USC men’s basketball began the season strong, earning a dominant 94-64 win against the Cal Poly Mustangs on Monday.
In head coach Eric Musselman’s second season with the program, many questions were raised about taking the same approach as last year, with new faces all over. They were all answered tonight, with the unit coming together and putting on an unreal performance for the fans at Galen Center.
At first it didn’t look pretty, with the Trojans getting off to a very slow start.
In the first four and a half minutes, USC only scored four points. Three of them came off of the two star transfers connecting, with junior guard Rodney Rice finding graduate forward Chad Baker-Mazara, who knocked down a corner three.
“I thought in the first half, are we conditioned enough?” Musselman questioned. Based off of multiple sloppy turnovers from his squad early on, he certainly had the right to doubt them.
The only positive to the start was that the Trojans held Cal Poly scoreless in that same four and a half minute span. The clear emphasis on defense over the offseason for the Trojans showed, as they forced 22 turnovers on the night.
This slow start soon turned into an explosive burst, with the Trojans going on a crucial 9-0 run in less than two minutes, led by five points from Samford transfer and graduate forward Jaden Brownell.
Seven minutes into the game, Rice got his first points as a Trojan by way of the three ball, draining a triple from the top of the key. A minute later, he nailed another one, capitalizing on a Cal Poly turnover, this time assisted by Utah transfer and senior forward Ezra Ausar.
Just two minutes after Rice’s barrage of threes, he assisted Virginia transfer and sophomore forward Jacob Cofie on a ferocious alley-oop slam that lit up the Galen Center.
At USC, Rice is playing the role of a facilitating point guard rather than the shooting guard role he had back at Maryland.
“I’m capable of playmaking, getting my teammates the ball where they want it and where they need it,” Rice said.
That playmaking ability clearly showed, as he had eight assists on the night. Coming from a Maryland squad that routinely started the same five guys night in and night out, Rice now has to make the adjustment to a much deeper rotation.
“Playing with a bunch of different guys, I have to know how every one of them plays, and where they want the ball,” he said when asked about the adjustment.
The Trojans lost a bit of momentum heading into halftime, where they held a slim six point lead, up 37-31. That is when Coach Musselman made a much needed halftime speech to light the fire under his squad.
“I’ll keep that behind closed doors,” Cofie said when asked about Musselman’s speech. “But he was definitely fired up for sure.”
And boy did it work. USC came out of the half firing on all cylinders, led by the aggressive play of Ausar and Cofie. Both forwards ended the night with over 20 points, with only three misses from the field each.
With 10 minutes to play in the second half, it felt like the Mustangs wouldn’t go away, cutting their deficit to just 11 points after a big time three ball from sophomore guard Cayden Ward. That is when the Trojans switched on to their A-game. They proceeded to go on a gamebreaking 11-0 run in the ensuing three and a half minutes, shutting the door on any hope of a Cal Poly comeback.
From then on, USC was in cruise control, with the final 10 minutes including a highlight reel up and under and one layup by senior transfer forward Amarion Dickerson.
“[Basketball] is a game of runs,” Musselman said. “There’s always three runs in every game, and if you can control two of the three, you’re going to win.”
Tonight, the Trojans won all three.
USC ended up finishing the game on a 30-9 run, taking home a 30-point victory. Their next test comes on Sunday, Nov. 9 at home against Manhattan.