Chris Huston (00:01.441)
All right, welcome back to the latest edition of the Dunk City podcast brought to you by USCbasketball.com. Chris Huston here with Mark Baxter and Sky Liam, and we have a very special guest assistant coach for USC basketball, Michael Musselman. Young Muss, he was on the show last summer coming into his first year at USC and now he's heading into year two. Welcome aboard to this episode, Michael.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (00:26.99)
Thank you guys, I appreciate you guys having me on.

Chris Huston (00:29.991)
So I guess what a lot of people want to know out there is one, know, what are some just sort of like quick thoughts on how the first year went and what did you learn and what are your feelings going into this second year about where the program stands?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (00:47.79)
Yeah, super excited about the roster we've built, obviously, with any new staff at a new program and obviously joining the Big Ten as well. So a lot of firsts for us is not just a staff, but as a university, just try to get guys to play hard. We think we did that for the most part last year is really create a foundation for the culture and the buy-in and kind of give a little sample of what is to come in the future.

And we think we, you we did a pretty good job of that. Obviously we didn't win as many games as we wanted, didn't go, you know, go as far as we, you know, would have liked to in March. But, you we feel like we did build a good foundation with a lot of, you know, high character guys, set a lot of academic, you know, records for the men's basketball program here at USC, which we're super proud of, especially in year one. And now we're looking to make that big jump that you saw, you know, our staff make at Arkansas where we made that elite eight in that year too.

We're looking forward to making that jump this year.

Chris Huston (01:47.943)
Well, after that first full year, can you tell us sort of what you learned and, and what you went into this recruiting cycle, thinking about as far as needs, what you didn't want to repeat as far as mistakes, what situations you didn't want to get in as far as roster management and all that. And what kind of was your guiding philosophy as you went forth, to, fill the roster for the next, next season and beyond.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (02:12.996)
Yeah, I think there's a, you know, a multiple factors that went into it. One obviously was our first year in the league. So it kind of gave us a taste of what the Big Ten is like, right? It's a, you know, it's a physical league. It's a high skill league. It's a very good executing league and it's not as, you know, athletic as the SEC is. So that was a little bit of a shift for us knowing, okay, maybe we don't need, you know, exactly the amount of athleticism that we needed in the SEC. So that was a slight recruiting shift.

And I think, you we're a really athletic team this year. I would say we're a much more athletic team this year than we were last year. But that was one of the shifts. then, you know, when we first got here, to be quite honest, the academic standards to get a transfer into school here were a lot different than what we'd been used to. And so knowing that going into year two was a big difference, we were able to, you know, kind of pick out targets and kind of, you know, start to figure out, okay, we think this guy might be a good fit here on campus.

You know, some other guys might not be such great fits just from an academic standpoint. So we were able to narrow our recruiting pool, you know, based on kind of what we wanted as opposed to last year, we're kind of going in with this whole recruiting pool that we had started with and we kind of had to whittle out, you know, guys that we didn't think we're going to be able to make it here academically. And so we were, you know, we were able to go into this transfer portal knowing, you know, this cycle, knowing, having a little bit better feel, I should say, for

Chris Huston (03:11.239)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (03:28.529)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (03:35.534)
for exactly what type of person and student we need to recruit. But we're super excited with the roster this year. We think we have some high level pieces and we're really excited about getting these guys going.

Chris Huston (03:49.527)
One of those high level pieces, Elijah Arenas coming in as a freshman, of course, had his, his car accident and everything that came out of that. Can you give us an update on how he's doing at the moment?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (04:01.336)
Yes, I'm actually not allowed to comment on that because he's not signed. But we're super excited about the class that we have coming in. And we're super excited about all the guys we have.

Chris Huston (04:03.257)
fair enough.

Chris Huston (04:11.941)
Right, you can't comment on the guys who've signed, right?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (04:14.914)
I can only comment on guys who have signed, so everyone besides him. Yeah.

Chris Huston (04:19.013)
Behind, that's him, okay. All right, well hopefully he's hanging in there, doing well.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (04:26.18)
I can say he's healthy. I can say that. He's doing well, yeah.

Chris Huston (04:29.639)
That's good. That's good. like I said, going into this recruiting cycle, I would imagine finding ball, more ball handlers was a big priority. Uh, you got Ronnie Rice out of Maryland. Uh, w w see the guy you think is going to be a, point guard for the, for the USC this year.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (04:48.258)
Yeah, I think he'll handle a lot of the point guard responsibilities. We do have a true point guard in Jordan Marsh who was from UNC Asheville. He's a five, I would say five, ten, true point guard, can score. So he does have a little bit of that scoring capability from the point guard spot. But between those two guys and then you add in a guy like Ryan Cornish who has played a lot of one and a lot of two throughout his career at Dartmouth, he is going to

you know, provide us another guy in the back court who can handle the ball. So I would say those three guys, you know, and then mixed in with you, you guys saw how we used St. Thomas a little bit throughout the course of the year. know, Wesley Yase, who's more of a shooting guard, he played a lot of one for us and brought the ball up, I should say. So we will tag team it a little bit. You know, I have a feeling that guys like Chad Baker-Mazaro bring the ball up, you know, then like you said, Rodney Rice will handle a lot of the point guard responsibilities.

Chris Huston (05:44.357)
I was watching a full game of Jerry Easter earlier today to bone up on my Jerry Easter highlights. And, you know, he, he played a lot of, he's like, he's played a lot of point guard. He's obviously had a loaded team at link Academy. I mean, just, I mean, prospect after prospect. So he really didn't have to do too much, but I thought in the game that I saw him, I thought he really concentrated on trying to facilitate, not trying to force the issue played within himself.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (05:49.41)
Yep. Yep.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (05:57.678)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (06:10.951)
is that what you see with him? And, and, and given that mentality, is it going to be hard for him to sort of, find his way in the rotation with, if he doesn't sort of go back to his roots as more of a, you know, kind of a score first point guard.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (06:26.104)
Yeah, I would say he is another guy who will handle the ball quite a bit. Like you said, he is kind of a mixture of a one and a two, probably actually a little bit more one than two. He can find guys, he has high basketball IQ. I think it's gonna be super competitive to get on the floor for all of our guys, not just him, right? So everybody's gonna have to earn it. It's gonna be a battle every single day in practice, which is what we want, right? Throughout the recruiting process. Like I said, we have a ton of talent and so.

you we want practices to be super competitive. We tell our guys like, hey, if you just want to be a good college player, this might not be the spot because you're going to have to compete every single day throughout the recruiting process. We never promise minutes. We don't promise shots. We don't promise starts. And that goes for everybody. And that's how it's always been with our staff. And so nothing's been promised out. Everything is there for the taking. We lay it all out on the table and whoever earns it is going to get those minutes.

Chris Huston (07:02.064)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (07:18.02)
We are super excited about Jerry and the possibility of having him in that one and that two role and being able to kind of bolster that point guard position and make reads. He's like any freshman, right? He's going to have to learn how to adapt to the athleticism and the speed of the game. But I have no doubt, because like you said, he did play on a one in a really great program in Lincoln Academy, but two versus high level competition. So he's kind of gotten a feel for

kind of some of the athleticism and speed that he'll see at our level.

Chris Huston (07:51.143)
It seems like the one difference between this year's transfer class and last year's is that this year there's a lot more high major guys who played in really, you know, in tough conferences, in tough situations. You got a guy who was in the final four last year, obviously Rice from Maryland. You've got, who am I forgetting here? Sorry. A little brain broke. Ezra Asard, you know, a big 12.

Mark (08:14.455)
Coffee?

Chris Huston (08:20.755)
And so more as whereas last year seemed like and Jacob Kofe from from ACC So it seems like this year you've got a lot more guys who've sort of been in the cauldron the high-pressure Games and tough situations than last year. think that'll be a big help for you guys this year compared to last year?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (08:36.61)
Yeah, for sure. mean, you always, you we try to throughout the recruiting process, look at guys, whether they've been at one school like Dartmouth or whether they've been at, you know, quite a few schools like Chad Baker, Mazar, as you know, I think been to four other schools. We like to see guys who trend on winning teams, no matter where they're at. Chad's one at a high level, no matter where he's been at. He's, you know, he's helped a lot of staff, head coaches get extensions. He's one, you know, at high, high level.

Like, I mean, these are all things that we look at. Like how does this guy affect the program that he's on? I mean, when you look at a guy like him, well as a lot of the other guys, like, know, Rodney Rice was a really, really good big 10 player. And we did try to focus a little bit on, you know, higher, I shouldn't say higher level guys, but, power five guys, guys like Terrence Williams, who it's a little bit easier to evaluate what a guy's going to do when he goes power five to power five, as opposed to transferring up. It's just a...

Chris Huston (09:23.719)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (09:31.81)
It's just kind of the way the portal has always been. Even going back to a guy like we had a young man named Jimmy Witt when we were at Arkansas and he transferred from SMU to Arkansas and he was the only transfer who went up a level that year and actually produced better counting stats than he did at the level that he was at. So it's very rare. People don't really realize it's becoming a little bit more popular, you know, just because

There are a lot of guys who are transferring up now. There's a lot of level movement. But yeah, it's a lot harder to judge when you're going from a lower, a mid-major to a big 10 level.

Chris Huston (10:12.103)
Yeah, Baker Bizarra reminds me a little bit of a guy who used to play for Oregon, Ryan Benjamin, back in their Final Four team a little bit. Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on him and what you think he can do for the program.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (10:18.34)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (10:24.792)
He's just a unique player and he plays with a spirit that he carries, not just on the floor, but off the floor. He's a really unique personality. He lifts up the room when he comes in the room. He's got a high level personality. It's very colorful. But he's a high impact guy on the floor. He plays with his heart on his sleeve, which obviously, as you guys know, is how Coach Musk coaches. And he plays with lot of emotion. And like I said earlier, he wins at a high level.

But he's a very versatile player offensively and defensively. He uses length and his athleticism really well, which, know, anybody who's watched film of him in the SEC has, you know, seen that and, you know, and in the NCAA tournament. So he can shoot the ball, he can get to the rim. He uses length to bother the ball, you know, defensively. He's a guy who can pick up full court, you know, he can.

Switch and guard bigs and you know front the post so he does a little bit of everything and he's kind of you know a really nice swiss army tonight knife to have You know to have in your back pocket and he's a guy who you know when the game gets close And you know, it's the end of a game He's a guy you kind of are forced to have on the floor because he's just a gamer

Chris Huston (11:32.763)
Yeah. You guys plundered the Horizon league at a Amarion Dickerson and Gabe Dines. There's a, think in their, in their, championship game, there's times when, Amarion was, was guarding Gabe a few times. Dickerson's an interesting player, 25 points in that, in that game against Alabama. The tournament really showed a lot of, really the game, maybe the game of his life. Do you think this is, it's kind of like a indicative of his upswing in his career arc?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (11:45.251)
Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (12:01.944)
Yeah, we're super excited about him, Arion. And, you know, I think the biggest part of his game is just his defensive ability, right? So last year, setting a school record in blocks with seven and it's an incredible feat. And then a few games later, following it up and beating his own record with eight blocks. You know, so he's a guy who is a defensive stopper. He's going to be able to, like you said, he can guard bigs. He's quick enough to stay in front of guards. So he's super versatile defensively. And then offensively you saw him come alive in that game versus Alabama, you know, when he's a

Chris Huston (12:17.937)
Wow.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (12:31.524)
When he's able to knock down the three, he's extremely hard to stop offensively. And he plays with the freedom on both ends of the floor. That is what good players have, right? He believes in himself and he plays with the freedom where he's willing to take a difficult shot or to slide over and take a charge or try to block a shot that no one else in the gym could block. so just being able to, and having...

Chris Huston (12:42.065)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (12:57.4)
Having the courage to just go do certain things like that and just try new things in games is something that sets him apart.

Chris Huston (13:04.857)
Ezra Alsar of Utah, averaged 12.5 boards last year. Listed at 6'7", at me looks a little, you know, maybe might be shade under that, maybe 6'6". I know he's not the explosive player as Tundi Yasufu, who's going to Baylor, but he kind of reminds me the same kind of body shape and style. Were you guys looking for someone just down low who was just a mature body who could really bang there in the Big Ten?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (13:33.036)
Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at Ezra, he's probably, I mean, I'm trying to go back to a few years in my head, but probably the strongest, most physically gifted player that we've ever had in our gym. He's strong. Like you said, he's a, can bully the ball to the rim. He is an ISO nightmare. We actually were watching film and you know, we get like two minutes into the clip and coach must is like, this guy's run our test. Like he, he, he turns plays into isolations.

Chris Huston (13:58.033)
Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (14:01.09)
He bullies his way to the rim. He actually has a picture on his Instagram. I was looking at it like a few weeks ago and his first day at a practice at Utah, he ripped the rim off the backboard in the practice facility. So, but that's the type of player he is. He's strong. He's got an elite personality off the floor. If you guys ever talk to him, he'd probably be honestly one of the best interviews you've ever had just because he's incredible. He's incredible. He has a lot of unique.

Chris Huston (14:25.255)
That'd be great.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (14:29.236)
Things that he does like his pregame ritual is a lot different. He he walks around the court with no shirt and no shoes And kind of like he says he likes to get a feel for the for the floor. He's really spiritual He's a great guy lights up the room big smile But yeah, like on the floor just a you know, a total ISO nightmare He's he's a great defender and there's just not a lot of guys who are gonna be able to stop him if you get him You know on the elbow or the nail area. He's gonna be a difficult

a difficult problem.

Chris Huston (14:59.473)
Wow. Okay. there's some, there's a guy that USC fans were following a couple of years ago, cause USC was recruiting him pretty hard. Jacob Kofi ends up at USC. When you guys talked to him, did he talk about his experience of being recruited at USC? And was that sort of, did that lay any groundwork or make it easier for him to, to, to come to USC?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (15:18.88)
No, we didn't really talk about that to be honest with you. When we recruit, we just solely focus on our staff and our program. We're a little bit different. There's a lot of negative recruiting that goes on. We don't ever negative recruit or talk about anything else. Obviously, that familiarity helps though, right? He knows about the school. He knows where we're located. He knows we're high academic, which he's a high academic young man. But when we're looking at him, he has some of the highest upside.

Chris Huston (15:36.848)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (15:48.108)
in our gym, He's a pro prospect. He's got the versatility. He's got guard skills, you know, at his size. He's strong. He's got a pro level ready body right now. And he can do super unique things for his size. can, you know, shoot threes off the bounce. He can shoot threes off the move. He's, you know, he can, like in the game versus Duke, for instance, he guarded Cooper flag, right? One of the most versatile college players in the last decade.

Chris Huston (16:11.303)
Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (16:14.344)
So he's a super, super talented young man. And he's got one of the highest, if not the highest ceiling that we've had in a minute.

Chris Huston (16:23.269)
Right. And then there's a few guys who we haven't talked about yet, but I think one guy who's probably the most, maybe the most mysterious guy is probably Jaden Brown. Is it Brownell or Brownell? Brownell. Or Brownell. Okay. Yeah. Is he, is he a, a big, kind of like a stretch? Is he like a big three or is he just a stretch four? What's, what, what is he? I don't know what he is.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (16:34.276)
Brown L, yeah, Brown L, yep.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (16:47.108)
I would say four and actually like a kind of a small ball five as well. So like I would say he'll play a lot of four, maybe a little bit of three and then some five. And you guys know we like guys who can play multiple positions, right? So we kind of like the mystery of like, you we don't know where we're going to play him right now. Like we had our first, we had our first summer session today, first time in the gym with these guys. And we're still learning a lot about these, you know, these young men right now. Obviously you watch a lot of film. I think, you know, if you want to see really what his ceiling is, you can go watch the Michigan state game from last year.

Chris Huston (16:51.664)
OK.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (17:16.91)
He had a really high level game versus Michigan State. He does a great, he's a high level pick and pop guy. He can play off the ball. You can post him up. You can put him in the mid post, five feet out where he can turn and face up and play off one or two dribbles. So we're not exactly sure how we're gonna play any of these guys yet, but he is a talented player and he does some things that not a lot of other guys in the gym can do when you start to talk about his ability to play some three, play some four and then.

Chris Huston (17:44.987)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (17:46.018)
and then kind of be a small ball five and operate in a lot of pick and pop situations.

Chris Huston (17:51.239)
Did you know that Jordan Marsh is actually the name, it used to be the name of a department store down south? Yeah, yeah, you should go check it out.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (17:58.082)
I didn't know that. That's a great fun fact. I'll be, I gotta be, it would be interesting to know if he knows that. He's got to, right? I mean, I I know there's a, I know there's a Michaels, right? You gotta know.

Sky (18:05.326)
Alright.

Chris Huston (18:05.671)
He's got to know that. He's got to know that because I because it was in that.

Yeah, right. last year you guys had the, sort of a homogenous sort of size going on, right? You got a of guys between six, five and six, eight. Was there a little bit of the, we don't really want to be caught without a, without a water bug, you know, in a situations where we need to guard a water bug and now we have one little bit.

Sky (18:10.894)
There it is.

Mark (18:12.46)
you

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (18:37.171)
Yeah, yeah, it's that's a that's a super interesting question and a great observation because especially when you're in the non-conference it out every time we're going through a prep and I did a lot I did the personnel preps for our games and I'm like every time we play a non-conference team they have a guy who's you five eight to five ten I'm like this is insane but that's something that you you deal with in the non-conference and then you know every once in a while there's some guys in the big ten as well but yeah.

Chris Huston (18:54.663)
Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (19:04.226)
I mean, we were looking more positionally of just like we need a guy who's played a true point guard who kind of knows exactly what the position entails. And so we knew, regardless of size, we kind of needed to try to find a guy who's not necessarily an experimental point guard, right? Someone who we know like he is probably the quickest player we've ever had. I knew he was quick on film, but when you see it with your own eyes, you're like, okay, wow.

But just anytime you're going against full court pressure, you need a guy like him who can get the ball up. You saw Clark Slacker did it a little bit last year, just to be able to kind of be a one man press break, which we struggled with a little bit last year of not having a guy that we thought could just single handedly break the press all the time on a consistent basis and take care of it. And we think that Jordan could be that guy for us this year.

Chris Huston (19:36.764)
Yeah.

Chris Huston (19:53.543)
It's kind of wild you guys have three guys, six four and under. It's kind of weird. Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (19:57.122)
Yeah, you know what's crazy is before we had Jordan Marsh, we were the tallest power five team in the country. Yeah, a little bit.

Chris Huston (20:05.191)
Wow, bringing down the But then the other extreme guy, Gabe Dines, tell me, tell me about him. Obviously he's a tremendous shop locker, uh, moves pretty, you know, moves pretty well for a big guy. I would think that maybe not every situation is going to call for him, but there's these are going to be, it's going to give you guys a lot of flexibility. would imagine especially like, you know, if in the half court and you're, and you guys are just got to get a stop, uh, you know, download down the end of a game.

Is that was that a real big goal for you guys to go out and get a leach shop locker?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (20:39.352)
Yeah, I would say we did place an emphasis on a little bit more rim protection. Whether you're talking about a guy like Amarion Dickerson or Gabe Dines who, you know, just with his peer size and his ability to, you know, move his feet. And I think I believe he was top three in the country in blocks or blocks per game. I'd have to double check that. But an elite shot with a locker nonetheless, right? And I think that was a lot of probably frustrations with fans a little bit last year and frustrations with us on the bench of just.

not having that shot blocking presence, right? And there were some teams every once in a while that would, you know, we had some teams that would shoot high percentages at the rim against us. And so we did place an emphasis on that. And we have, you know, we think we'll be one of the better big 10 shot blocking teams. And like you said, we need a guy who can go in there and, you know, guard Biddle from Oregon, know, guard Kaufman Ren, and who has the size and the versatility to be able to do that and to be able to affect shots at the rim.

Chris Huston (21:36.281)
And Purdue's got another seven four guys so, so that he can go up against him when the time comes.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (21:40.888)
They just keep rolling them in, Chris. They just keep rolling them in every year. I don't know where they get them. I don't even know. They come out of nowhere.

Chris Huston (21:44.227)
surprised Gabe did. Gabe Dines escaped the vortex. We've talked to almost everybody. Ryan Cornish is the latest addition. Tell me about him, another Ivy League guy and seems to really be pretty versatile.

Mark (21:53.122)
You

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (22:06.274)
Yeah, he's a super interesting player because like I said, depending on who's been at the, you know, on the roster for Dartmouth, he's handled a lot of the point guard responsibilities. And then last year he had a lot of the shooting guard responsibilities. So he's a guy who, you know, he brings our three point percentage probably up as a team, right? He he's historically been able to shoot the ball, I think around that 35 or 36 % for his career. He's, you know, can play some one and some two, you know, when he's when you're talking about, I think he's six, four.

When you're talking about a guy who's 6'4", so he brings that size at point if we do need that size at point. And we want to play Rodney at the two, he kind of allows us to move some of those pieces around. But again, three-point shooting ability, ability to play one and the two, and he plays with some swag, right? He's got some swag that you might not think when you're just looking at him on the street, but he does play with the chip on his shoulder. We're super excited about him and just the versatility that he'll bring.

Chris Huston (22:40.935)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (23:04.676)
We really believe he was the best, you know, was the best player in the portal at the time that he went in. So we're super excited about that addition. He's a high academic guy, he's a really smart young man. And so we're excited to have him in our gym.

Chris Huston (23:17.531)
And then finally, Ronnie Rice, mentioned him briefly earlier. Are you counting on him to be the leader of this team to sort of be the alpha male?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (23:25.412)
Yeah, I mean, I think anytime you get a guy who knows exactly what the Big Ten is, right, and we got that a little bit with Terrence Williams last year, obviously, before the injury. But T. Will, you know, he knew going into that locker room, we knew that he knew what Big Ten games were going to be like. And that's a, you know, as a coaching staff, that's really important for us is to go in there and, you know, you're looking, you're looking down the line, you're like, okay, who knows what's really coming, coming at him. And Ammar on Dickerson, you know, he got a taste of it playing Alabama. I know they're not in our league, but.

you know, playing in a high level competition game, you know, in March. so having that familiarity with the league, having the familiarity with the players is not talked a lot about of the personnel of just, you know, here's what these guys like to do and he can sit in there and tell his teammates. But from a production level, I mean, you guys saw it last year, know, elite production can play one, can play two, can shoot off the bounce. I mean, you saw it in our game. They lit us up for a few threes and...

Chris Huston (23:53.649)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (24:22.18)
There was a barrage of threes. I wasn't sure it was going to end. It quickly did cool off there after the first few minutes, but he's got the ability to take over a game, whether it be from three or get to the rim. And what we're finding out in our gym is he is a little bit better of a ball handler and a little bit better of a pick and roll player than we might've saw at Maryland. So we're excited to kind of see what he can do in that area.

Chris Huston (24:51.303)
I was talking to my co-hosts in a previous podcast that if I were you guys, you guys now have 12 scholarship players, right? I don't think you guys need to get any more scholarships, even though there's 15 slots or available. isn't there a sort of like once you get to 13, 14, 15, is it the likelihood of them getting enough minutes to give you the returns on the investment?

Is that what you guys are thinking or do you still have some more work to do to fill out the roster?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (25:24.068)
Yeah, so we so we're probably going to historically go with what what has been the normal scholarship limit of 13, right? So now with the with the current landscape, you can go up to 14 or up to 15 scholarships. Anything over that 13 comes out of your revenue sharing budget. So we're going to go with the traditional walk on situation. And what's what's awesome that the you know that the settlement did was it grandfathered in anyone who was on a roster last year. So we're able to retain.

Chris Huston (25:32.977)
Mm.

Chris Huston (25:40.71)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Huston (25:51.878)
Great.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (25:53.112)
some of the walk-ons from last year, we're able to add some walk-ons. And then we still have that one last scholarship spot open, which we're kind of talking about and discussing as a staff what the best move is. But yeah, I think teams who do go up to the 15 scholarship, I think it'll be a little bit difficult just based on a pure numbers breakdown, right? If you're talking about trying to keep all 15 happy is difficult. Trying to keep 13 happy, to be quite honest, is pretty difficult.

Chris Huston (26:19.185)
Right.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (26:22.68)
But we think we have a pretty good layout for how we're gonna do it. We're still talking about that last spot, but it could very well be a developmental spot for a young player, something like that. That's probably what it'll end up being.

Chris Huston (26:33.541)
Yeah. Yeah. Now you don't have to tell us, but do you guys have like in your mind an idea of who you kind of going in want your starting five to be, or at least your main rotation to be and sort of like, and then the preseason will disabuse you of any notions or are confirmed those notions or is it just completely, let's just see what happens and see who emerges.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (26:58.498)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the same if you were to look at our roster, like you would probably, you know, kind of come to some, I wouldn't say conclusions, but some assumptions of who could possibly start. So we always have those notions in our head of, of, know, kind of where we think guys might fall. We don't have anybody penciled in any spots. We don't, like I said earlier, we don't promise anything out, which is, kind of a blessing, honestly, because we can go into this with an open mind and.

The guys who deserve to play will be on the floor and the guys who can help us win will be on the floor. And that's the beauty in our program is everything is earned. But yeah, obviously you do have a premonition of kind of who you think might start.

Chris Huston (27:38.695)
Yeah. And lastly, before I turn it over to Mark to ask you a few questions, I want to ask you about Terrence Williams. How's he doing? Is he fully recovered? What's his mindset like coming back for another year? And what's his shape like?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (27:54.392)
Yeah, I mean, we're super excited to have Terrence back, you know, back with the program. Obviously being granted that medical, that medical red shirt was something he didn't plan on. We didn't plan on it, but I think it worked out really nicely. And he is, I don't know how much I'm able to talk about it, but he's progressing, you know, very nicely. And we think he's going to be a big part of this, part of this moving forward. we're, you know, we're super excited to have someone who's, you know, not just played in our league.

but has been in our locker room before. He knows exactly what our huddles are gonna look like this year. He knows, you know, he's someone that Coach Musk can turn to and say, you know, am I hitting on everything I need to hit on coming from a player perspective? And that's super important for us.

Chris Huston (28:27.42)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Huston (28:38.247)
Well, you can always have one coming back from the previous year at least. can have Harrison Hordary and Terrence Williams and they can all get together and have a convention. All right. I'm going to turn it over to Mark. and he's going to ask you a few questions.

Mark (28:49.526)
Yeah, speaking of of of the one player returning, you know same situation this year as last year. Obviously that had to be something new for the whole staff. What kind of lessons did you learn from having to assimilate so many new new players that you can apply this year? Do you see some some shorter paths or some just lessons learned that you can apply this year?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (29:09.348)
Yeah, I think it's interesting. It's a great question, but just having to install everything again, we've actually become quite good, I would say. I'm biased, obviously, but we know the program of reinstalling, is the best way to put it. So just knowing how to install, how quickly to go, how quickly can these guys pick up our, you know, our offensive system, our drills, just different things like that. So yeah, that's been a...

That's been something that it was kind of trial by error a little bit last year. And it was hard because Harry hadn't played for us. So even though he was a returner, he kind of wasn't a returner. But he did a great job fitting in with the staff, just like all the new guys did.

Mark (29:55.222)
Yeah, OK, appreciate that. you know, rock roster question too. And this is I'm just warning you. This is tricky and tough. I'm not going to ask you to name names, but if I just look at the roster this year and I look at the roster last year, you know last year we went about eight or nine deep in the the in the heavy minutes. If you're looking and I know that you know to your point, as you said, we don't know who started the starting five is, but you kind of gauge our eight or nine deep on this upcoming season.

Don't want you to name names, because I loved the team last year. Love the effort of every single player and the coaches. Thank you. How many guys from last year's team do you think would make this upcoming team's eight or nine deep?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (30:38.37)
The great question, because I'm trying to right now work in my head who I think would be our eight or nine, I would say.

I'd say three.

Mark (30:51.074)
I was gonna guess three or four. Yeah, and I know it's a tough one. I appreciate it. I'm a numbers guy. I don't wanna say, coach, we're gonna be better, right? And you say, yeah, all right, right on, thanks. So appreciate the specificity. I appreciate that. It's difficult question.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (30:52.388)
Yeah, I think that would be a safe bet.

Chris Huston (31:00.007)
you

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (31:02.18)
I like that angle. I like that angle. That's a good angle.

Mark (31:06.242)
cool last one so coming into the season all sports you know one of the things that it was really concerned about travel now this is easy for me i am work from home cpa newport beach is easy for me to observe hey this travel doesn't look so rough on t v as i'm watching games on a saturday morning in bed how much of a how difficult was was the travel you know just objectively and compared expectations

Chris Huston (31:06.855)
you

Chris Huston (31:26.375)
You

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (31:34.542)
Well, Mark, will say if I lived in Newport Beach and I didn't have to leave, I wouldn't leave either. So I don't blame you. So I think you're making, you have made a lot of a lot of good choices that have led you to that situation. But I would say the travel, the travel is very difficult in our league, especially for the West Coast teams, because we end up having to go that way so often. Right. When you think about we played right around Chicago, I think we flew out there three times, plus a cross country trip. I will say.

Chris Huston (31:39.494)
You

Mark (31:39.938)
You

Sky (31:44.942)
you

Sky (31:52.987)
you

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (32:01.924)
The one thing it's done is we're super careful about our non-confidence, right? Cause that's when we get to make decisions on how far we travel. So where there's some talk about, you know, well, maybe we'll play over here on the East coast in a, in a neutral site in a, a, know, versus a great program. But we have really have to think about, okay, we, you know, we're going to have to go to the East coast one time. And then we're going to have to, you know, make those, those trips to Michigan and Michigan. You know, so we're going to have to be.

up there and those are not short trips, right? When you're talking about flying back from the East Coast as you guys know, but you're talking about, you know, a seven hour flight. When you're saying you're doing that after, you know, already being on the road for six or seven days and we got to factor in, you know, our guys have a really pretty rigorous academic, you know, situation just because it is a high academic school. And so when you factor all those things in, we were pretty conscious about our non-conference. And so we've...

You know, we're playing in Maui, so we're trying to trying to piece all that stuff together, I will say. But it's it's a tough it's it's tough. It's tough. say that it was especially for the guys who have in-person class and they're you they got it. There's no bending here. Like it's it's a it's a beauty and a curse a little bit. But if we land it five, four o'clock in the morning, the cross-country trip, which obviously doesn't happen ton, but it does happen.

know, guys are expected to be in class at nine o'clock in the morning and it's a tough turnaround. But that's the reality of planning the Big Ten when you're on the West Coast and we embrace it and it's forcing us to adapt, which is great, right? We're, you know, we're, we're, always look forward to a challenge and to, to learning new ways to adapt in the new college landscape.

Mark (33:41.932)
Yeah, that's all I got. And for the record, I love being in the Big Ten for whatever it's worth.

Chris Huston (33:43.079)
You know You know, wasn't a perfect predictor every time but I did notice that that especially in the in the road trips where because there's more there was a bigger gap between games Because of the travel the second game you guys were always always with the first game you guys are always I think better in the first game and Yeah Or maybe no. Yeah, that's it. It was the second game. Yeah. Yeah second game. Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (33:46.18)
haha

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (34:05.186)
We should have, I think we played better in the second, honestly, because it was the second, is a little interesting, but I do remember those long flight home, those were better when we won with sitting next to Coach Mus, right? So I remember a few and I was like, these are, I like winning, I would love to win both, don't get me wrong, but I do like winning the second half of them when we have to fly home after.

Chris Huston (34:17.733)
Yeah. Yeah. But you.

Chris Huston (34:28.515)
Yeah. But you get acclimated because you, because now at that point, by the time you play the second game, you now have been there like four days. Right. So yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (34:35.512)
Yeah, there's a lot to say for that, right? Been there four days, you're adjusted to the time. And it feels like for some reason, we're always playing at either noon or 730. We're never in that sweet spot, right? But no, it's a challenge for sure. And it's something that I think all the teams on the West Coast will get better at, kind of as we go through this.

Chris Huston (34:49.723)
Yeah.

Mark (34:59.842)
Question about that real quick. know, SEC footprint is so much smaller. I don't really know. Would you guys do like just two game road trips in the SEC like we're doing the Big Ten or was it just like a round trip?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (35:12.388)
Everything was one game. Everything for us, at least in Arkansas, was, I don't think there was a single trip that was longer than an hour and half, you know, because we were pretty centrally located too for the league. Florida and South Carolina were our two furthest, and I think they were both maybe an hour 15, maybe an hour 30. So a lot different travel and there was no two game away trips. It was all one game and one game and back.

Mark (35:14.646)
Interesting.

Chris Huston (35:40.219)
Yeah. Is the scout on Washington a little easier this year? Now that have your whole backcourt.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (35:46.924)
It's gonna be detailed. I promise you that. It's gonna be detailed. It's gonna be detailed. You might see some things you never saw before on a basketball floor. we're, we got games, we got games circled. We got certain games. I'm not gonna say which ones, but we have certain games scheduled on our roster. I mean, on our schedule, yeah.

Chris Huston (35:48.741)
Hahaha!

Sky (35:49.462)
Ha ha ha ha.

Mark (35:49.493)
You

Chris Huston (35:56.191)
You

Mark (35:56.77)
You

Chris Huston (36:05.799)
Yeah, yeah. Sky, you got anything for Coach?

Sky (36:10.03)
Yeah, I have two questions for you, Michael. The first question being the recruiting cycle for you guys this year and the transfer portal. How was that different than last season? And in two aspects, one, the timeline last season coming in late, jumping in the portal house and just going like full steam ahead versus having more runway this year. How was that different? And also as much as you can comment on it.

How is the NIL market different this year than last year? It seems like it's changing every single season.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (36:45.656)
Yeah, so to answer the first part of your question, the more time you have in the portal, the better, right? Because it is basically taking 2500 maybe say student athletes, figuring out which ones can get into your school, which ones can play, which ones can help you win games, which ones are a good fit for you, which ones are a good fit for, you know, the staff and Coach Musk. So there's all these different factors that go into it. So the more time, the better. And you don't have a lot of time.

regardless of whether it be coming into the job a little bit late or this year, it happens pretty quick. It's like drinking out of a fire hose. yes, having a little bit of extra time this year was definitely helpful. Just in the evaluation phase of things, Being able to figure out, know, fit with the staff and kind of instead of just accumulating roster pieces and building, you know, we were able to, we feel like

better build a roster and fit needs of the program. Once we started to get a few guys, then fill in pieces that kind of fit those other pieces that we already had, as opposed to last year where it was kind of just, we have to accumulate the most talent we possibly can in this expedited amount of time. And so that was different this year. And then the second question on NIL Landscape, obviously, as you guys have seen, it's

It's changed drastically, right? The numbers have kind of exploded year over year. I'd like to think there's probably not many other industries where the salaries explode the way they have, right? Year over year, which is great for the student athletes. I don't blame them. should, you know, should get everything that they deserve and I'm happy for them. But yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely placed a, you know, it's placed.

Money is now coming from different areas and schools are having to reallocate money from different, from different, you know, different areas. And so it's a, it's a drastically changing landscape. And I don't think there's many schools that are better suited than University of Southern California for those changes. And we embrace those changes. So we feel like we're in a very good spot, not just for, you know, this year, but, but moving forward, especially not just with the university, but being in Los Angeles.

Sky (39:04.43)
Okay, thanks for that answer and that's very interesting to hear your perspective on that. Now the other question I had was with the personnel that is going to be on the roster this season, do you see a difference in the play style, particularly in a pace offensively, including also running on the break, which I felt like we didn't see a lot of coordinated fast breaks last year, it be maybe a steal and slam or something, but...

Is there like an evolution offensively or maybe things that you were able to install that weren't possible last year that you're looking at?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (39:41.602)
Yeah, I think we're definitely going to play a faster style and we want to play a faster style, right? Defensively, we want to get up more full court pressure, pressure the ball. We want to force more turnovers and we want to force more steals. We didn't do a great job of forcing steals last year, which is something that we've done in the past. And so we want to be a higher steel team, which is basically the biggest catalyst into a transition team, right? Higher steel teams are higher scoring transition teams. so

We want to play fast, we feel like it starts on the defensive end, forcing really tough shots, defensive rebounding at a higher rate than we did last year, right? To be able to start the breaks and hopefully, with some added size and some more true centers, we're kind of able to get out and run a little bit right. And the guards can kind of release earlier as opposed to everybody having to crack back. And I don't want to say leak out, but get out when they realize that that ball is going to be a defensive rebound for us and get out.

go and we're going to preach advanced passes, we're going to preach playing fast, but you can only play as fast as the players can play that you have. And so we definitely think we can ratchet it up quite a bit this year.

Mark (40:53.23)
follow up on that you know coming into the season one of the first videos that we saw when when coach must was hired was 200 passes a game and it seemed like and this is nobody's fault it's just as you said we were in a mass quick talent acquisition but we're putting together last season's roster it seems like we didn't have those pieces to really facilitate the 200 passes per game are we going to see more that you were talking about like getting out on the fast break are we going to see that 200

passes per game is more of a half court metric to myself. Are we gonna see more of that quick ball movement? We had guys that were great at getting to the basket in the dearly departed, but they did not facilitate quick, fast moving ball movement. Is that gonna be something we'll see different in the half court this year?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (41:42.116)
Yeah, I think so. There was a little bit more isolation, a little bit more ball stoppage last year than what we would have liked. And so that leads to slightly lower passes per game. So I think, yeah, we'll see a little bit more of a, you know, and we did like St. Thomas was a willing passer and I thought, you know, he did do a good job of that. But yeah, we had a little bit of ball stoppage that we would like to kind of,

Mark (41:47.488)
Yeah.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (42:09.252)
Kind of change, we also, you we didn't have a ton of, um, of guys who were able to create their own shot. Um, and so with that, the guys that can, you know, they kind of have to stop the ball a little bit on the ball kind of has to be in their hands a little bit more. So, uh, I think just expanding the playmaking ability, just a little bit having, you know, one or two other guys who can create their own shot, um, will, you know, and like you said, playing faster, um, we'll hopefully start to jump those passes per game number up into that 200 plus range.

Mark (42:15.702)
Yeah.

Mark (42:39.628)
is the beauty of year two, is it not?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (42:41.827)
Yes.

Chris Huston (42:43.503)
Got a couple questions from the message board and then we'll get you out of here coach. One of the first questions about Gabe Dines from Mat B4SC. He talks about, I'm going to kind of reformulate the question, but he's talked about kind of Gabe is a bit skinny and he's going to have to go up against the big 10 strength. But his skinniness is sort of what gives him his feet and ability to recover and be a good shopluck.

What's that balance between wanting to bulk him up for being able to pound a bit and, still being able to keep his, coordination and versatility to be able to still maintain his, ability as a shop locker. Do you guys want to change him much or do you want to kind of keep him as is?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (43:29.751)
I mean, I think with all our guys, want to add a little bit of strength for the most part. And with him, it's no different than all of our guys where we want to, we probably want to add a little bit more strength than just getting into the big 10. He's going to need that. And I think he's going to be really focused on that in the off season. I think he will add that strength and add that weight, but

We never want to add, like we want to add basketball applicable weight, right? We don't want to ever just add weight just to add weight. But I think like you said, that helps his footwork, his elusiveness, his being able to block shots off the ball, being able to slide over and help from the opposite block and being able to get over there. And if you just start adding weight just to add it, just to beef them up, doesn't always help.

Chris Huston (44:06.523)
Mm-hmm.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (44:14.596)
But I think, you know, he's a super driven young man. So he will be focused on, you know, adding some strength in the off season, but it's a fine line. Our strength coach, Andre, who we hired from the Golden State Warriors, he's the best college strength coach in the country. There's no one who dives into analytics, dives into nutrition more than he does and sees how everything affects the body and everything he does is on an individual player by player basis. And so he's going to have him, you know, primed right in the sweet spot.

Chris Huston (44:44.485)
good. And then Trojan52 wants to know, what activities are you allowed to do with the team during the summer? I guess the question is, like, what do you guys, I saw you guys at the beach the other day, play a little, you have the team building and bonding kind of activities, but when are you guys going to get in the gym and start like moving around and doing stuff and getting a good look at the guys?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (45:05.208)
Yeah, so today we actually had our first we called summer access. We had our first day of summer access. We get as a basketball staff, we get four hours a week for now over summer and then eventually later on. I believe in September will hit 20 hours a week and that's what will be for the remainder of the year. But in this four hour week we started today and we'll we'll use our eight weeks over summer are eight are eight weeks of four hours and get a good look at the guys. But today was day one and.

We liked what we had up there.

Chris Huston (45:37.933)
And then looking ahead the class of 26 is a heck of a class for Southern California I think one of the services top five players are all playing in SoCal this year Are you guys just hitting SoCal hard and I would imagine just having guys in your neck of the woods just makes things a lot easier,

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (45:58.306)
Yeah, no, for sure. Anytime you have homegrown talent, that's what we really want to build this thing with, Is we want to surround the, we call it the state of LA, right? But we want to, we want to really surround LA as a city. The basketball culture is very strong here. The players are, you know, especially in that 26th class are elite. And so we want to try to keep those many, as many of those guys as home as possible. Obviously I think in the, in the NIL area, you're going to see a little bit less

I don't know if you'd call it like super teams or guys teaming up just because of the way the money stuff works. But we're gonna try to keep as many of those guys as we can and we're gonna recruit the heck out of LA, not just in that class, but here moving forward.

Chris Huston (46:42.599)
Have you guys already had the discussion with football about how you guys are divvying everything up? Like, has it already been like set?

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (46:49.996)
As far as revenue sharing or...

Chris Huston (46:51.751)
Yeah, because you guys because every school has going to have what 20 20.3 million to work with kind of thing in total 24. Yeah

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (46:56.484)
Yeah, 20.5. Yep. That's an administrative thing. It's going to be, I would say, similar at Big Ten schools. I think most of the Big Ten athletic directors and decision makers are going to roughly be around that same. And so I don't know what that number is, but Jen Cohen, our AD, is elite at what she does. And I believe she'll have us in a good position.

Chris Huston (47:08.199)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Huston (47:26.161)
Well, very good. Young must coach Michael Musselman. Thanks again for coming on the Dunk City podcast. We really appreciate you taking the time. know tomorrow you got to get back on the recruiting trail. We wish you luck in that endeavor and look forward to the update on this 13th player and good luck to you and the team and to your dad. And, and we look forward to seeing this great new product this season.

MICHAEL MUSSELMAN (47:50.2)
I appreciate it. Thank you guys for having me on.

Chris Huston (47:52.231)
Thank you.

Sky (47:52.792)
Thanks, Michael.

Chris Huston (47:55.769)
All right.