The time has come.

USC men’s basketball (8-11, 2-6 Pac-12) Head Coach Andy Enfield — arguably the most successful head coach in program history — needs to be relieved of his coaching duties.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

This might seem like a rash decision since Enfield is coming off three straight NCAA Tournament appearances — a feat accomplished by only one other USC head coach — and he has made it to March Madness more than any Trojan coach in history.

But Enfield has seemingly already reached his peak. In three of Enfield’s five trips to the NCAA Tournament, the Trojans have been bounced in the Round of 64, including in each of the last two seasons.

Now, he’s leading a team with 11 losses before the end of January, coming off a 15-point loss to Arizona State (11-7, 5-2 Pac-12) where USC committed 15 turnovers in the first half, the most committed by a Power Five program in 20 minutes of action this season.

Enfield deserved the benefit of the doubt after the loss to UC Irvine (13-6, 6-1 Big West), a game where the Trojans were without fifth-year guard Boogie Ellis and junior guard Kobe Johnson. He could be forgiven for blowing an eight-point, second-half lead to an Oklahoma team (15-3, 3-2 Big 12) that is now ranked 11th in the country. Enfield could even find solace in the 15-point loss to Arizona (14-4, 5-2 Pac-12) as the size of senior forward Keshad Johnson and redshirt senior center Oumar Ballo just posed too much of a matchup problem — Johnson and Ballo combined for two more offensive rebounds than the Trojans had as a team.

Those three losses combined with the other eight, though, spell the end of Enfield’s tenure. The Trojans have dealt with injuries and illnesses all year, but that cannot explain a loss to a team like Long Beach State (12-7, 4-3 Big West), when USC had its entire big three: Johnson, Ellis and freshman guard Isaiah Collier.

This was supposed to be the best team of Enfield’s USC tenure, with Ellis returning for one last year and Collier coming in ranked as the No. 1 overall recruit according to ESPN. But maybe Enfield’s career already peaked during USC’s Elite Eight run in 2021.

Even with the sustained success of Trojan basketball under Enfield — this year aside — sustained success does not always mean coaches should keep their jobs. The story of NBA legend Michael Jordan’s early playing career is indicative of that.

Between 1987 and 1989, Jordan’s earlier days, Doug Collins was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls. Collins’ Bulls teams played to a 137-109 record in the regular season, but a meager 13-17 in the playoffs.

Collins was fired, though, just over a month after leading the Bulls to the Eastern Conference finals.

An article from The Los Angeles Times that detailed Collins’ termination had this to say about it.

“The firing seemed especially abrupt on the heels of the team’s playoff showing and one of the best college drafts in franchise history,” the article said.

While Collins’ firing was allegedly because of “philosophical differences between management and [Collins],” it does not mean USC can’t learn anything from it. The Bulls would go on to hire Phil Jackson and win six NBA Championships.

Just because Collins was winning does not mean he was the right coach to lead the Bulls to a ring — that coach was Jackson. The Trojans are undoubtedly going to miss the NCAA Tournament unless they win the Pac-12 Tournament — which is highly unlikely given USC already has six conference losses. 

So, why keep Enfield at this point? If USC fires him now, or in the near future, that gives director of athletics Jennifer Cohen and the USC administration more time to find Enfield’s heir. It is also a natural transition point with the Trojans moving to the Big Ten for the 2024 season.

It won’t get any easier for the Trojans next season, as the Big Ten is one of the stronger basketball conferences. There are three Big Ten teams ranked in the most recent Associated Press Top 25 Men’s College Basketball Poll compared to only one Pac-12 team. USC will need a head coach that can handle the rigor of the Big Ten and that coach is not Enfield.

Enfield can recruit like few other coaches in the NCAA — bringing in a top-10 recruiting class in three of the past five cycles according to 247Sports — but what’s the point of having elite players if the coach can’t mold them into an elite college team?

The Trojans always appear to have a glaring problem on the court. That problem gets fixed, then another one pops up. In the 2021-2022 season, USC only shot 66.4% from the free throw line. The Trojans then shot 74.5% from the charity stripe last season but got outrebounded and bullied by bigger teams. This season, USC is outrebounding its opponents, if only slightly, but committing 13.9 turnovers per game.

Enfield was the coach to bring USC back to national prominence. He has won over 200 games with the Trojans. He brought never-before-seen hype to USC’s program this year. He led the 2020-2021 Trojans to their best finish in over 50 years.

But USC needs a Phil Jackson, not a Doug Collins.

The Trojans need to make a change if they want any semblance of success in the Big Ten.

Fire Enfield, then find your Jackson.

Thomas Johnson is a junior writing about USC’s move to a new conference and all of the implications surrounding the transition in his column, “Big Ten Bites,” which runs every other Monday. He is also an assistant sports editor at the Daily Trojan.