LOS ANGELES – Charmed, really.
If you were to choose a word to describe USC men’s basketball team this season, that’d be a good one.
Charmed in terms of the impressive start, the instant on-court alchemy of Eric Musselman’s Trojans, who are 10-1 despite having been bitten multiple times by the injury bug.
Despite having just teamed up in June, an eclectic collection of modern collegiate journeymen replacing almost the entirety of last season’s roster.
Charmed, even though they’re again not ranked in the Associated Press poll this week, at the doorstep with the most votes received of any team not in the top 25, waiting still for enough voters to recognize the men’s basketball team at the football and women’s basketball school. To put these Trojans on par with the traditional basketball powers who have three or four losses already.
Charmed, I’d say, because of games like Sunday’s, when the typically high-octane Trojans (87.5 points per game) made only one of their 13 attempts from deep and still managed to grind out a 68-61 victory over Washington State in front of 5,394 enthusiastic fans at Galen Center.
“Healthy, yes, healthy, I would expect us to be 11-0,” Musselman said. “When we’re healthy, we’re as talented as any of our Arkansas teams (that reached the Elite Eight twice and Sweet 16 once). Not healthy, I’m amazed that we’re 10-1, to be honest … pleasantly surprised.”
They’ve been without several important ball-handlers, including junior guard Rodney Rice, whose shoulder injury likely will keep him out the rest of the season, and Alijah Arenas, the five-star freshman guard from Chatsworth High School, who could be back next month after recovering from a torn meniscus. The Trojans also lost senior guard Amarion Dickerson, their sixth man and defensive specialist, to a right hip injury that will sideline him for at least three months.
Not charmed, in that case. Snakebitten, more like.
But charmed as in charming, this chatty bunch of merry and ambitious young men. A self-aware work in progress, they play with personality and pop, and they’ve been proving anything but precious with their shot attempts.
There are no perfect shots, not with this group. No pass-pass-pass-passing around the perimeter only to throw up a prayer as the shot clock expires.
No, these Trojans are go-go-getters, offensively. They’re being led by senior transfer Chad Baker-Mazara, their 6-foot-7 guard from the Dominican Republic with jack-in-the-box hops and a Mamba Mentality. He’s a shot-making contortionist, someone who’d benefit big-time if basketball players got points for degree of difficulty like divers do.
Baker-Mazara has splash-landed in L.A. after two years at Auburn, with whom he played in last season’s Final Four. He wasn’t considered the great get that Donovan Dent was for UCLA, having averaged 12.3 points in about 25 minutes per game last season, while Dent averaged 20.4 points in 35 minutes per game for New Mexico.
But this season, as Dent is figuring out how to make his dent, averaging 12 points per game for Mick Cronin’s 7-3 Bruins, Baker-Mazara has taken off at USC. He’s averaging 21.9 points per game on 47.8% shooting (and 40.8% from deep) and has reset his career scoring high twice, with 31- and 34-point games.
He’s also come through with some spectacular late-game defense, like Sunday’s game-sealing chase-down block that left him sprawled out on the baseline.
Baker-Mazara and his new buddies are bringing the action that way. Bulldozing their way to the rim, applying the pressure without apology. No. 1 in the nation in both free throw attempts (31.6) and free throw makes (23.4), which might sound dull if you picture a team filled with free-throw merchants flopping about like fish.
But these are rambunctious dudes going about it the right way, the hard way, ethically, by playing aggressively. Earning those trips to the line.
Free is good, after all. And bad for the other guys. And for Musselman, a coach’s son who’s now been coaching for more than 30 years himself, getting to the stripe is something of a family philosophy. He said free-throw creation is an emphasis of his both while recruiting and coaching and can’t remember a college team of his finishing worse than 13th in the nation in free throws attempted.
“Every coach has his own little idiosyncrasy or whatever, and ours is drawing fouls,” Musselman said. “It’s a long story, but my dad, when I played, it was, ‘Draw fouls!’ And so it is a philosophy, and this team has done a great job with it.”
Ezra Ausar leads the nation with 9.6 free-throw attempts per game. The former East Carolina and Utah forward went 9 for 11 at the line against the Cougars, but afterward, the Trojans’ most dependable dunker said: “I ain’t shoot enough free throws today. Honestly! The goal is to get at least 15.”
The goal is also to get ranked – for one week, a couple weeks ago, the Trojans got in for the first time since 2023, breaking in at No. 24 – and to stay ranked.
“We deserve it, and we’re gonna be right back in it,” said Jacob Cofie, a 6-10 forward who arrived via transfer portal, from Virginia, and who led the Trojans with 21 points Sunday because he “knew, no doubt, I had to ball out” after a couple bad games against San Diego and Washington (the Trojans’ only loss).
“I’ve never been ranked in college before, so it matters to me!” Ausar said when I asked him why the ranking means so much to the Trojans. “I think it seals your position of where you stand, statistically.
“But at the end of the day,” Ausar added, “we’re trying to accomplish one goal, which is to beat every team per night. So the ranking will come behind it.”
Eleven games into this season, these Trojans seem like a team that won’t have a problem earning anything that comes their way – free throws, due recognition, or, for that matter, your attention.
