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Usc basketball4/16/2023 ![]() ![]() Remember when Andy Enfield couldn’t coach a team in February? USC’s February record used to be so awful. He finished third in the Pac-12 with less than a full deck of cards. Enfield did that with less than a complete roster. They did, becoming one of only two Pac-12 teams to beat UCLA this year, the other being Arizona. Without those two wins, the Trojans would not be here.Īrizona is a horrible matchup for USC, so the Trojans really did need to beat the Bruins, who won the Pac-12 by four games this season. They absolutely had to beat Auburn, and they had to beat UCLA. The Trojans basically had to thread the needle. When USC lost to both Wisconsin and Tennessee in the Battle 4 Atlantis, USC’s ability to put quality wins on its resume was remote. This felt like a season which was going to slip through the cracks. ![]() In what felt like a rebuilding year due to Vince Iwuchukwu’s health problems, Enfield reached the NCAA Tournament. Yet, like an expert pilot, Andy Enfield landed this plane safely. ![]() There was all sorts of turbulence to deal with over the past four months. USC had nothing close to its best situation and its ideal roster for a majority of this season. Would we see development and progress from USC’s starting lineup? Would the coaches help these players get better? Could USC possibly hold down the fort in what looked like a rebuilding year, especially after the awful home-opening loss to Florida Gulf Coast in November? He and his staff relied on Boogie and Peterson to play 35 or more minutes per night and improve their games relative to 2022. Enfield didn’t have a whole lot of bench options. Reese Dixon-Waters was a generally reliable reserve, but he didn’t have a dominant, overwhelmingly remarkable year. In addition to Iwuchukwu being out for two months and then limited for the next month and a half, USC also had a thin bench this season. Mobley did not have his best game, and USC lost as a result. Ellis hit a game-winning shot against Washington State and stepped up in a few other crucial moments, but in the NCAA Tournament, he was injured and ineffective. Peterson did have a career game against UCLA last year, but Mobley was the consistent two-way player who held that team together at both ends of the floor. ![]() Isaiah Mobley was the leader of that team. Boogie and Peterson were good players in 2022 for USC, but they weren’t great players. USC didn’t get any elite player in the transfer portal this offseason, a possible result of Boogie Ellis and Drew Peterson both choosing to stay and play one more year. He hasn’t played 30 or more minutes in any game this season. Then he suffered from back soreness late in the season. When he was medically cleared to play, he was on a minutes restriction. He didn’t play for the first two months of the season. Vince the Prince was next up, but then he had an episode of cardiac arrest at a workout in July. Then Isaiah Mobley stepped up and had a marvelous 2022 season. Onyeka Okongwu got the party started in 2020. Why was this season such a good example of Andy Enfield’s evolution as a coach? We have to start with the fact that he had a five-star big man, Vince Iwuchukwu, who was going to be the next in a line of elite big men who would be a defensive wrecking ball for the Trojans. Maybe the 2021 Elite Eight run was better - we wouldn’t argue with that - but 2023 represents a particularly strong coaching performance from a man who continues to improve and evolve. It could be his best coaching job yet at USC. He got USC back to the NCAA Tournament in 2023. ![]()
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