Berg is the Word: USC’s strides are promising for the future


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Former USC student and journalist extraordinaire Eric He captured the achievement of USC men’s basketball’s 54-52 win over UCLA Saturday at Galen Center best when he tweeted, “Probably the best moment of the Andy Enfield era.”

He was quote tweeting another post with a video of senior guard Jonah Mathews’ game-winning 3-pointer that gave the Trojans a bye in next week’s Pac-12 Tournament and likely secured the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2017. For this reason, the shot is likely as important to Enfield, the team’s head coach, as it is to Mathews.

Despite leading the Trojans to their winningest five-year stretch in program history, Enfield has inspired a fair amount of malaise in USC fans recently, albeit not as much as other coaches on campus. In just his third season after taking over a cellar-dweller, Enfield steered the Trojans to the tournament in 2016, and he oversaw the Trojans’ best tournament effort in a decade in 2017. However, after USC became the highest-ranked major conference team ever to miss the Big Dance in 2018 and posted a losing record despite a talented freshman class in 2019, the heat was on Enfield to deliver strong results this season.

It was an up-and-down road to get there, but Enfield has the chance to alleviate any concerns about his job security. More importantly, he has the chance to reach the pinnacle of his USC career and continue a promising trajectory for the program.

It started with the best recruiting class in team history. The addition of five-star freshman forwards Onyeka Okongwu and Isaiah Mobley gave the Trojans young talent and depth to mix with senior forward Nick Rakocevic on the front line. Enfield also made the smart call of inserting graduate transfer guard Daniel Utomi into the starting lineup in place of sophomore guard Elijah Weaver, adding shooting to the starting lineup and giving the bench a capable ball handler. 

Enfield has put together a solid squad, and now the most important stretch in the history of USC men’s basketball starts in Vegas. The Trojans have a really good chance for an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament already (ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently has the Trojans as a 10 seed), but they can establish themselves as a true threat with a strong showing in their conference tournament. If they can find a way to win the Pac-12 tournament, they will likely move up a few seeds.

Due to the lack of elite teams, there has never been a better year to be a lower seed in the NCAA Tournament. Anyone can beat anyone this year — for reference, take Duke and Kentucky losing to Stephen F. Austin and Evansville, respectively. Most seasons, you can bet on three of the Final Four teams to be top-three seeds, but the decline in quality at the top of the bracket should lead to even wilder upsets and deeper Cinderella runs this season. The higher USC positions itself, the better its chances of pulling off a deep run.

Please don’t follow my example and get ahead of yourselves by thinking the Trojans have a shot at making the Final Four. This is the same team that lost three straight conference games this season and has struggled with inconsistency. They also needed a last-second shot just to beat the bubble-straddling Bruins at home. I would be surprised if USC kept up its current level of play in Vegas and shocked if they made real noise in the NCAA Tournament.

But the fact that they have a chance to do so is what matters. Enfield has already continued his recruiting prowess by securing Evan Mobley, brother of Isaiah and the No. 1 recruit in the incoming class of 2024 according to 247Sports. If the Trojans can exceed expectations in both of their upcoming tournaments, they will have the chance to impress even more recruits, like Sierra Canyon’s Ziaire Williams, and entice them to don the cardinal and gold.

This is how programs improve: attract some recruits, display growth and competence, parlay that into more high-level players and repeat. If you do it enough, it becomes a snowball effect that carries forward and allows you to get the best incoming freshmen based on name brand alone. USC is far from becoming a basketball powerhouse, but there is the layout of a plan to get there through a lot of small steps.

USC has made a lot of those strides so far. It must continue in Vegas if Andy Enfield wants to build something special.

Aidan Berg is a junior writing about sports. He is also a features editor for the Daily Trojan. His column, “Berg is the Word,” runs every  other Monday.