Eric Musselman marched into the Paulie Pavilion’s visiting locker room, smoldering at each step and headed straight to the whiteboard. He grabbed the marker and wrote a Saturday night rival loss score to UCLA, one of USC’s worst season. He sunk it.
90-63.
The score in its own right was cut deeper than the words the coach could use at the moment. But he rattles four letters in his mind.
“Another night when someone scored 90 points,” he said, shaking his head later.
At the end of the regular season of the roller coaster, the Trojans stumbled at the finish line on Saturday. Musselman then did not anger him to offer accordingly. Due to UCLA’s loss, USC was sitting under .500 for the first time in Musselman’s debut season. This is the second time in a decade that USC or its coaches have finished with a win less than their season’s loss.
The results are not important to USC’s position at next week’s conference tournament. That invitation was already clinched Thursday, with USC bound to one of the lower two spots. The Trojans will face either Ohio, Rutgers or Minnesota, depending on how Sunday’s game unfolds.
But for Musselman, the way USC lost on Saturday was particularly discouraged. This was one of the biggest margins of defeat in a renowned rivalry dating back almost to a century. Without a 9-0 run to finish the game, it could have come even closer to infamy.
That was unacceptable for Musselman, who called his players for not respecting UCLA’s rivalry.
“I felt like a rivalry. They didn’t even understand it in Game 1. And they certainly didn’t understand it today,” Musselman said. “We played the game like we were playing a normal game, but it’s not a normal game.”
By the final buzzer, the coach’s voice was ho from screaming mainly for his defense.
UCLA knocked down 62% of shots from the field on Saturday, tied it at the highest percentage of the season. For USC, it was the worst and worst that it protected from the field. It’s 5% more expensive than other game seasons.
Porous defenses from USC began early as the Trojans fell to 14-2 holes and the Bruins allowed the Blitzkrieg to unleash 51-23 in the second half, causing the porous defense to begin early in the USC.
That wasn’t new, Musselman said. USC has been able to shoot at least 48% off the field in five of its last six games.
Musselman wondered if UCLA had shot the same percentage.
“It was bad all year round,” Musselman said. “Look at the numbers. People are having career nights.”
Certainly, five Bruins scored in double digits, with Eric Daly Jr. all leading with 25. A 21-point show with a loss from USC’s Wesley Yates III was able to do so much to crush the tide.
Yates was the only Trojan horse to elici praise on Saturday as UCLA coach Mick Cronin picked him as USC’s “best player, age.”
In addition to the disastrous defense, USC also didn’t help hopes of hanging from UCLA, where USC had turned the ball more than 20 times. This was the most turnover USC committed in the game under Musselman.
This didn’t exactly end with high notes. And the coach wasn’t planning on sugarcoating that fact on Saturday night.
Hopes aren’t going exactly high ahead of next week’s Big Ten tournament. Even Musselman was voicingly wondering what his team needs next season.
“We need to get better,” he said. “I know that. I’m positive about it. And we do. We need to take care of basketball. We need to get a defender here. We need to build a team of competitors.
“It’s going to be a busy time for us in two weeks.”
