Analysis: USC men’s basketball is at a crossroads, in execution and in culture
The Trojans have lost five in a row and are mired at the bottom of the Pac-12, with some interesting comments from captain Boogie Ellis after Saturday’s loss to UCLA
Luca Evans (OC Register) — LOS ANGELES – Andy Enfield strode into the postgame interview room on Saturday with the same gait as ever, assuming the same tight-lipped poker face that accompanies any result at the Galen Center, launching into a speech devoid of emotion and the same tone of a public information officer.
“Tough game for our players tonight,” USC’s head coach began, for it was.
And there was little way to tell, really, that this was the lowest point of Enfield’s USC tenure in about a decade. Fifth loss in a row. Utterly dismantled by an inconsistent UCLA team in a rivalry game on the Trojans’ home floor. Enfield, the stoic general who has long pivoted the USC’s men’s program from irrelevancy, cracked the same occasional smirk after the 65-50 loss to the Bruins that he did in an early-January win over Stanford when joking about his Just for Men shampoo.
Here’s the problem: how, exactly?
All season long, UCLA had drawn the brunt of Los Angeles’ ire for a young, inexperienced group that hadn’t shown much cohesion under coach Mick Cronin. On Saturday, though, they seemed to gel while out-working USC – exposing the Trojans as the more flawed group in both execution and construction.
Sure, every one of USC’s starters has missed time with injury. Bronny James is still visibly ramping back from a devastating heart scare this summer. Isaiah Collier, the team’s freshman engine, has been out for weeks with a hand injury. But in terms of program trajectory, USC has taken one of the largest freefalls relative to preseason expectations of any school with national relevance.
They began the year ranked no. 21 in the AP poll, returning three starters from an NCAA-tournament team and bringing in two highly-touted freshmen in Isaiah Collier and Bronny James; Saturday’s loss to UCLA dropped them to 8-12, last in the Pac-12 and with virtually no shot at March Madness other than winning the Pac-12 tournament.
Adjustments have fallen short. Senior captain Boogie Ellis returned Saturday; after eight early points, he was held scoreless the rest of the way as UCLA face-guarded him and no other Trojan could create a lick of offense.
Simply put, there is no easy fix, because individual pieces aren’t developing together amid inconsistency. Enfield has expressed frustration with both the program’s defensive regression and lack of ball control. “It’s some basic basketball fundamentals that should prevent you from having too many turnovers,” the coach told the Southern California News Group on Jan. 25.
And Ellis’ comments Saturday, the senior normally a positive and even-keeled public face of the program, called the program’s culture into direct question. When asked if he felt a sense of urgency, Ellis mumbled he felt like “there’s supposed to be a sense of urgency since we lost that first game” in the losing streak.
“Sometimes, we gotta have some more pride, at the end of the day,” Ellis said, in response to another question. “We had a lot of guys on last year’s team who really knew how much it meant to us. I feel like, we just gotta establish a culture. We got a lot of young guys now – we got to want it more.”
Just over a month remains to establish that culture, before a trip to Vegas and the Pac-12 tournament. In good health, if the sun smiles down on Galen, pieces do exist for a late-season run. Leaning against a stanchion after a practice last week, assistant coach Chris Capko laid out the formula.
Get Ellis going, fully healed from a nagging hamstring. Bring Collier back into the fold, healthy. Get Morgan back to full strength, after working back from a virus that cost him 15 pounds.
“Knock on this, everybody stays healthy,” Capko said, “and you feel like a team that can, hey, guys have gotten better … you feel like, ‘You know what, maybe it was worth it.’”
He tapped his fist against the padded stanchion, in lieu of the ol’ traditional knock-on-wood superstition – one last appeal, perhaps, to the basketball gods.
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