Trakh says USC can make significant strides next season

USC head coach Mark Trakh has been in the women’s basketball program for over nine seasons and has been a coach for more than 20 years. The Trojans didn’t end their season how they wanted, but they did hit some impressive strides. Despite various injuries to key players and heavily restricted offseason workouts, the Trojans ended their season with an 11-12 overall record, going 8-10 in Pac-12 play. 

Trakh has always been an advocate for the advancement of women in sports, especially in basketball. 

The formal offseason will start next month for the Trojans and Trakh is ready to get a full offseason to unlock the full potential of the team. The Daily Trojan spoke with Trakh to get his perspective on women’s history month and his optimism for his young team. 

DT: Give me a summary of how you feel about how the season ended for your team, and where you see the program going for next season.

MT:  All things considered, all of our injuries when we started up, it was tough. I mean, we had kids come in at different times. Our best player, Alissa Pili, was out for three months, and I don’t think she was ever 100%. 

She got hurt in early November, and then we had people come in and out of the lineup. We had an injured player come back once every couple of weeks starting in January, so you have to integrate them into the system. So when you consider that we started out with seven people — best player hurt, a lot of injuries, people coming in and out of the lineup — we won 10, I think 10, Pac-12 games this year. Counting the tournament, we finished 11-12. COVID was really tough on our kids, the isolation and doing everything they had to do. We didn’t finish the way we wanted to finish but that’s the season I guess. We did go 1-1 in the Pac-12 tournament, beating Arizona State and losing to Stanford. We’d like to have finished better, but I think that’s the uniqueness of the season of all the COVID protocols. 

DT: Do you think that your team handled the different season with COVID well? How do you see the offseason going for the Trojans?  

MT:  The team faced a lot of adversity this year so I was proud of the way they handled it. Proud of what they did this year and you know we get everybody coming back next year. We got two McDonald’s All-Americans coming in at 6’6” and 6’4”. We’re looking at some other things, so I think we can be pretty competitive. I’m looking forward to starting training April 1, next Thursday so we can have a spring, a summer [and] a fall and get ready for the season. I think it’ll be totally different. 

Our offense was about five or six plays that we were just kind of running in everything. We could never get into our offensive system and our defensive system. We didn’t have enough practice for our full group, but I think we got everybody coming back. We’ve got good kids and we’re looking forward to it. 

DT: Most of your career has been coaching women. How important do you feel exposure to women’s sports, especially basketball, is to players and fans? 

MT: When I coached Brea-Olinda High School in the ’80s, and the first few years of the ’90s, we used to pack our gym for girls basketball — High school games! Obviously, the community saw value in that, and would come in and watch the game. They would come in and have fun watching them. Then, I coached at New Mexico State and we drew really good crowds at New Mexico State. The community, you know, really loved basketball there. That’s what we want to do here at USC. If you look around the country, you’ve got Oregon that’s got a great fan base, Oregon State, Stanford, Arizona, and I think we can develop one once we start [winning]. 

We want to start winning and put a good product on the floor, which I think we’re moving in the right direction. I think we can get people to come out and develop a really, really good fan base. I think as far as women’s sports, women’s basketball is very valuable. Look at the final four — that’s going to be sold out. The ratings are going to be great. It’s a great stage for women. Look at the WNBA — those games are fun to watch. They’re drawing big crowds. So overall, I think it’s a great sport.

DT: The NCAA has been receiving a lot of criticism for the picture of the women’s weight room that had a few dumbbells at the NCAA tournament compared to the men’s weight room that had full equipment to work out, how did you feel seeing that? 

MT: We’re in 2021 now. With everything that’s gone out and all the advancements we’ve made, how can the NCAA be that tone deaf? There’s got to be equal facilities, and that was really disappointing. I know that upset a lot of people and justifiably so. I mean, the disparity between the two facilities, the strength and conditioning, the weight room. Someone should have taken notice of that before it reached the level that it did. They should have been aware of that and that should have been part of the planning. As soon as they arranged for these bubbles, everything’s got to be equal, as far as facilities. It was surprising and it was disappointing, but hopefully moving forward, that will never happen again. 

DT: With all these incredible women being celebrated for Women’s History Month, how do you see the continued success of women in all areas leading into the future? 

MT: Starting in 1980, we’re fighting for scholarships for the young women in high school, and watching what they were able to accomplish through basketball, getting scholarships and forming that bond. The discipline, the camaraderie, the teamwork, all those things they can apply to life and their jobs and the pursuit of what they wanted to do. 

I’m a big supporter of women, a big proponent that they can use basketball as a vehicle to go into different professions and be successful, and accumulate power and shatter glass ceilings. [They can] advance in whatever profession they choose, whether it be the communications, medical, whether they want to be physical therapists, trainers, coaches. I’ve always made a point of hiring an ex-player as a coach everywhere I’ve been and I want to do that simply to give them an opportunity to begin their career and try to succeed.

DT: What has been the best part of being a women’s basketball head coach all these years?

MT: Those are the things that I’m really proud of. I’m proud of what my former players have done in life and to see them be very successful in any field they’ve chosen. To see women get ahead like that, that really means the most to me and it really is the reason that I coach. I think that’s the best reward that you can get — to see what they’ve done after basketball. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity.