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
Dude, where's my roster?
The USC roster roller coaster continues as the Trojans add three key players from the transfer portal in Jacob Cofie, Keonte Jones and Amarion Dickerson, but lose rising star Wesley Yates. Meanwhile, Elzie Harrington decommits from the freshman class, incoming Georgetown transfer Drew Fielder bolts for Boise and Brayden Burries chooses Arizona over Troy. What's the deal with this year's roster and how good are the incoming players? Chris, Mark and Sky break it all down.
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 back to the Dunk City Podcast brought to you by USCBasketballcom. Chris Houston here with Mark Baxter and Sky Liam. The Trojans went to the Crown Royale Tournament I think it was called something like that Played like they drank too much Crown Royale, I think. In the second round lost to the Villanova Wildcats 60-59. That's a little too harsh. They weren't playing that poorly, but not their best effort. But it put a merciful end to a season. That's how the Trojans lose eight of their last 11 to finish 17 and 18 on the year, resulting in the program's first back-to-back losing seasons since Andy Enfield's first two campaigns back in 2014-2015. The Trojans were playing pretty well in January through February 1st, with wins over Illinois and Michigan State, but an injury to guard Desmond Claude against the Spartans resulted in a February from hell and even though he came back a few games later, he wasn't quite the same as he was before the injury and, frankly, the team never really got back into sync after that.
Speaker 2:The early part of the offseason has seen a raft of departures, with underclassmen Kevin Patton Jr, isaiah Elohim and Jalen Shelley entering the portal and perhaps most surprising rising sophomore star Wesley Yates, who was joined by his family member, assistant coach Quincy Pondexter. Not sure yet where Yates is ending up, though the word on the street is that he might be ending up in Kentucky, which means, since that I live in Lexington, I might see old Wes hanging out at the Waffle House might have to ask him what happened exactly. It does appear that Rashawn Agee will be back, while St Thomas appears to be up in the air. It's not clear if he is getting another year or not, or if he will stay with USC if he does. And so that has left a rather tumultuous foray into the portal, with the Trojans picking up 6'10, jacob Kofi out of Virginia, who was originally recruited by Andy Enfield a couple of years ago. 6'7, amarian Dickerson out of Robert Morris, who was the Horizon Defensive Player of the Year, and 6'6, keontae Jones, wing out of C-Sun, meanwhile former Georgetown big man. 6'11, drew Fielder was a very brief commit before flipping to Boise State just today, and former freshman commit Elsie Harrington also decommitted, while five-star target Braden Burries picked Arizona, also today.
Speaker 2:So crazy times indeed. The roster was looking pretty good there for a minute, but the Trojans are not done in the portal, with at least one more big and another ball handler being ideal additions. Gentlemen, what are your thoughts on? You know it's been a couple of weeks since our we had our wrap up podcast uh, ending up the uh big 10 season and we hadn't talked about the crown tournament in Vegas. I don't know how much we want to dwell on that, but given the ending of the season, how it ended and how the offseason has gone so far, let me know your thoughts on how you think the Trojans are positioned heading into this offseason and into next year. Mark, you want to start off with your thoughts.
Speaker 3:Well, gee, chris, I thought last pod was a little rough and then you just come in just just going over the top again with more and more great news. Thank you so much for all that. What a pick me up. That was Anytime, anytime.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think a lot of this is just the new reality of the portal and the instant eligibility and NIL and all that stuff. And just a reminder for anybody who has a problem with this big, big surprise here the one, the one party that could actually fix this, the NCAA, refuses to because they they will not allow tight NIL to claim for a school, because they will not allow Tine NIL to plane for a school. So send your letters and postcards and complaint emails to screwyouatncaacom.
Speaker 2:Very good Sky. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, how much time do you have? You did an excellent job of summarizing about 20 different news items, Chris.
Speaker 2:That's why they pay me the big bucks. That's why I'm a podcaster. Premier podcast you guys should also hear my other podcast. It's the Heisman Trophy podcast. Great podcast, yeah.
Speaker 1:Check out the video promos for those too, I heard they're awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we will get editor.
Speaker 1:You know, starting out with the Crown, as everyone was saying, it's fun to see USC playing in April.
Speaker 2:Great series. Great series the crown.
Speaker 1:The crown right yeah, that too. It's a better series than the college basketball crown I think. I have a feeling it's not going to supplant the NIT as the top runner-up tournament. You know you had, like several, what three, four teams in front of USC who, I guess, said no because USC is the 14th team ranked in the Big Ten and Ohio State and Rutgers explicitly declined the crown. And I don't know what happened to Northwestern and Minnesota Indiana. But um, it was fun to see the Trojans dominate Tulane. Tulane looked terrible.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they were missing players, but um honestly, I think it was kind of a best case scenario for SC, because they had a good showing against Tulane.
Speaker 1:a great showing actually in the second half and then they had a, you know, strong showing against Villanova, super close game, and then they got it over with and they got out of there. Because you know, I swear, I've never seen Muscleman so relaxed during a game, like they interviewed him at halftime and they're like what adjustments would you make? And he started laughing and he was smiling. He said I don't know, and he needed to be back recruiting. In fact he said that he flew the next morning after the Tulane game. He flew at like 5 am to LA and then a couple hours later came back to Vegas to prep. So I'm glad that he was able to, you know, not tarnish the USC basketball name while then also getting right back to recruiting. And then we've all moved on.
Speaker 1:The one takeaway from the on-court play is loved what AG brought. I thought he looked fantastic and he's really just upped his game. The whole second half of the season he upped his game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's going to be a nice guy to have back next year, considering just the age and the old man strength, the old man savvy. I mean, he's been playing. He's entered college in 2018. You know what I mean. This is like I'm starting to feel like how BYU fans must feel a certain point, you know, but I think the season's over and it's now been a year since Eric Musselman has been hired by USC and I want to just ask you guys, based on your expectations before the season and where things ended with the season, would you say that things turned out better, worse, or about where you expected them to be?
Speaker 1:So at the very beginning of the season, like before a second had been played, I thought they'd end up exactly where they ended up. And then after the exhibition games I thought this team's doing some damage. In March and then at various points in the season I went back and forth between those two opinions. You know had some.
Speaker 1:Listen don't take away what this team accomplished right a completely new roster aside from harry, and they beat two ranked teams, which is not a super common occurrence at usc and for your first season within a completely new roster at us. I think that was quite an accomplishment actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mark, you're on mute.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, I still don't even know what is a fair expectation today of last year's team.
Speaker 2:So it's just so hard to say you know we had.
Speaker 3:We had just just just countervailing kind of data points, in that you did have guys, that a lot of guys that did have just kind of one, a very distinct strong point coming in, like we talked about and like like a couple of coaches talked about before the season, but you did have also, on the other hand, a lot of that being done at lower levels. Um, so just seeing how that would would translate to our first year in the big Ten, which was new for everybody not named Terrence Williams, who I think played all of two Big Ten conference games. There's so many just disparate incomplete data point pieces that I can't give an answer Not to skip ahead. I think we have a more complete data set. It's not complete but it's closer to that direction, this roster, even within a couple of open spots then you know, 11 months ago, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a couple of things that I agree with. With what Sky said about, about just sort of the herky jerky nature of our assessment. I tend to think that our I don't you know about just sort of the herky-jerky nature of our assessment. I tend to think that our We've all been looking at sports for a long time and in my experience, the first prediction or the first gut, the first kind of read on something is almost always the closest one, and what tends to happen is we get an early read on something is almost always the closest one, right, and what tends to happen is we get an early read on something. We look at something, we say I think this is how a team or a player is going to be. And what happens is those kind of thoughts kind of tend to get a little shaky during the season.
Speaker 2:When you see the spikes and valleys right, there is valleys early in the season. Um, well, like, like Sky mentioned, the, the win over over Gonzaga was super encouraging and you're thinking, wow, this team, you know, has something special perhaps. And then and then they looked really rough early in the season and then they started playing really well together and you're like, well, you know, maybe we were wrong. You, you know about their initial assessment and then in the end, I think the, the assessment kind of went into like the you know more closer to the original assessment. The final assessment was closer to the original assessment. Uh, then I think we kind of understand, just because there seemed to be a ceiling on what this team could do, and as soon as the challenge wasn't getting to the ceiling, the challenge was finding the floor, so to speak, I think.
Speaker 3:Mark found it.
Speaker 2:Mark found it out in the desert and and so early on, well, that ended up being the basement. But, uh, you know, but we're, you know the once the trojans found, like to mus's credit, they, they got to a point where they were going to. You knew they were going to give effort, you knew they were going to be into the game and they were in the game even most of the games. They, they were fairly competitive most of the way through. But you know, once the injuries hit and once they ran out of gas a bit, then I think it was kind of like everything kind of kind of the floor kind of caved in, so to speak.
Speaker 2:But I think that we saw this as an experiment. Going into the year, we had all these wings, we had more wings than a wing stop, and so I think we told some stories to ourselves, or at least we told some things. There's one thing in particular that I bought, I bought and I don't, and it sounded logical at the time and I don't think it turned out to be true, and that is the concept that, yes, we don't have many bigs and our bigs are going to get rebound, out rebounded, but our guards will out rebound their guards, you know, because we have big guards and I guess that was true, but I don't think it really mattered in the end. I don't think getting the raw rebound numbers against guards is really where you win the rebounding battle.
Speaker 1:That's a good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think as you were going through that, the one thing that came to mind was rebounding as well, and I think it got better. But it was one of those kind of pressure points that cracked in key situations. It just seemed like there were key moments where we would give up that extra two offensive rebounds just at pivotal moments.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I agree.
Speaker 1:And, to be clear, no knock on any of those guys because they were fighting. You know, there were some possessions I remember where, like Josh Cohen, would get an offensive rebound and he was. This is not a knock on him. In those particular possessions he was like barely elevating. He was just fighting off guys to grab the ball and it was fun to watch.
Speaker 2:These guys. I really enjoyed watching the team, despite the struggles. I think there was one other aspect which I touched upon in a post on the message board at uscbasketballcom, which is that teams are now giving out 15 scholarships, and last year, how many players I think there was I think we counted something like was it eight or nine players that were between six five and six eight and seemed to have kind of a similar range of skills. And so I think I think that we've proven that this is maybe not the way to go, because even though position-less basketball does give you certain advantages you know, in-game strategy and in defensive, being able to switch and all that kind of stuff one of the big drawbacks and I think we're seeing this now in the offseason is that if you have five guys who are six seven and you're trying to recruit, like you know, a six seven player from the transfer portal or a six seven freshman, they're gonna be like, well, I'm a freshman coming in and there's like three juniors and seniors who like averaged 18 a game at you know a mid-major and this guy looks pretty, you know. I just don't know if I'm going to be given the chance.
Speaker 2:So I think I think actually having that level of duplicative depth, um, it so far seems to be a challenge, uh, in in the, in the, either both in the portal and in recruiting, and now we are getting a couple guys who fit exactly that mold, as it turns out. Uh, we're going to get into those players. Later on, we're going to do a little, I'm going to do a little deep dive into these to the guys who are coming in, if, if they're still uh by the time this uh podcast is, is uh published, uh, if they're still on the team, hopefully. But yeah, it seems to me that to some extent, that Muss is sort of I don't know if he's quite doubling down again on it, but he hasn't shaken that preference and to some extent it could be just like a lot of teams now in college basketball. It's just that you bring in players and you hope that you got the right combo, hope things work out, and it's pretty much a crapshoot from from here on out. Um, what do you guys think?
Speaker 3:you know, my first thought is is is this really ideally what he's going after, or is he just, you know, making the best of what he's able to get given?
Speaker 2:Give what you can yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, get what you can. I don't know what the NIL situation is. I don't know if there's kind of a chicken egg situation there with NIL and if we need like a, if I'm old, then blanking on his first name, the Bowden kid who's turning around football recruiting, if we need that kind of guy at hoops, just to kind of you know coax whatever there is an IL possibility on the hoops side.
Speaker 2:First, I know that's like the you know color me. I'm a little skeptical. I mean I know that that's like what they're saying, I don't know how. I mean I'm just skeptical that that someone who who in that position is, is that pivotal now and now. I don't you know what I mean. I it's like I'm not really. I know that that's what they're touting.
Speaker 3:So what we've just tried harder now.
Speaker 2:I know this isn't a football podcast, but well, no, what I mean is made a huge difference? Well, maybe, maybe it has. Is it's made a huge difference? Well, maybe, Maybe it has. I mean, USC had the number four class before he came in, and then he came in and we had the number one. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying USC's recruiting hasn't improved in football, but I don't know how much of it is due to other things and how much of it is due to hiring some admin guys is all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Here's another opinion on that issue too.
Speaker 2:But you may be right, mark, I'm not saying you're not right, I'm just saying I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:You need to be convinced. I think that there could be some creeds to that point. But okay, I thought it was really interesting when USC first got the commit from Kofi and then got the commit from a fielder. And I looked up these guys and they were both like four star guys, you know, top 100 out of high school, who performed okay, okay. So in other words, high potential guys, but not like your star big men In a position that USC really needs. And I looked at that and said, okay, that's where USC is with their NIL.
Speaker 1:They can afford the guys who might be good, but I don't think they can afford the guys who are really good.
Speaker 2:Right, right, no, that's a great way of looking at it. And you know, also, ironically, these two guys were guys that USC tried to recruit before under any infield. So if you're looking for stylistic departures from the Enfield era, it could be that they keep pulling us back in to these, to these types of bigs. You know there are the complaints about certain bigs under under Andy Enfield. Well, here are two guys that Andy Enfield wanted to sign to his program and they and they theory we're going to end up coming to USC, as we'll talk about a little little later. One of them has dropped off, I think for a few reasons other than necessarily NIL, but yeah, I think that those were good gets as bigs because I think, from kind of like a money ball perspective, I guess right when? Where I think you're you're looking at two guys. Both guys average seven and five and about 20 minutes, 21 minutes or so. So you're looking at two guys. You know one guy, it could be one guy, ceiling could be one guys. You know tapping the sign on the way up to 12 and 8, you know. So I think that was a good way of. I think it's like a good way of like.
Speaker 2:In each case it was a guy, like in Fielder's case. He had played at SoCal Academy. Kofi was a guy who you know they had both been recruited by USC. There was a familiarity with USC, so to some extent it's a little hanging fruit. But Fielder also is actually from Idaho, so going back to Boise State definitely did make some sense for him, but nevertheless it's, I think, a blow to not have him. So now you've got to go back into the portal and find somebody who's at least as good as that, I think.
Speaker 1:That's the hope, you know. The connection you pointed out of them being recruited by Enfield is interesting too, because if we're rolling with my theory of you know what USC has the capacity to recruit right now out of the portal, that might have been an extra advantage that was able to sway those guys to come, at least temporarily.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Mark thoughts.
Speaker 3:I'm just as you go through that. I kind of wonder what is there left in Bigman, in the portal. Or do we kind of almost do we kind of do the sneaky Pete thing and do like a Boise where we try to go after somebody that's already committed but not yet signed?
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe Musselman's industrious kind of guy.
Speaker 3:What a kind word, that is yeah I didn't?
Speaker 2:We know that. Is he sneaky enough to do that though? You know sneaky. You know sneaky Pete, that was another good tv series.
Speaker 1:Well, look, I don't know what he does and doesn't do. But harrington remember flipped from, it was harvard, right, uh, yeah I flipped from harvard to usc.
Speaker 2:And is he going? Where's he going? Is he going back to harvard?
Speaker 2:we don't know that's a good question I haven't seen an announcement I mean, if you're not, if you're, if you're going to usc, I would go back to Harvard myself. I mean, if you can get into Harvard, and Harvard Do your impression. Harvard. They also have a really good player from Harvard Westlake named Robert Hinton, who was a teammate of Trent Perry, who I really liked. I think he did pretty well as a freshman, so you could have had Hinton and Harrington at Havit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what other argument do you need?
Speaker 2:Ex ipso facto. The other thing I want to point out when I mentioned on the board is I was kind of laughing because to some extent look, I am 100% on the must bus. I made the must bus t-shirts, coach staff, behind you 100. But at this time last year the, the uh, the vitriol for andy enfield by a lot of the fans was was a little bit out of control, and so it's kind of funny to see things kind of come full circle a bit where, in an era when, yes, it's first year, but the first years under NIL are not like the first years 10 years ago for coaches, right, typically, in a sense, it's a first year because the first year is tough, because you're acclimating to all kinds of things, but it's also better than it used to because you can just go out and buy a roster like you, like you couldn't do before, right, you can go out and get play. You can actually rebound a lot quicker. Certainly that's why you know, and also what, what, what Musselman took over was a lot better than what Enfield took over. There's our Kevin O'Neill reference for the for the show, so we'll get more so, so in a sense, to have to have a must you know. Guys fought hard but another losing season and then you've. And then you know, now we're we're bringing in Jacob Kofi, who Andy Enfield almost signed. So it's almost like I think it's time for USC fans to acknowledge that maybe they're a little hard on Andy Enfield, that this era of NIL is making mincemeat of a lot of good coaches, both in football and basketball. Hello, lincoln Riley. He was a very good coach five years ago, but this is a new sport now. He might as well be a new sport Same with basketball. Things are completely different, and the things that were strengths with other coaches in other settings, in the previous setting, don't apply as much now. And so I think Musselman's pretty well situated, because he's always been good at, I think, crafting teams, cobbling teams together quickly, and I think that you know more often than not he's going to get it right with the players he cobbles together.
Speaker 2:Last, last year, there was a variety of. You know this team could have ended up going to the tournament if not for a few things right. So it wasn't like this completely open and shut case that they weren't going to make the tournament. There was a point where they actually had a chance, had things gone a little. You know they're 14 and 10, a couple of good, good wins at that point, you know then. And then Claude got hurt. So so, yes, musselman is prepared for this, but got to give Enfield credit for what he did. He left a great situation for coach Musselman and and I think that, I think that you know just, the irony is that there's not much like qualitative, massive qualitative difference so far from what we saw in the Enfield era, and that's, to some extent, could be a testament to how well Enfield boosted the program. Yeah, go ahead, mark, can I?
Speaker 3:make an absurd observation here, but that's kind of what I specialize in. That's my brand. Who won just Monday night? Remind me that was Florida, right Florida. Yeah yeah, coach's third year, right Sure.
Speaker 2:At.
Speaker 3:Florida yeah, his first year. Two years ago they finished one game under 500. Not saying that's where we're headed, but I'm just saying year one is very limited in terms of how instructed it is going forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and just as a quick aside, what's up with Florida? And they're like really pasty looking dark haired coaches who look like vampires all the time.
Speaker 3:They always get the same guy. You didn't know about the new series. It's Twilight Gainesville. You ever heard about that?
Speaker 2:Jeez, what we do in the shadows or something. I have a hot take.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love this and I'm not sure if you guys are going to like this, but we were talking with this is either today or yesterday offline, and we were talking about what are kind of the expectations for next season and I said I think making the tournament would be the minimum. Yes, and I'm going to revise that now to. I think the minimum is making the crown, and the reason I say that is because just this whole thing with fielder committing and then the I didn't even decommit, he committed and then he signed with the state and I want to be clear I don't fault him whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Yeah if he, every single person and every single part of these transactions needs to do what's best for themselves. But that just showed me, wow, this portal is totally insane and, uh, it's just, it's really not easy at a school that is not a traditional basketball school, and and they're spending a lot of money on football right now, which is great for the fan base and whatnot, but I don't know how much of that, uh, football money gets funneled into basketball like it's even maybe more of it at florida, maybe more of it at Ohio state goes into basketball than it does at USC, it's, it's it's all.
Speaker 2:It's a black box. Everything's up there. This is kind of like a little bit of what my. This is why I'm a little bit reluctant to sort of like buy into the Chad Bowden Bowden hype too soon because so much of everything is a black box. You know, when it comes to like what these guys do, they get these great titles and I never hear anybody say, like what do you actually look for? You know he's supposed to be an evaluator. I never hear him talk about his evaluations. I never hear him talk about like what he looks for. That's just. I'm just saying Wow.
Speaker 3:Do you ask McDonald's what's in the secret sauce too?
Speaker 2:Come on, they have a billion served. How many is Bowdoin served?
Speaker 1:I don't think you want to know what's in the secret sauce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know you ever watch Soylent Green. What they say in a Fast Time Georgetown High where they're like, hey, what's what's in your secret sauce? Mayonnaise and ketchup. How about yours? Yeah, thousand Island ketchup.
Speaker 3:Thousand Island. Yeah, mayonnaise and ketchup, how about?
Speaker 2:yours, yeah, thousand Island ketchup, thousand Island.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hey. One thing about, about SkyStake, I can't disagree. I just I would say right now I mean, the best parallel I can think of is trying to have a an opinion of what this program is going to be, or a reasonable expectation. As of today is like literally about 10, 10 AM, pacific Monday, trying to figure out what, what the NASDAQ's going to do. It's so volatile that there needs to be a settling of bodies here before we can really even make any kind of realistic projections.
Speaker 1:Good point. And that's frustrating as fans because you know we want to get excited about stuff. There's no basketball to get excited about, so we want to get excited about the roster moves and now we can't even do that because you know there's there's just so much movement. It's the.
Speaker 2:April withdrawals.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, the thing is is I'm having a hard time processing some of the, some of the stuff, and namely this, which is that if you go look at Florida, florida won the national title and florida was a borderline top 25 pre-season team. Uh, they certainly were not like considered a pre-season favorite to challenge for the national championship, and they did. And the previous season what they lost in the opening round? 64 I think. Um, so I think that like it wasn't, like they were building toward it, you know, necessarily, right, um, the they had to get a lot of pieces in there, out of the portal, and get it all together. Um, it could be that going to the ncaa tournament, going to the final four, going to lead eight, means absolutely nothing for the next year anymore, or that not going to the tournament means absolutely nothing for the next year. Right, because so much of so much of so much of each team, is it almost? And some, some teams have it more than others, and the teams that that can control the flow, maybe other ones that are more consistent, but for the rest of us out there who are like, basically completely remaking rosters every year or finding having to find ways to remake rosters. You know, it's just. It's just you're, you're, you're pushing, pulling the the, the slot machine handle, and seeing what combination pops up and which one hits each year. And so, in a weird way, I mean, I think that, like expectation wise, I think that it's going to be hard for for for us to have like another losing year because, like, especially coming up, you know, coming off with the program where it was Right. So if he has another losing year, I I mean he's going to be on the hot seat and that's just the way it is in sports. At the same time, I don't think, I think if he has another losing, another losing year, it doesn't mean he's any further away from going to the final four than it would be if he had made the final eight.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. Like, I just don't necessarily think it really matters anymore until until, like you know, teams can show that they are fully retaining their players, and the major teams do, like the top teams are able to like, once they get their players, most of them are able to like retain their main guys and that's the key to success. Um, but since, since our guys last year were all guys that mostly were leaving anyway. There weren't that many guys. We only had a couple guys that we really needed to retain and we're kind of, you know, batting 50 50 on that, um, but which is all to say that I think that schools, and going back to that point, that schools what we did this year with having Bryce Pope be the 14th guy or the 13th guy or the you know and you know Matt Nolan, there just wasn't. There's no reason to have like a 14th guy on your roster be someone who has enough credentials to scare off a big time player because you're, because they look good enough to to challenge for playing time on paper, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So you end up I, like I mentioned, I would rather just find eight, like find eight guys for your rotation and then have, like you know, four guys for development and and just so you just so like the perception of the pro of the roster isn't so much that you're like scaring guys off because lz harrington is looking at that roster and saying, okay, I'm a six, five, uh, uh guard who who isn't like doesn, like he's, he likes to drive to the basket and shoot runners and and you know, basically do what like 90 of the guys on the roster already, do you know? So it's like, okay, I'm a freshman, how much? How many minutes, even if I'm good, or even if I'm better than people expect me to be, even if I'm as good as Wesley Yatesates, who you know took a long time to, you know, and time to get in as a starter, and you know he needed those minutes to, to work out the kinks and then become a starter. So would lz harrington have the opportunity to even do that, right? Um, so, so, yeah, so I understand why, why he did, but I think that's a problem with that's the downfall of having 10 wings on your team, you know.
Speaker 2:It's just you're going to have a lot of competition for these spots and the players that are going to that that's which is funny, because, like the two types of players we need the most of, like the bigs and like a point guard, primary ball handler, like you, think they would come thinking like, hey, if I come here, I can lock down the spot, I'd get all the minutes, but but those guys aren't necessarily beating the path, beating, you know, a path to the door. But it's like uh, we attract, uh, we attract uh, wings to, to, uh, it's. It's like honey at a bear convention. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1:The other thing, too, is the bigs and the point guards are the two most in-demand positions by far. I mean, ucla just dropped three mil or maybe more on their new starting point guard. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, shall we talk a little bit about the incoming guys.
Speaker 1:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm going to start with the transfers. As we mentioned earlier, there had been four incoming transfers. There had been four incoming transfers, two big men, jacob Kofi, from Virginia and Fielder what's his first name? Drew Drew Fielder, from Georgetown. Both of them averaged around seven points, five boards. Kofi was a freshman, fielder was a sophomore. Both of them had been recruited by Andy Enfield and both had committed back to USC, which, having those two guys, I think would have been a nice combination to rotate with Rashawn Agee, which is why I felt pretty good about where things were.
Speaker 2:But as it stands, jacob Kofi big man with some skills, he's essentially a stretch four type. He's a good finisher, has a nice touch around the basket. He shot 49% overall, 25% from three. I think he's got a good stroke. So that could improve some. He's not a beast on the boards but he's capable, solid post defender. Like all freshmen, he was a bit inconsistent last year but he showed some nice flashes and, of course, at 6'10" 230, he gives USC the big body it needs inside. That it was lacking last year. What are you guys' thoughts, just on first glance, looking at what you've seen and heard about Jacob Kope?
Speaker 1:I think he's just going to bring dynamic to the coming season that we didn't see last year. So I'm excited to see what he brings. You know, presumably he's going to have a bigger role than he did at Virginia.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Virginia. I guess did he play under Tony Bennett.
Speaker 3:No, no, he had an interim coach didn't he yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I was going to say, you know, he might know a thing or two about defense, but I didn't really follow them last year.
Speaker 3:Yeah they didn't do very well. He did have 1.6 blocks per 40, which would be a big help for us. Not that he's a big rim protector, but that's a pleasant addition. When I looked up basically my metrics on him and Fielder very, very similar. Basically they had the same BPO, almost the same rebounds per 40. Fielder just a little bit better, but still Kofi would have been second on our team in terms of rebounds per 40, which I think that's going to make a big difference, because we never had more than one competent rebounder on the floor at any point of of this last season. Just having two guys that can rebound in him and AG at the same time, I think will make a large difference. I'd like also that Kofi was just for you know, if I'm doing a little comp between he and Fielder, I would. I. I think we got the one that I would prefer to have in that their metrics are so similar, except Kofi's a little bit well, a much better shot blocker.
Speaker 3:We actually dubbed, I think a couple of years ago, chris a negative Buscar as a Farnham. So I like this. Kofi had 11 Farnhams last year in his freshman season. So you might remember when I said that when we had all those horrible Wesley Yates games where you had BPOs like in 20s and 30s. I said I loved it because he was basically going through the process, as you just mentioned earlier. I see a lot of that. If you toss his bad games, he's got a lot of that. You know, if you toss his bad games he's he's got a lot of, a lot of really good games. That that would really translate. Well, you know the ACC was not great last season, but I'm I'm really, if I, if you made me pick between the two, I think we got the one that I really want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. I think they both have great potential. I think probably from a just overall, I don't know I think Kofi was probably less of a fetish product than Fielder, like you mentioned, mark. Just a little quick note. There is a player who just entered the transfer portal, ian Jackson, who is a 6'4 guard, freshman guard from North Carolina. He averaged 12 points a game last year as a freshman. Was all ACC freshman team. I only mentioned him because there was a post on the board that mentioned that we were going after him hard, although early indications seem to be that he is headed to St John's. Just wanted to mention that just in case he does come to SC and and we can talk about it later. But we can mention it okay. So Jacob Kofi, good addition. We need more size.
Speaker 2:Next player, amarian Dickerson from robert morris. He's kind of a unique player from the guard position. The similar size and build is chabuzo abo, but it's more, much more of a plus athlete, much better finisher at the rim. He rebounds and blocks shots, usually mostly as a help defender. You know he's great coming up from the weak side, um, getting those shots. Uh, he can do that as well as any guard around. He had eight, eight block shots against Detroit and mercy. He's not a great three point shooter 27% and he is at 68% free throws. But with Dickerson you get the kind of physical play and defense that must likes really prototypical must style physical drives, the basket finishes, athletic defends six, athletic defends 6'7". You know, perfect for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was very excited to see him commit. Basically, it was him and Tyrone Riley of San Francisco who were both kind of these defensive-minded wings that were both in the portal.
Speaker 2:And we also recruited Tyrone Riley out of high school too.
Speaker 1:Oh, really that I didn't know.
Speaker 2:Not hard, but we did recruit him.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I was hoping USC would end up with one of the two and Tyrone Riley actually ended up returning back to San Francisco, which also makes me wonder if there's any chance any of these USC players who've jumped in the portal will come back. I'm not so certain, but it's always a possibility. But Amarion Dickerson super athletic, super long, great shot blocker, and I think that his defense and his shot blocking will translate to a higher level by virtue of his size and his athleticism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean he really gets above the rim and I'm not so certain about his shooting. You know, hopefully that's something that's going to be a focus in the offseason, but I think, what's really interesting is we'll see with another player that we'll talk about later is that Musk seems to be emphasizing defense more in the portal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he averaged 13 points a game, six boards, right. I think that's what it was. So pretty physical guy. You can't really teach people how to put a spring in their step, but he's got it, so that's good, mark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, what sticks out to me is, first thing, when you have these guys that are coming from lower conferences, such as this. I want to look at how they did against the major conference teams. So last year he faced two West Virginia not good BPO of 34.7. Now I'm going to just waive that, because season openers can be really, really weird things, as we know. So I toss that and I go to his last game of the season against one of the best defensive teams in the entire country Alabama BPO of 52.1.
Speaker 2:Wait are they really one of the best defensive teams in the country. Yeah, alabama is. Yeah, oh, I think that's are they, they're, are they really? One of the best teams in the country. Yeah, alabama is. Yeah, oh, I just assumed that was a joke.
Speaker 3:No, they, they absolutely are, they're, they're, they're brutal, Um, so, you know, he, he's done it against, you know, and the sec, clearly, the conference, and it was kind of worn out through the tournament.
Speaker 2:They're a basketball conference now yeah. And the big 10, the big 10 is taking over football. Yes, you know, sec is taking over. It's like they're like the five families of like reposition their, their territories.
Speaker 3:Well, well said. So for the season, bpo 53.3, which actually would have put him as the second most rotation player for USC last year. 3.2 blocks per 40, which is nice. Takes care of the ball well, turnover rate of less than 10%, which is really impressive, and not a good free throw shooter, but he gets to the line almost four times a game. So I think that's another one of those things that you can't really teach a guy. It's just you kind of have a knack for that or not, but you can improve the free throw percentage too. So you know, even though he kind of feels a bit redundant, I think this is a good redundancy in that you know, if it translates and it looks like it does, just based on the Alabama game, I wouldn't be surprised if he's a spot starter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, he certainly. I mean, if you look at the, we'll go again, look at this. As soon as we talk about these guys, about the rotation, right now there's eight guys on the team, so right now there's an eight-man rotation, so he's playing at the stand, okay. So Dickerson Keontae Jones Now, this guy, I think, is probably the best of the incoming transfers to date.
Speaker 2:He brings a lot to the table Scoring he averaged 13 points a game, rebounding nine points a game, passing four assists per game. Steals two steals per game. Defense he shot 51%, 38.6 from three, although he did shoot just one three-pointer per game. Like I mentioned, nine boards, four assists, two steals, 6'6 wing. He's very active in all phases of the game. He improved in every category as a sophomore over his freshman year, so he might be on the verge of a big junior year if he can make the adjustment to high major basketball. One flaw, I think, is that he is, like Dickerson, 68% free throw shooter, um, but this, this is the guy that I think if the season began today, he's one of the five starters yeah, it same same, very, very similar dynamic here.
Speaker 3:Um, not a good free throw shooter. We got to the line 160 times, you know, almost, uh, almost five times a game, which you like. Again, I'm looking at the two games that he played against major conference teams USC, bpo 57.7, stanford in the NIT, I believe it was 58.1. So he's done it against teams at a high level. His Buscar actually would have led USC last year. Now, granted, this is in the Big West, but he actually this is interesting, I just noticed this right now he actually his two games against the major conference opponents. He actually was more efficient than the rest of the season playing in the Big West, which is a really good sign.
Speaker 3:Right and he played against usc yep, we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, just the rest of the metrics 5.4 assists per 40 minutes, you know, 11.7 rebounds per 40, which would have by far led us um how does that translate? Um ata higher level. We'll see again, um, but there's a lot of signs to like here. And to your point about he played SC going across sports, one of the things that you see a lot is when coaches go to a new program. I love when they bring guys that played for them before. I also love and this angle is very overrated when they bring guys that they played against. Signetti did this at Indiana. He brought a lot of guys that he played against in the Sun Belt to Indiana because he knew their capabilities. I love that. Musk got a good look up close to this kid and said, yeah, I need him Now. Maybe he got confused and thought he was already on the team because he's a 6'6 wing that's multi-talented, but I'm really bullish here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for him, like I said with him and Dickerson, both guys who are known for their defense, but they both got their points at the level they were at. It's kind of like when you look at a mid-major quarterback and you know you want to see that guy have like at least like a 60 completion percentage. Doesn't mean he's going to throw a 60 completion percentage at a power five level, but if it's below that you kind of worry. So the fact that these guys got their points if they averaged each of them seven or eight, that'd be fantastic, I think. Another super athletic guy, another strong guy. And one thing that I mentioned on the board that's really interesting about both of these guys is that they both played junior college.
Speaker 1:So, actually, under these new rules, Keontae Jones could have two years and Marianne Dickerson could have three. Now, with the way the portal is, who knows? But I mean it's nice to be recruiting people who are essentially a sophomore and a junior instead of a senior and senior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Hey, mark, did you mention? Did you happen to mention Keontae Jones, a stat line against USC? If not, can I say what it was?
Speaker 3:I did not say it, just this BPL is 37.7. One of the best games of the year.
Speaker 2:Just just for the for the uh less erudite amongst us in basketball who don't know what that means Uh, he had 17 points on seven of 14 shooting. He had 10 rebounds, three of them offensively, four assists to one turnover, three blocks and two steals. Like he absolutely stuffed the stat sheet against USC and that's really. It wasn't like he was the only guy on the team who was doing anything. It was a 90 to 69 victory for USC. I think it wasn't always like like it wasn't a blowout or anything like that, a true blowout. It wasn't as much of a blowout as it sounded, I should say. But pj fuller had 17 for uh csun as well, and he, he, of course uh was at tcu in washington. He's a, you know, he was a high d1 level, uh, high, uh major player at one point. So, um, yeah, I think. I think Keontae Jones is, to use a, a well-worn cliche in the internet recruiting world, the real deal.
Speaker 3:One more thing on him, and I want to say this, cause I love this on so many levels 38% from three, but on 34 attempts in 34 games he's like um.
Speaker 2:he he's like a seller. He's a seller.
Speaker 3:A little Okay, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:Remember he had.
Speaker 3:I was going to say I love these guys that know what they do and they know what a good shot is and that, literally for a sophomore, this guy knows what a good shot for him is. I love, love, love that, because you see seniors that don't get that.
Speaker 2:He's kind of like the new St Thomas in a way. It's like the same type of guy coming over who can stuff the stat sheet. But what's funny about it is like so if you figure that like St Thomas averaged 19 and 9, like the nine boards for Northern Colorado ended up being like six boards at USC, so maybe Jones' nine boards at CSUN is like six boards at USC.
Speaker 1:Sounds like we have the makings of an algorithm. Well, you've got the difference in altitude.
Speaker 3:You've got the tariffs, you've got all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:That's true. The fact that we could be having global thermonuclear war at some point, that could affect things. Okay, so those are the three incoming players from the transfer portal. So far, you all right there, mark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just did a little squeak a wheel here.
Speaker 2:It sounded like you were trying to get. A cap off of a coffee thermos and I was like why is he drinking coffee at this hour, anyway? So yeah, those three guys are coming in from the portal. No doubt there will be some other guys coming from the portal. Maybe there's some guys that committed somewhere else who will play Drew Fielder at end up at USC. You never know. I think we should call it a drew Fielder from now on when that happens.
Speaker 1:I want to point out something that I pointed out on the message board Cause I'm not sure if people remember remember this, but drew Peterson also pulled a. Drew Fielder.
Speaker 2:And I don't think anybody from USC was upset. He was the first guy to pull a Drew Fielder, because Drew Fielder wasn't even Drew Fielder yet.
Speaker 3:Where did he commit?
Speaker 1:I missed this he committed immediately to Minnesota and then I think he probably got interest from other schools and said, oh, hold on, hold on, and he decommitted and committed to USC.
Speaker 2:Nice, yeah, I forgot about that. But yeah, that was like the early stages of the. I guess that wasn't even transfer, that was the portal era, but not the unlimited transfer era. Because you thought he was going to redshirt, that's right.
Speaker 1:I guess that must have been the start of the unlimited transfer era.
Speaker 2:This is very much like this era when we go back and look back On this whole thing, both in football and basketball. We're going to very much look upon this era. I predict Very much how we looked upon, very much how the 1950s Went for like college football and college basketball, because you had all these drastic Rule changes like in football. They had all these Substitution, drastic rule changes Like in football. They had all these substitution rules, these radicals, like things like where, like, if you enter the game and you leave, you can't come back in until like the second half, just stuff like that. And so you had like coaches doing you might've heard of, like the, like these, the Chinese bandits and the and these other, the A team and the blue team. They would have, like these teams that would just, you know, run onto the field at certain times, complete.
Speaker 2:Anyway, it's the point being is it's, you know, just a crazy period now with where it's like you had you have, like, you know, there's always been transfers, but you always had to sit out a year unless you got a waiver. And then you had a period where you could transfer with you know, uh, in the portal, but you still had to sit out a year maybe, but then they were giving every waiver. I remember there's a pretty we're like if you wanted a waiver, they gave you a waiver. There was like a year where, like, everyone got the waiver and then it was just like, oh yeah, you can just go wherever you want right? And then it was like portal plus nil, so yeah, so it's just like, and then I'm sure it'll be changing in a year or two.
Speaker 1:I'm not so sure. I hope so.
Speaker 2:If they go to the revenue sharing model and they go to contracts where you have to stay a certain amount, stay a couple years unless you can be bought out, kind of thing. There's all kinds of talks about stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Here's what I don't get. If they go to the revenue sharing model, how can you truly stop boosters from just saying oh yeah take the $1 million from the revenue sharing, plus here's another $3 million.
Speaker 3:You can't. It'll still be there. It'll be collectively bargained.
Speaker 2:What they'll have to do with that is maybe they could do something in the contract where it's like you know, like you're getting exclusive payment, like it's really hard to give someone, it's really hard to give someone $3 million under the table. You know what I mean. Yeah, they will.
Speaker 3:But it's over the table. It's over the table. They will not allow it the table.
Speaker 2:It's over the table, don't, no, but like they would not allow. But the idea is that maybe I don't know if you could do a contract where like, uh, you know, no one else can pay you for your services rendered for that thing, like not, not unless it's collectively bargained.
Speaker 3:There's no way that would stand up. There's no if you, if you're familiar with the opinion that that kavanaugh wrote where he basically said and you're in caa, you're stupid, go away. Don that Kavanaugh wrote where he basically said Dear NCAA, you're stupid Go away, don't ever come back here. There's only one path that basically gets to that, and it's collectively bargain contracts. Right, which is what the NFL does right, but that doesn't limit outside income.
Speaker 2:No, not outside income, that's different, but outside payments Like you can't get around a salary cap by paying Tom Brady.
Speaker 3:But you can still say it's name, image and likeness.
Speaker 2:No, I know, but when Tom Brady goes and his Tom Brady doing all these commercials doesn't determine whether he plays for New England or not, right?
Speaker 3:Correct, right, correct. So any booster could do it and say, yeah, I just I want this guy to be the face of my franchise.
Speaker 2:But name him. Image of Likeness you can have like. You can have like some. You can have some rules, some regulations within the context of the NCAA where, where it's like, you can do name Image, image or likeness, but it's got to be real name and you can't just be like you're a backup left tackle. That was the rule, chris, was it?
Speaker 1:It was supposed to be the rule. Yeah Well, they would have to-.
Speaker 2:The NCAAs they're on two back feet here. No I understand. I'm just saying, whether it's NCAA or the conferences or a commissioner, they will have to enforce something like that because otherwise, you know it's like, you know it's it's. It's no one you know like, as we know like, left tackles aren't, you know, going to be the face of diet Coke? You know what I mean. It's just not going to happen for yourself. Okay, well, here's.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not sure that the NCAA will do anything until it affects their bottom line, Because this whole I blame this entire insane portal situation on the NCAA. And you know, it's kind of impossible to blame it on fans, but we have all been watching college sports for a while and we all knew that the kids were getting screwed and we're like, yeah, but I mean, I love college sports and I'll watch it, you know see, I didn't.
Speaker 2:I didn't think they were getting. I thought some of the guys were getting screwed. But I've worked. I've worked in college athletics and these, most of these guys, are treated like gods, you know, like they're getting going to USC. They're getting you know it's now what 100,000 a year to go to USC or some crazy number. They're getting, you know, a gift in kind or something, payment in kind for this, much plus the unofficial perks and $100 handshakes and money on the table. That and and use of beach house and use of car, which was always happening with for for a lot of the players for for, like the players that were industrious, you know, who knew how to, how to do it okay to get industrious interesting way to get industrious.
Speaker 2:Interesting, go on. You know, city of industry.
Speaker 3:So, so.
Speaker 2:So it's like, to some extent I mean it was a the thing was, is that it was, it was becoming, it was becoming worse because, because of the big money and because of the pressure, the players were getting squeezed more, because it became a year round thing. Right, you have, you know, you have winter workouts, uh. You have spring football. You have, uh, voluntary, involuntary summer workouts, um, where you can't make it involuntary. So you make it voluntary, but you just you make, you make it clear that that if you don't go you're going to be punished. And then you have camp and the season winter conditions. They get like two weeks off a year. Right, that's what it became at some point.
Speaker 2:And then it was like now you're really grinding these guys and making a ton of money off them and they really should be getting more. Really, the name image like this thing makes total sense, or the ability to go have a job or do whatever. Like this thing makes total sense, or the or the ability to go have a job or do whatever. But but like a lot of guys, a lot of guys who deserve, who, like, deserved it, were always getting taken care of before, and the guys who didn't deserve it. You know, the guys who were just guys weren't getting taken care of, but they were still treated pretty well. They still have, like any girls they wanted, you know they were still treated pretty well.
Speaker 3:They still had any girls they wanted.
Speaker 1:Well, I had none of the two.
Speaker 2:No, no, I just meant that, unless you're Rick Pitino, Well, no, I just meant Well no, I'm making the point about whether these guys were just screwed or not during the course of their career by not being able to get so to an extent, yes, they were screwed over. The NIL stuff for sure, jerseys, all that stuff, uh, I'm, I'm, you know, exploiting uh people for their brand. I totally am on board with that, that being a screw job. But I'm also saying that they had a pretty good life. It wasn't like they wasn't like they had a bad life, is my point.
Speaker 3:They were there you know, they were, you know they had a pretty good life.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying fans shouldn't feel guilty if they prefer that era, because it does affect the quality. It affects the quality of the play and it affects the connections the fans had with players. And I get. It is all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I get it too, and that's why I said I'm not trying to like overtly push all the blame on the fans. But I mean, you know, I saw these guys working and I said, yeah, I don't know, man, there's nothing I can do. And now something's been done, and then ultimately I blame the NCAA for just kicking the can down the road for decades.
Speaker 2:For sure, totally true. Yeah, I want to talk we about the incoming uh portal guys. I want to talk about, um, what is now down to two a freshman uh incoming class, um, jerry easter, six, three point guard and elijah arenas. Of course, the trojans uh had former commit lz harrington decommit a couple days ago or yesterday I can't remember no word yet on where he's going, although he was formerly a Harvard commit. Pretty good player, but very much. I think when USC had Harrington and Fielder in the fold I was feeling pretty good about things, just from a depth perspective. I feel less good about things now. But two reasons to feel less not so good is that Jerry Easter is a potential pretty good player who can contribute in his first year.
Speaker 2:He's a high volume scoring guard. He likes to attack the basket, which is a must prerequisite 6'3 with a 6'7" wingspan. He can get his shot off down among the trees. Indeed, he gets most of his buckets in and around the paint, has an array of floaters, pull-ups and runners Real crafty guy down low, but he's around a 30% three-point shooter, typical of a lot of young guards. Just not really a lights out guy just yet, but it could really score. A pretty good passer and facilitator. Not a pure point, though, at least not yet. I think he projects to that position at USC because at six, three, you better I think you have to be a you know much better shooter if you're going to play off the ball or be, you know, play shooting guard.
Speaker 2:I think he projects to point guard at USC so he has a chance to be the primary ball handler as early as this year. If he comes in prepared, he's got the tools to be a plus defender. But I think right now he seems focused on offense. It's going to be up to a must to to our staff to get that out of him, to get him to buy into what they're doing, and certainly he has the physical capabilities to be a plus defender, like I mentioned. So until he does that, if he does that, he's going to get big minutes as a freshman. He could potentially, I think, if they get him in the right mindset, where it's like, hey, don't worry about scoring too much yet, just like, you know, play under control, then he can. I think he could potentially by the some point in the season become the starting point guard, that's if he comes in. Uh, you know, with that right mentality? Have you guys looked at Easter or heard anything about him? What are your thoughts about getting someone of this caliber?
Speaker 1:I think it's a great get at a position of need and a point guard is a position where if you get that out of high school with a kid who has some real potential and you develop that kid for a few years, you could have a star on your hands. He's highly ranked, he seems like a real humble kid and he is assigned to so he should hopefully be actually stepping foot on for at least a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It is Easter after all coming up, oh boy.
Speaker 3:You know my. I'm just going to take a different take here on this one. I've mentioned this a lot and I don't want to pick on the guy, because he did a tremendous job for us in Desmond Claude. Over the season, though for the entire season, his BPO at the very end actually dipped to below 50, 49.9. Best case characterization is he's still learning the point guard position, but I think he just needs to be off the ball which he was at Xavier.
Speaker 2:The staff wants him to be off the ball too.
Speaker 3:Just for fun and just to, like you know, make myself more miserable, I I normalized his stats for this last season and said if he just had the same turnover um ratio this season, um, as he had last season as aviator when he was off the ball, his bpo goes to 55.4, which you're getting to like a serious like, oh, oh, my God, what do we do here? I mean, that's way ahead of what Wesley Yates was, and Yates had some bumpy road obviously in there too, but that just would make a huge difference if he can just not have that responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, he can certainly play.
Speaker 2:I think he's capable of playing point guard and spurts.
Speaker 2:So you know, if he wasn't the primary ball handler to start out a game, um, but then there was another guy doing it and and in the rotation when that guy came out or even shifted over, if that guy's the kind of guy who could shift over to off the ball as well, and they swap duties a bit kind of like to spell spell them, because cla, when Claude had his head of steam and when Claude was, I think, at peak I don't know if we want to call it peak physical activity or peak fitness in the season, which seemed to be middle January, where he just went on a you know January was, he was going on a tear, he was really hard to stop and it could have been some of that, could have been, just like you know, the first time delving into that competition in the big 10, but you know he played it exactly Like people kind of knew who he was, like some people have played him Um and uh, but you know, like once he got hurt and he got worn down a bit and when, when you have high use, like he's not a high usage point guard, but he could be a pretty good low usage point guard if that makes any sense.
Speaker 2:So, um, that's what I think you should aim for is that if they just get somebody to to take 50 of that point guard load off him, then he can just focus on doing what he does and then but then occasionally, you know, it's sort of like a way to sort of the times he doesn't need to be carrying the load on offense, where you can actually like focus on being a threat offensively but more of a distributor in those brief spurts.
Speaker 3:I think you need to, because it became a weird dynamic where he was so important to the offense but he's like a super ball dominant point guard who's not really good outside shooter. It becomes such a different dynamic from the 200 passes, a game thing that we were looking for coming into the season. It kind of just tears those pieces apart a little bit and gets back to that vision.
Speaker 2:Well, 120 of them in each game were from St Thomas. Nobody passed up more shots, Anyway, Sky. Any thoughts on that before we go on to the next guy?
Speaker 1:Very early in the season it kind of looked like Musk wanted to run a dual point guard offense with Claude and Saint and it seemed at the time like it was kind of affecting Saint's offense. So I think he went away from that and it turns out also maybe there were some injuries affecting Saint's offense. So I think he went away from that and it turns out also maybe there were some injuries affecting Saints offense. I mean, he broke his nose in the first exhibition game. But you know, I could see something like that with Claude and Easter and just like you guys are saying with a little bit less point guard responsibility.
Speaker 1:I think Claude could be very effective at that position because he had some good games with high assists and low turnovers. The potential is there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember back in the mid-'80s, robert Reed was playing for the Houston Rockets and they asked him. He had never played point and so they wanted him to play point one year. So he said he can only go right. So he said, or he can only dribble with his right hand. So they said, for the whole offseason I tied my right hand to my waist and just dribbled with my left and I was just thinking that if Jerry Easter spends the offseason right now just goes everywhere with the basketball dribbles and dribbles everything he can to improve his ball handling and focus on being a point guard, if he did that, you know, then he would. I mean, it's just a position that is there for the taking. You know, they don't want to have to overload, desmond Claude, if you can go there and show yourself to be trustworthy and they've got to be telling them this unless they do have somebody in mind to bring in as a point guard, which would be ideal. But if not, then you're looking at Jerry Easter getting the best shot. Okay, I'm going to say the best for last. The other player in our freshman class, elijah Arenas, who is fresh off a, I think, 11-point performance at the McDonald's All-American game Looked really good. I think he was 2 of 3 or 2 of 4 from three-point land. This guy can shoot, this guy is. This guy is going to be the shooter. I think he's going to. I think he's a natural scorer. He's really long, um, I think he's like six, seven, I mean he's uh, you know it's funny, he's arenas, but he reminds me of like the old he has ariza body right, just big, long body, um, seems to be growing, just really like. It's like he scores as he breathes. You know, it's just a natural, completely natural thing for him can create a shot lights out shooter, just like his dad. Um, you know he acquitted himself very well at the mcdonald's all-star game and you know he is a guy who moved up a year in class, so he's a little younger. So that was actually and this was and this was one of the best collection of McDonald's all Americans that I've seen.
Speaker 2:Aj DeBonsa, who's, like you know, potential generational player, and he may, you know. And Darren Peterson is going to Kansas. He was freaking fantastic. He might be, he might be as good or better this year as a freshman than Devontae is. He's just really good. And then the Boozer twins are really good who are going to Duke, of course, and a couple guys going to Houston who really played.
Speaker 2:Well. There's a guy going to Washington whose name escapes me. He's really nice, looking big. So Washington's got a good big coming in, but Arenas he is going to be I mean, this is probably going to be a one and done.
Speaker 2:I think he's got a chance to have. You know, he's a real pure scorer. I don't think he's going to be like much in the way of like rebounding or some of the other stuff. I think he's just pure score. But I think he's going to come in and start right away because he, because he is the only guy on the team.
Speaker 2:In a sense, like you know, you lose Wesley Yates, but in a sense, by doing so you're just really accelerating Elijah Arenas' development in his first year at USC. Right, because he's not. You know, you're looking at someone who's he's not going to be fighting for shots with Yates, right, and in some cases he's going to be out there. He's going to be the only guy who could stroke it potentially, you know, from three, because you might have a lineup with Claude Easter, you know Dickerson and Arenas out there with Agee or something. And where's your outside shooting come from? Well, it's going to come from Arenas. He can get a shot off. He's just a really silky, smooth player.
Speaker 2:I think he can come in. I think he's the kind of guy who could really I think he's going to score about do about as well as Wesley Yates did last year. I don't know if he's going to be as efficient, because Yates was, I mean, I think during the last once he started. I think he shot 48% from three, point. I don't think arena is necessarily necessarily going to shoot 48%, but I think he's the kind of guy who could score 14, you know, shoot high 40s, shoot 40% from three and I think, just really be a big catalyst for the team. So I'm really excited about Elijah Arenas. I think he's going to start and I think if the season started today, I think the starters would be Desmond Claude, elijah Arenas, keontae Jones, terrence Williams and Rashawn Agee.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting. It's not who I would have necessarily penciled in, but it all makes sense. All of your points are very compelling. I can't say I have anything to add to that. I think you summed them up excellently and very excited to have him at USC. The only thing I'll add is if anybody hasn't checked out his commitment video, go look that up on YouTube, because he was on his dad's podcast and he FaceTimed Eric Musselman and it was a really cool moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, and also go go to YouTube and check out. Just type in McDonald's, all American highlights, you'll get just a great look, not only at arenas, but really just a remarkable group of players. Uh, that was assembled. So, at the very least, I think this roster is going to be pretty exciting, fun to watch. As always, you know they're going to play hard. Any other observations state?
Speaker 3:of USC basketball as we wrap up another episode.
Speaker 2:gentlemen, you know I can't just emphasize enough.
Speaker 3:I think you know, and it might all blow up by 11 months from now, but just that fact that the three incoming transfers have, you know, up to two and three and three years potentially with us, I think is big, because I did make the point that I, you know I did want continuity, and if you can't have continuity, I do. I do really prefer that. So it's you're out of the. The rent a senior game for quite a bit, so that that's really important. Other than that, you know with four.
Speaker 3:You know four to seven, depending on who you're talking to, whether it's Coach Moss or Coach Houston here rides. To give you know, we are very much in a kind of an inflection point here in terms of what the roster is going to look like still yeah.
Speaker 1:I have a little story to close that with.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a story of before the Drew Fielder decommitment kind of a different type of commitment spurning A player by the name of Magic Johnson what Set an official visit at USC. This was probably what 79?.
Speaker 2:This would have been 77.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 77. The USC coach at the time.
Speaker 2:Stan Morrison.
Speaker 1:Shows up at LAX.
Speaker 2:Or Bob Boyd I think it was Boyd.
Speaker 1:Shows up at LAX to pick up Magic Johnson. He's not on the flight, can't find him anywhere at the airport, and he's starting to get really worried. And so after about an hour he calls Magic Johnson's mom and says hey, is Magic? Okay, I can't find him anywhere at the airport. Where is he? And his mom says well, he's right here, he's eating a ham sandwich at the kitchen table. And it turned out magic johnson just changed his mind oh man, the rest is history the rest is history you know, that's actually like the, the inverse of a story.
Speaker 2:I heard about another famous, potentially famous, inflection point in USC basketball history, which was Gale Goodrich Jr, when he picked UCLA over USC. First of all, gale Goodrich Sr went to USC in the 30s. He actually played with my grandfather at USC in that time. They were on the same team. His son his son was was considered a lock to go to USC at the time. Uh, usc was uh, you know, it was pretty much pre, it was pre wooden uh titles. He was there but he hadn't won all the titles yet and USC had had some pretty solid basketball success.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't like, like you know this situation where it was that crazy for usc to beat ucla for for prospects back then. So, um, but back then also, they also had like, like this, these weird, these weird recruiting rules where it's like you could, you could like sign a letter of intent but then and if you didn't like, if you didn't show up on campus or something like that a certain date, then you can go to some other school, some crazy thing. I forget exactly how it was, but basically, um, a certain USC assistant coach had, like, his one job was to like make sure that that Gail Goodrich got to campus or something. And um, and that gail goodrich got to campus or something and um, and basically he got kidnapped by, uh, by ucla, by ucla kidnapped from, brought him over to ucla. He ended up going to ucla and he was part of, like the one of the key guys on that first ucla basketball championship oh my god that's.
Speaker 2:You know that's a bit of apocryphal story, courtesy of, of the great land, the great late, late, great lanny julius, um, but uh we're going deep into the basketball lore deep cuts.
Speaker 2:We got lots of there's. I've got, I know, lots of deep cuts. Uh, one of my great friends was a guy named tony saltus. You might have heard of him, uh, mark, he he played at usc in the 50s. He was on, was on USC's last or most recent Final Four team in 54. I think he was the team captain.
Speaker 2:Tony Saltz later became an assistant coach under Too Good, I think it was, or whoever it was in the 60s before Boyd, and so, yeah, so he used to be back in the old sports arena. He had season tickets right behind, uh, the scorekeepers table, so like when. So the refs would come to the middle and they would always be like him and his friends and they'd all be like these 50s guys from SC in the 50s and they would and they would just have a, you know, they'd go eat at like Taylor's Steakhouse before the game and and then they'd come Taylor's's great, by the way and so they'd come and they would just yell at the refs and carry on and have a great time. Anyway, tony Saltis was a really cool dude and I think he might have been the guy responsible for Gale Goodrich. God rest his soul. Tony Saltis, a great Trojan, great man.
Speaker 2:I think that just about does it. I think we should probably check back soon, once we finalize the roster, so we can go through and then we can, I think, start now that once the roster is finalized the staff will be having more free time. We'll check in again with our buddies Todd Lee and Will Conroy and Young Mus and maybe Mus himself see the latest update on where they're at the program and hope you guys out there enjoyed this week's episode. I thought it was a pretty fun episode and I hope you guys have anything to talk about with USC basketball. Go to uscbasketballcom the message board. You guys have anything to talk about with USC basketball? Go to uscbasketballcom, the message board. And if you like this podcast, please go to all the appropriate podcast streaming places and give us your unadulterated praise. Thank you for that, gentlemen. With that I bid everyone to do and fight on.
Speaker 1:Fight on.
Speaker 3:As always, fight on, fight on. As always fight on.
