‘We are Legends:’ Nick Rakocevic reflects on his final moments as a Trojan

“‘That’s it man, we are really legends.’ That’s the last thing I remember [Jonah Mathews] telling me,” Nick Rakocevic recounted.

USC defeated UCLA in a toe-to-toe matchup in the Trojans’ final regular season game of 2019-20. The win pushed Rakocevic and Mathews to 88 wins apiece, making the four-year duo the winningest players in Trojan basketball history.

The pair of decorated seniors celebrated a historic regular-season finish and looked forward to continuing their run in the Pac-12 Tournament.

Neither Mathews nor Rakocevic knew it at the time, but a week later, the COVID-19 pandemic would cancel the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments, cutting their senior seasons short.

The duo had already played their last game as Trojans.

Their final game was arguably the best game Galen Center has ever seen. In front of a sold-out crowd for the first time in two years, USC’s backs were against the wall facing crosstown rival UCLA.

Down by one with nine second left on the clock, USC inbounded to Mathews who dribbled down the court into a step-back three-pointer. Drained.

Fans, coaches and players went wild. Mathews sprinted down the court as freshman guard Ethan Anderson jumped on his back, but the zoned-in Rakocevic knew the game wasn’t over. There was one second left on the clock.

“I was the only one on defense,” Rakocevic said. “I’m like ‘I’m about to play one-on-five.’ Everybody was out of bounds, Jonah was in the crowd. I’m the only one playing defense and I pray to God that he misses this full-court shot and he did.”

After the attempted answer from UCLA fell short, Rakocevic sprinted in Mathews’ direction to join in on the team’s celebration.

“I tripped and fell just straight on my face,” Rakocevic said. “I got back up and I grabbed Jonah and put him in a headlock and he looked at me.”

That’s when Mathews told Rakocevic the words neither of them will ever forget: “We are legends.”

It was the perfect cap to the regular season for the most capable Trojan basketball squad fans have seen in a few years, but Rakocevic knew the team wasn’t finished.

“We aren’t done yet, we still have the Pac’ and NCAA,” he responded to Mathews.

The four-year duo didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last game they would play in cardinal and gold.

A few days after Mathews’ immortalizing shot, head coach Andy Enfield and Co. took a chartered flight to Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Tournament. The Trojans had a bye in the first round of the tourney and were set to face No. 5 Arizona in the quarterfinals.

Rakocevic says he remembers the day he found out his time as a Trojan was done like it was yesterday.

“This is the day we were supposed to play Arizona,” he said. “I remember Jonah waking me up and was like ‘They just cancelled the ACC and SEC tournaments.’ I was like ‘You know what this means: We’re not going to play today.’”

Mathews took a more hopeful stance, thinking it was still possible for his team to play at least the game against the Wildcats that day.

25 minutes passed.

“Boom, we check on Twitter and there it is: ‘Pac-12 Tournament cancelled,’” Rakocevic said.

Even the often realistic Rakocevic was in disbelief of the massive impact COVID-19 would have on the sports world.

“If somebody would have told me that the NCAA Tournament wouldn’t happen that day I would have laughed at them,” he said.

Regardless of the NCAA Tournament’s status, it was time for the Trojans to head back to California. All of the players, except for Rakocevic, took the charter flight back home.

Rakocevic does not like flying and with rough weather in the forecast, he elected to take the bus back home with coach Jason Hart, coach Eric Mobley and a couple other staff members. The ride was already set to be a long, reflective trip for Rakocevic after the cancellation of the Pac-12 Tournament.

But then more bad news came.

“I was like ‘Man, this isn’t real,’” Rakocevic said. “There’s no way they are canceling the NCAA Tournament. Especially not this year, when we are supposed to be this, this and that.”

Without his teammates, his brothers around, Rakocevic was alone.

“I really didn’t have teammates to bounce off of. That was the hardest bus ride for me because it just didn’t hit me,” he said.

Rakocevic made an Instagram post thanking USC, the fans and his teammates for “the best four years of his life.”

“Just seeing the people respond, my teammates, fans and other people, I kind of broke down,” Rakocevic recounted. “I started crying on the bus.”

His tenure at USC —136 games, 1,292 points and more than two days worth of minutes played — had come to an abrupt end.

“I was really in my head about coming up as a freshman, the things that I’ve accomplished there and how it was just over that quick,” Rakocevic said. “I would give anything to just be 18 years old and running around USC’s campus.”