Men’s basketball hopes youth duplicate success in upcoming season

With three seconds left on the clock, down two points and the season on the line, Drew Peterson heaved a shot from just inside the half court line to try and win the game against Miami in the round of 64. But his effort was astray, as his shot hit off the backboard and clanked off the front of the rim, ending one of USC’s most successful regular seasons ever with a heartbreaking close. 

It has been 232 days and counting since that shot, and the Trojans are hoping to make it right back where they left off. The Trojans are coming off a season in which they reached the top five in the AP poll for the first time in almost 50 years. Their 26 wins in the regular season tied a school record for the most regular season wins in USC men’s basketball history. Their 14 conference wins are also near the top of the history books, tied for the second most in Trojan history.

With youth all around for the team this year, USC will look different than they have in years past. Many of last year’s key players left the program — eight in total — so the Trojans will have to rely on their few upperclassmen to lead them to continued success.

“We’ve got guys that haven’t played as many minutes kind of stepping up for a bigger role this year, so I’m trying to help them in any way I can,” said Peterson, now a fifth-year senior, in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “Guys like me and Boogie and guys who have played a lot before really need to help with our experience and help teach [the underclassmen] and show them the way so we can limit those growing pains as much as we can.”

Peterson, one of only three players left over from the elite eight team from two years ago, and senior point guard Boogie Ellis were named team captains for the season, along with sophomore guard Kobe Johnson. Ellis and Peterson make up two of the four total upperclassmen on the team this year, as the Trojans will be dominated by youth. Head Coach Andy Enfield, the 4th winningest head coach in USC men’s basketball history, knows this team is different from those in years past, but is anticipating a good balance of play style this season.

“We’ve had a lot of big guys lead us in scoring the last five or six years, but we’ve also had a lot of great guards. So now we have a pretty good mix, and I think our guards will lead us in scoring this year, so it will be a little different this year,” said Enfield. “We know we have a long season ahead and we have to get better as a team, take it game by game so we’re looking to the future,… [but] it’s pretty exciting for the new group to kind of make their own identity.”

USC begins the season with a slate of mid-major teams before participating in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament during the week of Thanksgiving. The Trojans could compete against many Power Five conference schools in the tournament, such as Tennessee, Butler, Wisconsin, Kansas and NC State. After Battle 4 Atlantis, USC gets a taste of Pac-12 conference play as they face Washington and Oregon State before the new year begins.

As in recent years, the Pac-12 conference is very strong this season, boasting three teams — UCLA, Arizona and Oregon — in the top 25. Members of the Pac-12 media projected all three teams to finish above USC in the final Pac-12 standings. This is nothing new for the Trojans, as in the past three years, media members have projected USC to finish third, sixth and fifth, respectively, in the preseason standings. USC has surpassed the preseason projections in those three years, except last year when they met expectations and got third.

“You know, for me, everything’s been about opinion, so it’s proving people wrong, playing as hard as and as best as we can just playing together,” said sophomore guard Reese Dixon-Waters. “I think we’ll be a pretty good team, and our goal is always to be successful and make it to the tournament.”

USC kicks off its season this Monday at Galen Center against Florida Gulf Coast at 6:30 p.m.