Trojans will enter a critical phase


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For a few sweet weeks, football and basketball season will overlap. Starting on Friday, the men’s basketball team starts their next March Madness campaign. This Saturday, the football team has the chance to pull off one of the greatest upsets of this season when they face the potentially playoff-bound No. 4 Washington Huskies.

As these programs continue to attempt to break into the stratosphere of the elite teams, they are bolstered by the success and popularity of their NBA and NFL counterparts. Sure, USC has a long-standing tradition of great NFL players — and that’s probably an understatement — but the reason that USC is a storied program is partly due to what happens to Trojans after they graduate.

The basketball team is now entering that critical phase. On the cusp of becoming a conference-leading team, the Trojans have some doubts entering this year since they lost so many players, two to the NBA draft and several others as transfers.

Julian Jacobs and Nikola Jovanovic, the two players USC lost to the NBA last year, are D-League players. However, there is hope for the glory of USC basketball players to live on, primarily through Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan. He is already averaging 33.7 points this season and is a popular player following a gold medal performance with Team USA in Rio this summer.

The other most well-known player in the NBA is unfortunately a grown man who calls himself Swaggy — Lakers guard Nick “Swaggy P” Young. Young is averaging 14.5 points through eight games this season.

Of course, how successful USC’s season is has nothing to do with the performance of these two guards, but the future of the program does have something to do with them. Just as the prestige of our football team has, in part, grown over a long time through NFL successes, the basketball program will gain more national recognition if it consistently churns out top prospects and players who make an impact on their NBA teams.

It’s too early to say whether Jacobs,Jovanovic or both will have impactful NBA careers, but unlike the NFL, which doesn’t have a developmental league, it can be difficult for players to break through with their teams constantly drafting newer, younger, better talent each June.

Despite the underwhelming amount of USC alumni in the NBA — there are five including DeRozan and Young — the recruiting hasn’t been strong enough to help or weak enough to hurt the Trojans. With just one recruit in the ESPN 100 from last year, the Trojans will have a hard time competing with Pac-12 powers Arizona, Arizona State and UCLA who brought in two, three and three players in the top 100 respectively.

While a dearth of recruits may not negatively impact the team this year — USC returns four major contributors — it is imperative to continue a winning tradition. A strength for Enfield has been bringing in transfers, such as redshirt sophomore forward and Louisville transfer Shaqquan Aaron who should have an immediate impact on the team. Redshirt senior forward Charles Buggs is eligible this year after transferring from Minnesota  during the offseason, and the Trojans recently signed a Duke transfer, Derryck Thornton, who, will have three seasons of eligibility remaining after sitting out this year.

Enfield has begun building a solid foundation for the future, which of course can only be bolstered by success on the court — both at the Galen Center and in the NBA. This is the Trojans’ year to take the next step and compete once again for a conference championship. Eyes will be on USC to improve upon last year after being knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round, but they have the infrastructure in place with their main contributors to be able to make that leap.

On the flip side, with only four returners who regularly see the floor, there will be a lot of pressure on newcomers to make an impact. This is the year to do it though. The newest Trojans have the biggest opportunity in front of them, but of course basketball is a team sport and as their motto says, “It takes a team.”

Hailey Tucker is a junior majoring in broadcast and digital journalism. She is also the sports editor of the Daily Trojan. Her column, “Tucker Talks,” runs Thursdays.