USC Men's Basketball Stresses Me Out

I'm not sure what lead me to watch last night's UC Irvine-USC matchup, but I did. I'm kind of glad I did, because it allowed me to take a look at a Big Six program in sore need of a change.

Now, though I'm glad I watched the game, the act of watching the game was scressful. Not stressful, scressful. That fact that a major school like USC struggled against an okay mid-major (UCI was picked third in the Big West preseason poll....but it's the Big West....) and then lost irked my soul.

And they looked bad losing. They shot 40% from the field, took ten fewer shots than the Anteaters, and turned the ball over 16 times. Omar Oraby was the only bright spot for the Trojans scoring 12 points in the second half. Senior leader Jio Fontan was anything but, scoring only 2 points off of 1-6 shooting and turning the ball over 4 times. Irvine shot only slightly better (42%), but Daman Starring was able to rack up 23 points. UCI actually had moments where they shot horribly, and the fact that they did shootaround at their school since they were only 45 minutes away instead of at the Galen Center showed. Yet USC still couldn't capitalize.

It was scressful.

It's not as if I just helicoptered in on one game and formed my opinion on that. I've actually seen them in a few more instances in the calender year of 2012. First, there was their Pac-12 Tournament game last season against UCLA at Staples. The Bruins quickly escorted the Trojans out of the building to the tune of 55-40. USC shot 29%, and only five of the seven players that played scored. Three of those seven players have transferred to other programs this season.

Then there was the beatdown they received in Maui at the hands of Illinois. The final score was 94-64, but it was 57-26 at the half. Statistically, USC actually was okay, just off from three (25%) and just below average from the field (44%). They also managed to lead Illinois in the second half 38-37. However it was too little, too late, as the Fighting Illini shot 68.8% and went on a 50-20 run in the first half that put things out of reach early.

Then there was Thursday night. USC came out with an uninspired effort. There was at one point late in the second half when they tried to make a run, but like the Illinois game it was too little, too late.

The Trojans are now 0-3 in games I have watched, and 4-8 (0-1) between the first game I watched and the last one.

It shouldn't be this way. It's shouldn't be this "scressful" to watch USC basketball.

USC plays basketball in the Pac-12 (a pretigous hoops conference) in Los Angeles (a beautiful, entertaining, vibrant metropolitan area AND a decent place to discover high school talent) in the Galen Center (a beautiful 10,000-seat arena). I understand a team hitting a down year in a major conference, but to be this bad over a year-and-a-half span (10-33 from last season to today) with that much working for you is mind-boggling. And they're getting left behind in their own conference: They are the only team below .500 this year in the non-conference schedule.

I can't help but point the finger at Kevin O'Neill. Nothing about his record screams "winner". His record simply shrugs and says "meh". He is in his 16th season as a college head coach. He has made the tournament only four times, and has advanced past the first round once (a 1994 Sweet Sixteen appearance with Marquette). At USC, he has only made one tournament appearance: 2011, where they lost by 13 to eventual Final Four participant VCU.

After the UCI game, Kevin O'Neill pointed out the team's lack of effort in the first half:

"For whatever reason, we ease into every first half," O'Neill said. "We won the second half, but that doesn't matter because we were down by 12 at the half at home."

Also, this:

O'Neill characterized the team as a "rudderless ship in terms of effort and energy.

And then, this:

"The bottom line is, we have a responsibility as individuals to prepare for games and play as hard as we can, and until we do that, we're going to find ourselves on the short end of a lot of things," he said.

But why? 11 games into the season, and the team is still lacking effort? USC is in a conference where they could walk into the NCAA Tournament as long as they play hard. They just have to beat the teams put in front of them by the AD and they can earn an at-large berth. Yet they still lack effort? Lack of talent is one thing. Lack of cohesion is one thing. But considering that they have good talent on paper and neither O'Neill nor Eric Wise, who was also quoted in the story, cited chemistry, then those aren't the cases.

It falls on the coach, either he is not motivating his troops to get up for each game and play 100% for 40 minutes, or he's recruiting guys that lack the work ethic to at least be competitve in the Pac 12.

For all the talk about Ben Howland being a "Fired Man Walking", I'm surprised there isn't any about Kevin O'Neill possibly being shown the door.

Come to think of it, there isn't much talk about USC basketball at all. That's unfortunate. When I was looking for reaction online to the UCI loss, I found little. When I was scouring Twitter for talk about the game, I didn't find much of that either. ESPNLA doesn't even have much coverage of the men's basketball team. It's all football. Football rules at Southern Cal.

That has to change. It's one thing to be a football school, but the least the USC administration could do is work to make their men's basketball team presentable.

Now, to be fair, I'm sure that Kevin O'Neill was hired as a departure from Tim Floyd. Floyd was accused of providing improper benefits to OJ Mayo to get him to come to the school. An NCAA investigation into the issue lead to self-imposed sanctions that vacated 21 wins and saw them withdraw from conference and national postseason consideration in 2009-10, O'Neill's first season.

The mandate on him was probably to focus on graduating players, and he has done a fair job of that with a APR in 2010-2011 of 960. We shall see how the 2011-12 APR looks somewhere down the line. However, success off the court does not necessarily have to forgo success on the court. Teams like Stanford, Duke, and Notre Dame have shown that you can get good players and still keep your academics up. USC needs a coach that can bring in smart AND good, hard-working players. I'm not sure what Kevin O'Neill is bringing in.

Again, I haven't seen much talk about O'Neill going out the door like I have heard about Howland so it might be a longshot to see Kevin going out the door mid-season. Time will tell how much longer AD Pat Haden can tolerate this underacheiving men's hoops program before changes are made.

In the meantime, I'm prepared for more "scressful" hoops as USC approaches their conference schedule.