LOS ANGELES — All it took was a trip to the Pacific Northwest and a handful of faux-ugly Christmas sweaters.
There has been little interest at the Galen Center, for months, in Eric Musselman’s first USC men’s basketball team, a team pieced together by kids who’d known each other less than a year and a team that looked like it. They stooped to the level of worse teams. Musselman, pulling out any stop imaginable to generate some momentum, placed basketballs in his player’s hands before last week’s game at Washington and told them to physically visualize their shots falling.
Suddenly, and magically, they started falling.
Suddenly, in front of a student section sporting “Muss Bus”-themed Christmas attire for a Sunday-night Galen promotion, a team that had struggled to separate blitzed Montana State in an end-to-end 89-63 win.
Suddenly, a team that had played a sort of discombobulated your-turn, my-turn offense moved the ball like a lineup of four-year veterans. Suddenly, a team that had seemed a step late on defensive rotations at the rim – as wing Saint Thomas pointed out in mid-November – moved as part of a hivemind, swatting six Montana State shots and holding them to 33% shooting.
Not two weeks ago, after falling flat in a loss to Oregon, Musselman wondered aloud to reporters exactly how many Big Ten games his program would win. And not two weeks later, after that 85-61 drubbing of Washington and Sunday night’s encore, USC (7-4, 1-1 Big Ten) suddenly looks like the kind of team that could give a host of Big Ten schools fits.
It is a conference known, stylistically, for plodding physicality, for behemoth big men and for domineering defense. The best version of this USC program, and Musselman’s vision for this team, stand completely separate. The best version of this USC program attacks relentlessly in transition, operates in frantic motion and features five guys with long arms switching capably onto anyone and everyone they’re asked.
The best version of this USC program has come together, definitively, since flying to Washington. Sunday night’s game was over a few minutes in, Montana State struggling to even get a shot off on multiple possessions before red zeroes rang, USC building a 27-5 lead after 10 minutes as they held MSU to 2-of-13 shooting to start.
Offensively, the first half was a coaches’ dream, Musselman putting a clear emphasis on getting ballhandlers going downhill with halfcourt sets – relying heavily on designated handoffs (DHOs) – as a group of transfers swung the rock as if they’d been buddies since childhood. One possession with about nine minutes remaining in the first half was pure symphony.
First came a slew of DHOs to get Thomas driving off a pick-and-roll. Then came a baseline cut by Matt Knowling and a find by Thomas. Then came a touch-pass to the corner from Knowling to Clark Slajchert. Then came an immediate drive-and-dump by Slajchert to big Rashaun Agee, a slew of split-second instinctive reads culminating in a thunderous jam from Agee.
It was a standout stretch of minutes from Agee, the Bowling Green transfer seeing spotty minutes to open the season but looking like a weapon across USC’s last two wins, finishing with 15 points and seven boards against Washington before 10 points against Montana State. Thomas, who’d looked tentative to hunt his shot for the better part of a month, continued to find his rhythm with 17 points, seven rebounds and four assists. And point guard Desmond Claude continued a stretch of sterling lead-guard play with 15 second-half points, finishing with 19 on 6-of-8 shooting.