Trojans' Season Is A Tough, Not Lost Cause
Comments (0)
(James Santelli/Neon Tommy)
USC basketball in Andy Enfield’s season is the former, mired in a one-win Pac-12 campaign but slowly building toward a promising future under the Florida Gulf Coast head coach. The Trojans have had a season to forget, but here are four reasons for optimism – and four justifications for why, as bleak as things seem, the 2013-2014 season is not a lost cause.
Byron Wesley Is A Piece To Build Around
Setting aside the undisclosed violation of team rules that caused Wesley to be suspended from this weekend’s Bay Area trip, there is no denying that the Rancho Cucamonga native is by far the brightest spot in this bleak campaign. The junior swingman leads the Trojans in scoring (17.6 PPG) and rebounding (6.9 RPG) while shooting a respectable 45.7 percent from the field, a campaign that gives him an outside shot at all-conference honors. Ideally, Wesley isn’t the guy who should be leaned on for quite so much production, but it will help Enfield immensely knowing that he has an established commodity to depend on as the 2015 squad takes shape.
The Kids Are Alright
And I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Julian Jacobs and Nikola Jovanovic are unlikely to become impact players as the Trojans continue to add upper-tier talent, and perhaps not even starters. But once the team began to swoon in conference play, the big picture goal shifted from postseason play to determining who can be viable rotation players moving forward and both Jacobs and Jovanovic pass that test. Jacobs is a classic hybrid guard, with point guard size but shooting guard tendencies. Enfield has begun deploying him as a change-of-pace bench weapon, a perfect role that will allow him to be aggressive on offense and moonlight a little bit as a lead guard.
Jovanovic, meanwhile, was billed as a shooter coming in, but acquitted himself better on the interior, which has resulted in a robust 52.3 field-goal percentage. Both Malik Price-Martin and Jabari Craig will arrive a little on the lean side, and Omar Oraby is set to graduate, so Jovanovic could be leaned on heavily next season in particular to stabilize the interior.
If Roschon Prince can make this duo a triumvirate, then Kevin O’Neill’s final recruiting class figures to pay dividends well after he’s gone.
This Team Can Punch Above Its Weight
Realistically speaking, any mention of the team’s overall play is stretching for silver linings, but they do exist if you’re willing to squint a little bit. The Trojans ended non-conference play at a solid 9-4 before things fell apart in Pac-12 play, and for many, their solitary win after the New Year says everything you need to know. Yet the fact of the matter is after January 18's 83-62 shellacking at Colorado, the Trojans showed improvement. There was that one win, a 77-69 triumph over a good Cal team, for starters, but the Trojans led at halftime against all of UCLA, Oregon, Oregon State and the Bears (in their second meeting) before falling apart down the stretch. Even then, it wasn’t an entirely bad half so much as a brutal opening ten minutes after the break, usually followed by a last-ditch comeback attempt.
That does nothing for the bottom line, of course, and still speaks to how much improvement USC has to make to its overall play. But it is encouraging to see a team with far less talent and a brand-new coaching staff hang with the likes of the Ducks and Bruins, who have a significant head start in building a strong roster. If Enfield can coax 30 minutes of strong play out of his team in those circumstances, it lends plenty of optimism to the idea that he can get 40 once he has his own players and system fully in place.
It Can Only Get Better
USC is only two seasons removed from a six-win campaign, so it would be naïve to say that it’s impossible for things to get any worse. There is, however, plenty of reason to believe that this will be Enfield’s nadir, and not a sign of things to come. He and his staff have demonstrated that they can recruit, something that will serve them well in the long run but also pay immediate dividends with the arrival of point guard Jordan McLaughlin along with Price-Martin, Craig and swingman Malik Marquetti. Add in transfers Katin Reinhardt – the shooter this year’s squad was sorely lacking – and Darion Clark, and already the roster will be in dramatically better shape. Even that may be a little premature for postseason play, but the Trojans will be considerably more talented next fall, and will have a full season’s worth of Enfield’s coaching under their belts, too. That’s exactly what should be realistically expected at this juncture.
