LOS ANGELES — They could not be more different, and yet they are one and the same, the 5-foot-5 spittle-spewing coach on USC’s sidelines and the 6-foot-7 effusive man in the mask.
Saint Thomas, Eric Musselman reflected in mid-October, is an emotional player. Maybe that’s why they’ve connected, as they have. Musselman, a man who’s come in for pregame speeches in his short USC tenure sporting beach chairs and boxing gloves to make points on separate occasions, hates a quiet locker room. Thomas, often, is the loudest one in any locker room.
“He’s just a guy,” Musselman put it in mid-October, “that loves to play.”
It’s been a strange road to USC for Thomas, a 6-foot-7 forward who once stepped away midseason from Loyola Chicago, dipping his toes in NBA Draft waters this spring after a breakout junior year at Northern Colorado only to wind up back in the portal. But he’s shouldered an immediate role as a leader on a brand-new USC roster — even more so, a true heartbeat — and his love to play poured out cardinal-red on USC’s home floor Thursday night in a 75-69 win over Idaho State.
He was recruited, by Musselman, not just as a forward, whereas Thomas often felt pigeonholed by coaches in their evaluations. He was brought to USC to play one-through-five, on a versatile roster teeming with wings. In the summer, when Xavier transfer guard Desmond Claude was sidelined with an elbow procedure, Thomas shouldered the majority of point-guard reps.
“I mean, at first, I didn’t really know that he could pass that well,” freshman Jalen Shelley said of Thomas in early October.
The majority of the collegiate basketball world didn’t know, either, until point-guard Claude was benched often with foul trouble Thursday and Thomas suddenly just…became USC’s point guard. For the better part of an otherwise sloppy first half, the mask-wearing forward orchestrated USC’s offense, fulfilling Musselman’s mad visions and whipping skip passes and dump-offs galore. After a final feed to center Josh Cohen before the halftime buzzer, Thomas skipped away with a remarkable ninth assist of a half in which he’d totaled just two points.
He came out of the break, too, with a fire in his white Nikes. After canning a three on USC’s first second-half possession, he pointed in earnest, turning on his way back down the floor and immediately chirping at Idaho State’s bench. A couple of possessions later, he grabbed an Isaiah Elohim airball for a put-back, again chirping at the nearest Idaho State chap within earshot.
It wasn’t enough, though, to light a spark that’d last. Musselman’s teams, historically, have emphasized getting to the rim and drawing free throws, but making them is a different story. USC shot themselves over and over again on the line on Thursday. By the time Claude went one-of-two from the stripe midway through the second half, the Trojans were just 13-of-23 from the free-throw line, keeping their Big Sky opponents tightly in range in a game USC could’ve long put away.
With just under eight minutes remaining, a Cohen layup snapped a nearly eight-minute stretch for USC without a field goal, retaking a one-point lead on an Idaho State program that had little business hanging around this Thursday night. And yet they did, at every late inflection point. A USC fast-break, up two with 4:30 left, ended in a turnover. Chibuzo Agbo Jr. and Clark Slajchert missed free throws on late-game trips to the stripe. The game, slowly, devolved into a sludge of whistles and stoppages, the Trojans unable to establish a shred of momentum.
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However, with USC in need of one final push, Thomas donned the cape. With the shot clock off and USC up 68-67 late, he took a dribble-handoff from Cohen at the top of the arc and rose without hesitation into a triple.
It fell, and Thomas fist-pumped in ecstasy, spouting off to anyone who’d listen in courtside seats.
Cohen was excellent offensively, leading USC with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Thomas finished with 10 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. And USC improved to 2-0 at the start of Musselman’s tenure.