LOS ANGELES — It was easier to build a fence around Arkansas. There are millions of acres of nothing but wide-open farmland. There are a handful of small towns. And there are a couple gems, of talented regional prep basketball players, with minimized regional recruiting competition.
The world is different in the metropolis of Los Angeles. But Eric Musselman took the job at USC, all the same, to corner the market on Southern California.
On the second day Musselman arrived to Southern California from Fayetteville, dubbed the men’s basketball program’s next head coach in early April, he hosted St. John Bosco’s Elzie Harrington on an unofficial visit. The two sat, and Musselman re-offered the talented local guard in the class of 2025 a scholarship extended previously under Andy Enfield’s regime. He told Harrington he reminded him of Anthony Black, a former five-star talent who played for Musselman at Arkansas and became a future NBA lottery pick.
“He made it clear,” Harrington told the Southern California News Group, “how he felt about me.”
Harrington committed to Harvard in June. But on Tuesday, he publicly flipped his pledge to USC, a major development for the program’s recruiting momentum. Aside from current freshman Isaiah Elohim, who originally committed to Musselman at Arkansas, Harrington marks Musselman’s first Southern California high school commit in his eight-month USC tenure.
“I think it’s great for USC to get a local kid,” St. John Bosco head coach Matt Dunn said, “who has the ability to bring a lot of other kids with him.”
Harrington has become a well-known name in the Southern California prep scene, a four-year standout for a local power. A 6-foot-5 guard who averaged 14.1 points a game and 6.1 assists in 2023-24 as a junior, he fits snugly into Musselman’s track record of developing NBA-caliber big guards, a potential successor to USC’s 6-foot-6 Desmond Claude.
The process, though, has been trying for deeper reasons. Originally set on Harvard, Harrington stepped back to look more closely at West Coast schools amid family health issues, wanting to be closer to home. He’d been the one to reach back out to USC, he emphasized to the Southern California News Group, keeping any broad news of his decommitment quiet.
“Honestly, it hasn’t been easy,” Harrington said Tuesday. “I just – like, I have a relationship with USC, I have a great relationship with the coaches and guys at Harvard, too. But, at the end of the day, I had to put my family first. That’s something I believe in is, without my family, I can’t even really play basketball.”
He’ll have a chance to play a major role in 2025-26, as Claude is likely to test the NBA draft and Musselman’s current transfer-heavy roster is composed of a heap of soon-to-be-graduated seniors.
“When they really have a chance to have a whole year to put together a roster and do what they do,” Dunn said, “I think kind of – in on the ground floor, is pretty exciting.”