After the USC men's basketball team finished off its latest impressive road win in conference play Wednesday night at Nebraska, coach Eric Musselman lamented how his Trojans' postseason hopes might look right now if they'd played the same way at home.

"For whatever reason, we've been really good on the road. We're 3-1 on the road and we have not been very good at home, otherwise we'd be in unbelievable position for March if we'd done what we were supposed to do at home. But we haven't done that," Musselman said.

It's a fair what-if, but it also needs to be said that this team is probably outperforming many expectations overall in Musselman's first season.

The Trojans were picked 14th out of 18 teams in the Big Ten preseason poll, and many might have thought that was even optimistic after watching this team struggled to squeak by the likes of Idaho State and UT Arlington early followed by losses to Cal, an evisceration at the hands of St. Mary's (a 71-36 loss), New Mexico and Oregon.

USC was 5-4 at that point back in early December after what was supposed to be the easy part of the schedule.

After the 78-73 win at Nebraska on Wednesday, the Trojans are 12-7 overall and tied for 8th in the conference at 4-4 (3-1 on the road including a win over a ranked Illinois team).

All those new pieces that came together on the fly from all over the country -- with just one returning player leftover from Andy Enfield's roster last year in little-used reserve Harrison Hornery -- are starting to make a lot more sense together.

Wednesday night was the latest example of that.

Point guard Desmond Claude is playing the best basketball of his career and has become the offensive alpha-leader this team needed, averaging 19.5 points per game since the start of December, including a team-high 21 points and 6 assists in the win over the Huskers.

All 6 of those assists and 13 of his points came after halftime, including some of the most pivotal moments of the game -- a smooth dish inside to set up a Saint Thomas dunk to break a tie with 3:09 remaining and then later the go-ahead 3-pointer with 45 seconds left to give USC a 72-69 lead that Claude would help protect by hitting two free throws with 17 seconds on the clock.

"I thought Desmond was awesome," Musselman said. "I think the biggest thing with Desmond was going into halftime, 0 assists, it was super important for him to understand that the defense was really loading up to him and he was going to have to trust teammates, and he did that. I think he had 6 assists in the second half -- really, really important. .... I think Des was highly motivated after our loss to Wisconsin."

So was Thomas, the do-it-all 6-foot-7 forward from Omaha, Nebraska, who was returning home Wednesday for the game in Lincoln. As usual, he left his imprint with 11 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, a block and 2 steals.

For the season, he's averaging 11 points, leads the team with 6.0 rebounds per game and 27 total steals and ranks second with 77 assists (just 2 behind Claude) while filling whatever role is most pressing on a given night for the Trojans -- be it scoring or being a lock-down defender.

"He's the ultimate glue guy because he's a great passer -- not a good passer. He's super, super unselfish. I can have him guard 1-5, so that allows us to switch. He's got a high basketball IQ, he really understands spacing. He's one of our most focused players," Musselman said. "The other night at home, we play Wisconsin, and he's assigned to their leading scorer [John] Tonje, and he shut him out -- the kid had 0 points. Saint was phenomenal. I think he's just super comfortable in this system."

When this season started, though, this team was clearly missing something -- of someone -- on the offensive end.

For all the role players the Trojans have, they didn't have anyone besides Claude who could consistently put the team on his back offensively for stretches until redshirt freshman Wesley Yates emerged in early December when starter Terrance Williams II was lost to injury.

In his four games prior to being thrust into the starting lineup, Yates had totaled just 4 points as an afterthought in the rotation despite some early flashes of his potential.

He scored 19 points in his first start at Washington back on Dec. 7 and after some up-and-down games finding his place, he's averaged 16.8 points over the last six games -- including 17 vs. Nebraska with 4 steals while going 9 of 9 at the foul line.

Four of those free throws calmly came in the final 5 seconds to protect the lead and close out the win.

And then veteran Rashaun Agee was huge with 14 points and 8 rebounds off the bench, while hitting 4 of 6 3-pointers -- all in the second half -- and a putback dunk with 2:17 left that gave USC a short-lived 69-64 lead at the time.

"We found some matchups that we liked with Rashaun as a pick-and-pop 5. When you look at the stats, you don't think he's a 3-point shooter, but we see it every day in practice," Musselman said. "So that's something that we can ill afford him to pass up 3s because he is a good 3-point shooter."

These Trojans are probably overachieving their talent level -- they still lack size and haven't gotten steady production from their one true center, Josh Cohen, and they're mostly relying on a tight rotation with only 6 players logging double-digit minutes Wednesday, per usual -- but if they keep doing it like they have been in recent weeks then it's not a mirage.

Give Musselman and his staff a ton of credit for melding this team together on the fly in Year 1 and building an identity from a collection of disparate pieces.

USC's next game is at home against rival UCLA. Musselman has already bemoaned the lack of home-court advantage the Trojans have when the empty seats outnumber the fans in attendance, but that should be different for this one with the Bruins coming to Galen Center.

And maybe it's the perfect timing for the fan base to see that Musselman has built a pretty fun team in a short order that should signal the best is still to come for this new era of USC basketball.