It’s giving whimsical. It’s giving jovial. It’s giving the boy, or should I say Muss, next door.

Hold up…

When I think of men’s basketball Head Coach Eric Musselman, I remember the opening sentence from a November recap written by a Daily Trojan friend of mine, Avani Lakkireddy, that simply reads: “On Wednesday night, Head Coach Eric Musselman was angry.”

I think of angry gestures, harsh pressers and table slaps — all fixtures of that game per Lakkireddy — definitely not jovial. More like matured intensity — in a good way, I should add. How else are you going to rebuild a middling program?

But unlike this disgruntled — wannabe — sports writer, who plops down at my desk on the fourth floor of the Wilson Student Union and comes up with new ways to tell increasingly self-deprecating jokes in perhaps the most serious tone ever used in a column, Musselman has a sense of humor.

He told me it only takes five seconds for him to go from an intense moment to a joke. 

Had I not been stalking his X account for weeks with the hope of writing a column as unserious as this — at least when it comes to the lead-in — that would have been my new favorite reason to hop on the “Muss Bus.”

If Musselman’s content was limited to promoting soccer on Instagram ahead of a clash against then-No. 1 Stanford, I would’ve thought that was a cool gesture. Throw in the free Dulce he gave out to students during move-in or the back-to-school shopping he did at Target, and I’d say Musselman has a great public relations team. But, oh boy, that was just the beginning.

On at least three separate occasions already this year, the 5-foot-7 basketball coach known for his in-game intensity has donned USC football attire for a video promoting the now 3-0 squad.

In what I’ll call Musselman’s social media peak to this point, he donned his No. 25 jersey and enthusiastically ran onto the field at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, hoping to hype up a crowd during the week of a road game against Purdue. The post was simply captioned “Must be a road game,” followed by a shrugging emoji.

“Muss is great. His energy is crazy,” football Head Coach Lincoln Riley said in a post-practice news conference Tuesday. “He does some things I wish I could get myself to do.”

But that’s not even all, and Musselman told me he’s got more cooking.

So, why does this matter, right?

I’m not out here to do PR, and while Musselman attributed the video ideas to a small “think tank,” I’m not seeing anyone else doing what he’s doing, whether they have a “think tank” or not — so I wanted to find out why.

“[I want to] bring awareness to our program, slash, try to get people to see some of our players’ personality,” Musselman told me over the phone. He also mentioned supporting other USC Athletics programs like football and soccer, which he called a major reason why he began coaching college after spending years in the NBA.

But, when looking at a team with just three returners and coming off a lackluster 17-18 season in Musselman’s first year, it brings something else: a sense of community and welcome, even if the air in the “Muss Bus” can get a little tense in games.

Musselman said any kind of bonding, from team trips to his “Get to Know You” day initiative where players share facts about themselves, is critical to building team chemistry. 

He said that bonding especially comes in handy during a long tournament setting — like a certain March classic he hopes to take USC to for the first time in his young tenure, after former Head Coach Andy Enfield led them to three straight berths from 2021 to 2023.

The approach seemed to have worked in the past for Musselman, who led both Arkansas and the University of Nevada to three NCAA Tournament berths each over a combined nine years. He took Arkansas to two Elite Eights and made the Sweet 16 in his other try as well as breaking a 10-year tournament drought for Nevada in the first of three straight appearances.

“It’s kept our teams super, super loose,” Musselman said of his approach. “In high-pressured situations, a lot of the stuff that we do off the floor has really helped us in NCAA Tournament settings.”

While he does like to have his fun, one thing Musselman doesn’t play around with is recruiting.

On Monday, Musselman reportedly watched Sherman Oaks Notre Dame football practice after he heard one of his top targets, Tyran Stokes, was there instead of at the basketball practice he came to observe, per Los Angeles Times columnist Eric Sondheimer. While Stokes, ESPN’s No. 1 recruit in the nation, will almost assuredly stick with basketball, it appears Musselman wanted to double-check.

The five-star, 6-foot-7 small forward reportedly took a visit to USC over the first weekend of September, according to multiple news outlets. While Stokes has offers from at least five Division I schools — including Arkansas, according to ESPN — he posted photos in a USC jersey, likely from his visit, on his personal X account with a caption alluding to interest.

Should Stokes commit, it would be the second marquee commitment in Musselman’s short time in L.A., following five-star guard Alijah Arenas’ signing last season. 

“It’s a competitive environment right now to land top players, especially freshmen,” Musselman said. “For us, it’s just a matter of trying to compete, trying to sell a vision, trying to let recruits know all the positives that the USC has to offer.”

Arenas, son of former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, was expected to play a major role in Musselman’s year-two squad before going down with a knee injury that may sideline him for the entire season. 

While Arenas only practiced once for USC, outside of a short dribbling session while riding a scooter posted on the men’s basketball Instagram account Wednesday, Musselman said the freshman guard has the potential to bring national attention to the men’s basketball team in a similar vein to junior guard JuJu Watkins for women’s basketball.

“We built a lot of who we are around some of Alijah’s skill set, so it’s a huge blow,” Musselman said. “He has star quality, he’s got star name recognition, he’s got star personality and he’s L.A. … [he’s] got an incredible NBA future ahead of him.”

Even with Arenas likely out, Musselman said he hopes to continue to develop his brand at USC and build on his first season. He said transfers who have gotten playtime at the collegiate level in the past, like graduate guard Chad Baker-Mazara, junior guard Rodney Rice and sophomore forward Jacob Cofie, will be important pieces in developing an identity on a mostly new-look team.

“Last year we played hard and created an identity of a team that played with effort,” Musselman said. “[This year] we have some unique personalities that people are really going to enjoy watching … This team is talented and super competitive.”

While, after our conversation, I would certainly trust our lovable basketball coach with the aux should he drive me in his “Muss Bus,” only time will tell whether his matcha buying or recruitment efforts will translate to the court.

Sean Campbell is a sophomore writing about all facets of USC sports in a voice and reference heavy style in his column “A Wannabe Sports Writer,” which runs every other Wednesday. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.