USC defeats Chattanooga in the first game of the Eric Musselman era
The final seconds were ticking away before tip-off, counting down to the start of a new era of USC basketball, when Eric Musselman first emerged from the Galen Center tunnel. Exactly seven months had passed since he took the reins as the Trojans’ coach, and in that time, he’d rebuilt the roster from scratch, doing what he could to stamp a stagnant program with his trademark intensity.
There was still plenty of work left to do, though, evidenced by the large swaths of empty seats throughout the arena. That part of Musselman’s plans will take much longer than a few months — and more compelling proof of concept than a couple of exhibition wins — to take hold. Sustaining it would be another thing entirely.
USC men’s basketball can’t find hide from what it is, and they know they’ll have to fight and claw to make a noticeable impact in the Big Ten.
But for one night at least, most everything else would go according to plan as USC rolled past Tennessee Chattanooga 77-51 in Musselman’s debut.
It may not have been the sort of “cosmetically pleasing” style of play that Musselman hopes will bring fans in droves to Galen Center. USC didn’t fly up and down the floor in transition. It only shot seven free throws, a total that left the Trojans coach baffled.
But for a totally rebuilt roster that hasn’t had much time to play together, the Trojans looked, from start to finish, like a more cohesive team than they did at pretty much any point last season.
That effort started on the defensive end, where USC shut down Chattanooga on the perimeter, holding the Mocs to a meager 28% shooting from the field. The Trojans were especially effective in clamping down on Chattanooga guard Trey Bonham, the SoCon Preseason Player of the Year, who shot just one for 10 and scored six.
“I think our size and length really bothered him,” grad transfer forward Matt Knowling said.
That USC’s length gave an opposing offense fits came as no surprise, given the roster Musselman had set out to build. But that USC looked as polished as it did on the other end was an especially positive sign. The Trojans turned the ball over just six times while tallying 21 assists.
And that was without forward Terrance Williams, who was unavailable because of injury. His absence left Musselman to start freshman Jalen Shelley on the wing, a decision he “wasn’t sure the whole staff agreed” with.
But as USC brushed off a slow start to pull away in the second half, Musselman would give just about everybody on the roster a chance to shine.
USC guard Chibuzo Agbo led all scorers with 14, but seven of the 12 Trojans who played scored at least eight points. Knowling scored 13 on a perfect six-of-six shooting, while freshman Isaiah Elohim and Wesley Yates combined for 17 in their first collegiate action.
Through a flurry of calls and Facetime chats from his Manhattan Beach ‘Portal House,’ Eric Musselman and his staff worked to revive USC basketball.
“Every night is going to be a different scorer, pretty much,” Agbo said.
At some point, Musselman would prefer to cut his rotation down to a much smaller number. But as of Monday, he said he was “still trying to figure it out.”
“I’d love to say we have the answers,” Musselman said, “but we don’t. There’s not a lot of separation, to be honest.”
Those answers will come in time. The more challenging question to address, however, is how many USC fans will be there to see that come to fruition?
As Musselman considered that challenge again Monday, he put the onus on himself to better market the team across campus. He could’ve been more active on social media. Or even visited some fraternities to get the word out.
But thinking back, he had encountered similar swaths of empty seats in his previous stops at Nevada and Arkansas.
“There were no preconceived notions that this is going to be easy in this market,” Musselman said. “We have to win. We have to play a decent style of play, and then you have to play super hard. And we talk about that all the time. We’re in a market that there’s a lot of options. So if we have people who come tonight, and they don’t want to come back, that’s on us. That’s not on them.”
The winning part proved no problem Monday.
“And as we win,” Agbo said, “you know, I think people are going to hop on the Muss Bus and start filling it up.”
Go beyond the scoreboard
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