. Jerry Easter is one of the players, so is LZ Harrington, who is also a Southern California kid.
Speaker 2:So the Trojans have two four-star guards and Arenas is more like a wing. He's a 6'6", he kind of glides. He's not really like a super fast twitch guy, but he's just kind of a glider and he's got a really smooth and developed game, as you would think a son of an NBA all-star would have. So this is what we're starting to see now, I think, is a little bit of excitement brewing over at USC, I think, having this win over Michigan State, and it looks to me like this is a team that is going to start to become attractive to SoCal recruits especially, which is important because these next two classes are very talented. So what do you guys think about this commitment of Arenas?
Speaker 1:I think it's huge for the program Musselman's first year at USC. He's bringing in another McDonald's All-American and it's great to already have two highly ranked Southern California recruits LA area kids coming to USC in his first actual recruiting season that Musselman has. He was at the game, you know, which was exciting, and if you have ever heard Gilbert Arenas talk about his son, he is someone who prioritizes his son's development as a basketball player and as a human being over cash-ins and quick results and stuff. He has really trained his son hard and he's, you know, brought his son to other players to help him develop. So the fact that he trusts muscle men like that and he thinks it's a good decision for his kid, I think that speaks volumes to how this program is being run and where it's headed.
Speaker 3:I'm I'm kind of curious too After that one time that the arenas just absolutely murdered us at the sports arena. He had at least 30 in that game. One of the one of the stories was that he supposedly wanted to go to USC and I don't know if we didn't go after him hard enough or if this was just Henry Bibby doing kind of Henry Bibby things at times. One of my buddies actually said that it was quite possible that Mike Bibby might have negatively recruited against us at that point because he was still on the team.
Speaker 2:I think when they were recruiting arena. So I think he was. He went to grant. Do you go to grant?
Speaker 3:he was somewhere in the valley.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was I think it was grant high or something like that. I'm probably wrong, but it's one of those east valley schools really huge pickup uh for. Uh for muscle man, um, I don't know how much he's going to help usc next year, um, because he is, I think, a year behind in age. But he's also like he needs to get physically stronger. He's kind of going through a growth spurt right now, uh, so, um, so he might be even taller. Maybe he's going to be six, seven, six, eight potentially. But if, if he's, I think he's a true six, six and he's he's got this upside because as he grows into his body a little bit it gets stronger. He's going to be really good.
Speaker 2:So, okay, the Trojans this week play at Northwestern on Tuesday, 6 PM, uh, pacific, pacific time. On the Big Ten Network, friday at Purdue. Ten Big Ten games left before the tourney and at this point, looking at the schedule, we've got at Northwestern, at Purdue, also number seven versus Penn State versus Minnesota, then at Maryland, at Rutgers versus Ohio versus Ohio State, at Oregon versus Washington at UCLA. Just looking at those 10 games. First of all, the last half of this schedule is easier than the first half. It seems pretty reasonable for the Trojans to win six of these games. Yeah, it seems pretty reasonable for the Trojans to win six of these games. Yeah, like if you did a distribution of probabilities, I feel like six and six is the highest, but not necessarily the majority, and then five and five might be the next one. But I feel like six and four is a pretty good finish. And if the Trojans go six and four, they are 19 and 12 and 11 and nine in conference with wins, bare minimum wins, over Michigan State and Illinois.
Speaker 3:And at Illinois. Yeah, I think the biggest part of that is a winning record in this conference goes a long, long, long way, yeah, and we don't have the Florida Gulf Coast or Brown loss or whatever kind of just really dumb thing. We've really just amazingly, in year one, with a whole new team, we've avoided the really dumb loss we just had, like I said, just like the ham sandwich lost to Cal but that was just like a loss.
Speaker 3:All credit you know for for for avoiding that. You know the two games that we lost in the desert too. God, I think those teams combined have like seven losses New Mexico and St Mary's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are pretty good teams, so I mean it's not going to kill you that much. No yeah, Sky. What do you think about these next 10 games?
Speaker 1:I mean, I would totally echo what both of you guys are saying. Just looking at this schedule, the really interesting thing is you have Penn State and you have Minnesota coming to Galen and you would think, oh, okay, so those are two wins, most probabilistically. And who knows, right, because Trojans have by and large played better away from home. So then you see, okay, are they going to maybe beat a ranked Maryland team? It's possible they're going to be at Rutgers. Is that possible they win there? Or maybe at Oregon, because that Oregon game at Galen was so close, I think there's a good chance they could win at UCLA.
Speaker 1:It works out well for the Trojans that as they're gelling, as they're figuring things out, the schedule becomes perhaps a little more advantageous for them. Maybe this huge home win against Michigan State gives them confidence. And, by the way, something we didn't mention about that, matt Noling was back and he didn't play a ton of minutes. He didn't really do that much in this game, but just the fact that there's another trusted player with experience who can take up some minutes right now, that is huge. To give Desmond Claude or or St Thomas a brief break.
Speaker 2:That's a great point. I'm glad you mentioned that because I wanted to talk about that. That was maybe the biggest change that we've seen in the roster in the last several games. So, um, and I'm curious to see how that will, how that will play out. Will it affect what kind of what they've created, this nice little thing right now, right, it seems like um, will that add to it or will it make it tougher? Will it be harder to integrate um? But but then again, maybe matt knolling, having sat during that time being able to observe how these guys are adjusting and saying, oh okay, I'm gonna be like that guy, right. So, sky, what do you think?
Speaker 1:well, I'll pass it to mark first because he had. He, I think, has something salient, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I appreciate that I was starting to get concerned about minutes. If you just look at this group of four guys here Yates, claude, thomas and Chibuzo average 37 minutes per game against UCLA and against Michigan State, average 38. And it's been like that for a while. And you know, if Nolan can just be a little pressure valve release on that, I think that's going to go a long way. And just to as I was feverishly getting the metrics together kind of just go back to the Desmond Claude some numbers on that, the Desmond Claude theory here yeah. To the Desmond Claude some numbers on that, the Desmond Claude theory here yeah. So if I just segmented out the mid-major plus, no, the high-major teams, so I would include St Mary's and New Mexico in this too, and the Cal game and all our conference games. If I take that population, when Claude takes 10 or more shots going to your your um point, we're four and four. Um, when he takes less than 10, we're one and four. And the thing that really sticks out too is in those 10 or more.
Speaker 3:This is, I think. I think this is the real genesis of it. His turnover percentage is 14, and when it was less than 10, his turnover percentage is 22%. So it's just a matter of like he's not able to. He just he kind of hits a wall, not you know, more literally than figuratively, just like I have nowhere to go, and I think what's weird is he's. So I'm not saying this guy needs to improve, he's been awesome. I'm saying if he could just kind of, maybe just with a little more experience, discern more between opportunity and what does it say? Discretion is the better part of valor earlier and just know you know that, that that balance between confidence and just knowing when to kind of just you know, retreat and find another avenue, yeah, that seems small, but boy, that could just play, that could be just huge in terms of efficiency absolutely sky.
Speaker 1:That's such an interesting point about the turnovers mark. It kind of makes me wonder, like if the coaching staff has those stats or if you want to email them because that seems really valuable info.
Speaker 1:But going back to the knolling thing, I think that's where he could help a lot again, because he's not a point guard but he is a legitimate point forward. He actually played point guard in high school and then he just kind of grew a few too many inches to where no one saw him in that position anymore yeah, he would do like the saint thomas role if he came in.
Speaker 1:I feel like, yeah, oh, totally, totally and if, if you told me that terence william Williams was coming back right now, I might have some of the concerns that you voiced, chris. But because it's Matt Noling, I really don't. One of Musselman's major comments early in the season, like in practice in interviews, was that Noling plays his minutes. He stood out because he played his minutes, he played his role and he took what was coming to him in the course of the game. So there was like some game early on where I think he had like 12 or 14 points and everybody thought, oh my goodness, this guy's going to be huge.
Speaker 1:And then he kind of went on a streak where I don't even know if he scored and maybe he was already dealing with an injury issue at that point. But he came in against Michigan State. I don't think he scored. He didn't really have a lot of stats and that's because that wasn't his role. He didn't need to, he didn't try to make anything happen, he just went out there and he played solidly.
Speaker 1:And when you're playing like that, you're going to be able to slide in and I think he could you know, provided that he's healthy and he stays in rotation, he might have a 10 or 12-point game against a Rutgers or something like that. But it won't be every night. It'll just be what the team needs on that night of the 14% turnover percentage for.
Speaker 3:Dez that is huge and it's not an impossible ask because you know preseason. I looked at everybody's metrics and I could see just one thing that was, you know, exceptional about each player and with Nolan he was so efficient because he didn't turn the ball over. His turnover percentage was like 6% in his worst year at Yale. It's crazy how smart he was with the ball, and I forget which assistant coach told us in the preseason they said that he actually was a candidate for a backup point guard at some point, just because he's just smart with the ball and he doesn't make mistakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, great point. Um, I think he's having a back is is just all positive. Uh, it's, it's funny looking, uh. So, so, um, sky, do you think? Um, let's just ask, let's just put it out there.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think, like six and four, I think this team goes six and four, probably beats Northwestern and loses to Purdue. But I don't say that with confidence that it won't be reversed, and I think that we are at one point. I think we're finally going to solve the home state, the home state, the home court disadvantage against Penn state in Minnesota. I've seen Penn state play. I mean, I think that at this point, given how the team is playing right now and how far advanced they are in the season, they would really have to shit the bed against penn state to lose that one um and uh, you know, and then, and then I feel like minnesota is pretty beatable too, and then rutgers hasn't been setting the world on fire and they are definitely a candidate for, uh, for a big 10 road win for sure.
Speaker 2:I think mary, maryland is going to be a bit more of a tougher hall. But right now you're looking right there, you're looking at one, two, three, four, four wins and then, and then you've got Washington at home. That's five wins. And then between Ohio state, oregon and UCLA I feel like there's another one in there. Yeah, um.
Speaker 3:I when I have to update this, but I'm looking at the metrics that I did now two weekends ago. A little difficult now with the. With the nonstop, there's a game every day, kind of scheduling, whereas in the pack pack 12, we just had you know everything was over by Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So by those metrics I have us ahead of with, ranked ahead of Maryland and Northwestern, and Ohio state and Penn state, minnesota, washington and Rutgers Wow, you know a lot of those are close, you know so. But I'm just saying six to four does not seem like a crazy ask. The other thing, too, about kind of our relative deficiencies at home look, we played tough teams at home. You know the one team that wasn't really good, we, you know Iowa. We did very well against them. There's, you know there's, no home loss against Oregon State, if you will, the analog of a few years ago too. So I think the schedule does it's really favorable, because I was griping about this for a while. It's like, man, we got the tough draw early on this. It flips later now.
Speaker 2:Do you think are we going to make the tournament guys? If they go 6-4, they're probably going to make the tournament, aren't they? I feel like they got one more.
Speaker 3:That's why I was saying if you have a winning, if you have a winning record in this conference, you're going to get a bid. I'd be shocked unless you were like three and eight in non-conference.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's there's going to be another like um illinois style game, one of these road games. You know, can I yeah?
Speaker 3:on that point. Can we just do a quick uh elsewhere in the big 10 segment? This is going to be really quick, sure? Um, in prepping for the ucla game in my vegas trip, I might have missed this, but was there a unexpected surprise retirement of dana altman? What on earth has happened to oregon lately?
Speaker 2:my goodness there that's a winnable game, guys. Oh yeah, yeah, they're. I mean, everyone handles the new world differently, right, yeah, what seems to be working for them in football doesn't seem to be working for them as much in basketball. How about more?
Speaker 3:uniform combinations for basketball, then Then let's try that.
Speaker 2:That should solve everything. I don't know what's going on with them. They've got players, but they're not playing.
Speaker 1:When you look at Oregon. We talked about this after the Oregon game, which a lot of USC fans felt good about, because Oregon was ranked really high I think they were undefeated at the time and USC was really close. It was kind of a situation where in my opinion, they got a lot of junk foul calls at the end of the game Totally. But I do want to not go so hard in on the refs because when I look at like the fouls and the free throws and stuff in a lot of these games, they're fairly even.
Speaker 1:I think both teams get really bad calls. I mean even in that Michigan state game. I saw both teams get fouled, Both teams like USC was fouling them, Michigan state was fouling and it wasn't called.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, and then there's, then there'll be a random touch foul call. That didn't occur. Like Going back to this schedule, though, the only game I see that's like a quote unquote scheduled loss would be at Purdue. Any of those games I do see as winnable, that doesn't mean USC is going to win them all, just like USC was not going to lose all 11, according to Ken Palm or whatever. Yeah yeah, I could see USC beating any of these teams except for, I think, purdue, which might be too tough.
Speaker 2:Why can't we beat Purdue?
Speaker 1:At Purdue. I think they're pretty insane.
Speaker 2:I know Purdue is tough to play at, but I feel like this is kind of such a weird team you know what I mean. Are they going to get blown out at Purdue? When's the last time this team's been blown out?
Speaker 1:I guess it was Indiana right. Was Indiana blown out at purdue? I mean, just when's the last?
Speaker 2:time this team's been blown out. I guess it was indiana right, was indiana blowout?
Speaker 3:that's where they just kind of like they just I mean, it was 13 points indiana indiana and wisconsin were just kind of like, okay, at the end it wasn't gonna happen yeah, they just pulled away and that was it right, yeah probably acrisher yeah that was like that was really only true non-competitive. Yeah, that was a true blowout. What's going on here?
Speaker 2:And I think even New Mexico was actually pretty, even though they were ahead comfortably from a lot of the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know you make a good point, chris, and something interesting that I wanted to mention was if you compare first of all these wins that USC has had beating two ranked teams in a season that's not something. That's happened a lot over the past few years and over at SMU Enfield's doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're 17-5. They're 8-3 in the ACC.
Speaker 1:Here's the interesting thing about that Zero quad one wins. Not to take anything away from them, I mean they have a better record than USC, but USC has, I think, three quad one wins now, just different.
Speaker 2:I mean they are in the ACC and I feel like they I mean they may not have Quad one wins, but I feel like They've won on the road.
Speaker 3:They've won the games that you kind of need to, but haven't won the games that you'd really like to.
Speaker 2:They've gotten kind of like the easier Draw in the ACC so far, from what I've seen yeah, fair enough, fair enough, um, but man, uh, looking at that purdue game, and I, you know, my head obviously says it's a tough place to play, but if you factor in the fact that this team is really good on the road, uh, three and one in big 10 play on the road. And then the other thing is this, which is that Trojans go to Chicago on went to Chicago on Monday, as we, as we record this, on Monday night. Uh, they are in Chicago. Okay, so they are going to be when they play, when they tip off against Purdue and West Lafayette. They will be going on their fifth day, fourth full day, in the central-ish time zone. Okay, so well, only because I can't remember if Purdue is Eastern or Central. I mean, so technically, they might move forward an hour when they take the drive or whatever it is that they're going to do Well.
Speaker 2:So my point is merely this so one, they're already good on the road, right, and I think if you look at the Illinois game, it was similar situations. So the second game of these road trips is almost assuredly going to be the best performing road trip for USC. Okay, because so you got like, look back, you have Indiana, illinois, right. Indiana Trojans played on Wednesday, got to Indiana on Tuesday. They didn't play Illinois till Saturday, right? So the effects of time zone change and sleep adjustments, that is taken away by the time they played the second game and they won that game, right.
Speaker 2:And then you know they go to Nebraska and usually if you're just coming in and leaving, you know, there's not as much of a disruption. But but you would get situations where in the old days where you would, you know, go across country for a game and if you had to, you know if you are. You know, if it was like the old pack pack 10 schedules where you do Thursday, saturday, right, it'd be a real problem. But my point merely is that the Trojans, who already play well on the road, are going to be playing in their second game against Purdue on this road trip and the the the part of going on the road that is affected by the time shift and the time schedule will not be a factor in that game. Is is merely kind of my point.
Speaker 1:It's a good point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just saying, just saying Um, and it'll be the same. Like I would say it'll be the same Against Rutgers as well. I would say Rutgers is. I think that Makes Rutgers a much better chance of Of being a USC win.
Speaker 1:So it just means that everybody's Going to have to watch all the games you never know, and there's going to be a big one.
Speaker 2:That's right. Well, there's no more peacocks. All we have is a big 10 network and Fox sports ones. The rest of the way.
Speaker 3:Oh wait, a minute, hold on. I'm wondering about if we settled somewhere in between and we're in the very first round of the big 10 tournament. Do we know where those are broadcast from? I guess it'd be a big 10. They wouldn't throw any of those on big 10 plus again. They wouldn't do that to us, would they?
Speaker 2:I feel like, yeah, no, I don't think they do big 10 plus. I think they'll do like the early games on big 10 and then the, and then, whoever it is might be Peacock, I think NBC might get the title game or something. There we go, no, no, no, they wouldn't do the title game. Fox.
Speaker 3:Probably Fox would get the title game, yeah but they could do one of those first round FU moves where it's just like, okay, hey, you want to see Maryland play Rutgers, here you go. Oh yeah, it's on Peacock.
Speaker 2:The head of monetization waltzed in there and said so. One way we can get more subscriptions in this quarter is if we put these games on Big Ten Plus. We need quick cash.
Speaker 3:Why did you ask Elijah's voice there? I don't think they usually sound that masculine.
Speaker 1:Do they even have games on big 10 plus anymore this late in the season?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't know, I'd have to have to tell you probably not. I would say probably not though, um, but that big 10 tournament's gonna be fun because it's in indianapolis, which is about, I think, three hours drive from me.
Speaker 1:I think I'm gonna hit some games in that one, do it dude, report it back to us, absolutely.
Speaker 2:All right, everyone. Thanks for listening to this episode. We're going to wrap it up. This was another exciting week, trojans looking pretty good right now. Pretty surprising, because I think we had settled on 5-15 for their final record that we had settled on. Of course, that was during a period when the Trojans were not looking very good, but right now we've got five wins. So it's all gravy from here on out. And yeah, if anyone else has anything to add, do it now.
Speaker 1:It's just nice to see this team never give up and they're never like 100% out of it absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fun team to root for, easy team to love really fun team and hope you guys watch them this week. Hopefully get a win or two, so let's call it and we'll see you on the next episode. Fight on everybody.
Speaker 1:Fight on Fight on.
