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In the framework of what was once normal, this past week should have seen the USC men's basketball team playing in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.

Trojans coach Andy Enfield and his players were instead at home, following coronavirus pandemic precautions with the sport -- or, rather, sports -- indefinitely shut down nationwide and the NCAA Tournament cancelled outright.

Enfield emphasized that there are bigger concerns nationally and globally than a basketball tournament, but yeah, he certainly couldn't help but think about it over the weekend.

"This past weekend was difficult because the Thursday through Sunday should have been the first round[s] of the NCAA Tournament, and everybody's at home with their families and every time you think about basketball you think you should be in a different city competing and we weren't," he said in an interview with TrojanSports.com on Monday.

"I think the initial reaction is you're upset -- then, if you turn on the news and you look at this nationwide issue and the worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus, you realize that the real world situation is much bigger than the USC basketball team or the NCAA Tournament. So I think our team and our coaching staff has done a good job of realizing the bigger picture, however it certainly is frustrating and disappointing that we're not playing where we should be."

This was a pivotal year for Enfield and the program -- with enough proven veterans mixed with a highly-ranked freshman class to create renewed expectations. After finishing with a losing record a year ago, a return to the NCAA Tournament was a must in the eyes of many.

And the Trojans would have indeed been there by all projections, finishing the regular-season 22-9 overall and 11-7 in the Pac-12 while winning their final three games to move off the NCAA Tournament bubble and earn a first-round bye in the conference tournament.

That's where things ended, with the Trojans in Las Vegas scouting Arizona's win over Washington two Wednesdays ago and then preparing to meet the next morning to go over final details before taking on the Wildcats that afternoon.

That's when everything changed.

"I guess our team meal was probably about 10:30 [a.m.], and they cancelled the game maybe a half hour before that. So we went from thinking we were going to play with no fans to having the game cancelled, so it's a very shocking moment for the coaching staff and our players because we were excited to play in the Pac-12 Tournament and it was just taken away in a matter of a text message we received," Enfield recalled.

"We made plans to then travel back to Los Angeles later that day and I guess about 3 or 3.5 hours later from the Pac-12 getting cancelled, the NCAA Tournament got cancelled and that really hit our players hard because we were playing very well as a team, had a lot of confidence and we thought we could win games in both tournaments and we were excited to play. It was very devastating, especially for the four seniors that we had, as well as the whole team because we were all looking forward to playing."

Just like that, seniors Jonah Mathews (13.4 points per game while breaking the program's record for career 3-pointers), Nick Rakocevic (10.5 PPG, 8.3 rebounds per game), Daniel Utomi (8.2 PPG) and Quinton Adlesh saw their college careers come to a sudden close. Mathews and Rakocevic, both four-year players, are the winningest senior tandem in program history.

It's expected freshman standout Onyeka Okongwu (team-high 16.2 PPG, 8.6 RPG and 76 blocks) has also played his final game with the Trojans, which Enfield himself acknowledged.

"Yeah, he'll move on to the NBA and probably be a fairly high pick," Enfield said. "We're excited for him to get drafted. We're not sure when the NBA Draft will be, but he deserves it, he had a terrific season and he's an extremely hard worker and even better person. So we're really excited for his future as well as we are for our program."

Counting Okongwu, USC is set to lose its top four contributors in he, Mathews, Utomi and Rakocevic.

The Trojans specifically lose 65.5 percent of their overall 3-point shooting and 84.7 percent of their rebounding.

While the NCAA hasn't officially made a statement on addressing eligibility relief questions for the student-athletes who lost the opportunity to compete in winter sports championships, CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reports that it's likely only spring sports athletes will be considered for an extra year.

"I certainly understand why the spring sports get eligibility relief because their whole seasons are cancelled," Enfield said. "I don't think the NCAA has officially commented on the winter sports yet, but I know it's a difficult dilemma to deal with if you're the NCAA so we'll just wait to see what they rule and go from there."

Expecting there to be no such intervention for the aforementioned seniors, the lone returning primary starter is rising-sophomore point guard Ethan Anderson (5.5 PPG, 4.2 assists per game), while rising-junior sixth man Elijah Weaver (6.6 PPG) and rising sophomore forward Isaiah Mobley (6.3 PPG, 5.3 RPG) also played significant roles (and made a number of starts).

Beyond that, the Trojans will be counting on increased production from their returning players and immediate impacts again from their newcomers.

Backup point guard Kyle Sturdivant, forward Max Agbonkpolo and guard Drake London (limited to just 3 games due to football participation and illness) will be sophomores, while redshirt junior Noah Baumann will look to emerge after sitting out last season following his transfer from San Jose State. The 6-foot-6 Baumann could help fill the perimeter shooting void as he shot 45.5 percent (81 of 178) from 3-point range in his last season at SJSU.

Enfield also suggested that the Trojans could add another grad transfer to help in that department.

"We will be extremely young next year and the great thing about college basketball is the freshmen become sophomores and they have a chance to prove themselves and make big improvements in the offseason. We expect all our freshmen to do that," he said. "Elijah Weaver will be a junior and we expect him to be a big-time leader for us next season, and we're going to have to have a huge offseason with improvement. So it's an exciting time for our young players to improve and take ownership of the program."

Of course, though, any discussion about the 2020-21 Trojans starts with incoming 5-star freshman Evan Mobley, the No. 3 overall prospect in the 2020 class per Rivals. The 7-foot center and younger brother of Isaiah will take over as the lead interior defender and rebounder, helping to fill the voids left by Okongwu and Rakocevic.

"Evan's an elite defensive player with his length and his timing and his shot-blocking and he's a very good rebounder, so we expect him to have a huge impact on the defensive side of the basketball," Enfield said. "And then offensively when he shows up, hopefully if we can get him on campus at the end of June for the second summer session, we can start to work in the weight room and on his skills on the offensive side of the ball. Because we're going to need Evan to score for us next year at a fairly high level and also defend."

While Mobley is the only signee in the class so far, the Trojans also landed a commitment last week from local 6-foot-10 3-star center Boubacar Coulibaly and are not done adding to the class yet.

That said, Enfield does not expect to use all his available scholarships entering next season.

"We're not sure [how many we'll sign]. We have plenty of scholarships and we probably won't fill the roster out completely. We'll have a very lean roster, which will give everybody an opportunity to hopefully play minutes," he said.

As for recruiting, that's become a different kind of challenge for college basketball coaches everywhere.

The NCAA is not allowing any on-campus or off-campus recruiting visits presently, during what would normally be a pivotal time to close the deal with 2020 prospects and an important period to scout 2021 prospects.

Recruiting has been the strength and backbone of Enfield's program in recent years as the Trojans have signed four 5-star prospects over the last three recruiting cycles, including Mobley in this 2020 class.

"We have a roster to fill out for this coming season. So we're looking at some high school players as well as some graduate transfers, just evaluating, speaking to people on the phone to see what may or may not be a good fit for us, and then we can continue to recruit the 2021 class via the telephone and text messages," Enfield said.

"It is very difficult. It's difficult [without] the visits to campus as well as the visits that we would normally do to go travel to see recruits at their high schools or their homes -- we can't do that. And then the other thing is April is a big recruiting time. The third or fourth week of April is the travel team AAU tournaments, the shoe companies -- Adidas, Nike, Under Armour -- all have their tournaments, which are live for college coaches. And that's been cancelled, which takes away a very crucial evaluation period to see the juniors that are finishing their junior year in high school, to evaluate them in a team setting for players that we have never seen before or haven't seen in a while or players that we've seen before but we want to see how much they've improved."

It's an obstacle and challenge shared by all coaches now.

USC fans are holding out hope of landing another local 5-star standout in Sierra Canyon High School small forward Ziaire Williams, but his decision could go any number of ways.

Again, expect the Trojans to be aggressive in the grad transfer market again after having success with Utomi, who became a dependable contributor down the stretch this season.

Meanwhile, Enfield and his staff have had some time to reflect on the season that played out before that abrupt and unsatisfying ending.

The Trojans' 22 wins were the third most during his seven-year tenure with the program -- without the opportunity to add to that total beyond the regular season -- and it marked the second-best winning percentage behind a 26-10 2016-17 campaign.

Enfield was most proud of the Trojans' development defensively, as they led the Pac-12 in points allowed (64.3 per game), field goal percentage defense (37.8 percent) and 3-point field goal percentage defense (29.0 percent) in conference games. USC also finished ninth nationally in overall field goal percentage defense for all games (38.4).

That became the driving force for a team that wasn't nearly as consistent on the offensive end and relied on those low-scoring games down the stretch.

"Our staff was very proud of our players for finishing the year strong," Enfield said. "... We were very, very proud of our players, how they bought in on the defensive side of the basketball and really competed at an extremely high level. To hold Arizona to 48 points, UCLA to 52 and Arizona State to 61 the last three games was quite an accomplishment against very good basketball teams. So we're very proud of our players how they competed this season. We had a young team with five freshmen, we also had some experienced players and for them to mesh together like they did was a quite an accomplishment."

Unfortunately for the Trojans, that three-game winning streak to close out the regular-season and effectively secure their place on the projected bracket was not the start of a late-season surge but ultimately rather a strong finish in and of itself -- including Mathews' dramatic game-winning 3-pointer in the finale to beat UCLA.

And those will have to serve as the lasting memories of this season.