This might well have been the most anticipated basketball season in Andy Enfield's now 11 years with the program.
In fact, I had that very conversation with associate head coach Chris Capko over the summer on our Trojan Talk podcast, when he said, "You can feel it. We've obviously had some good teams in the past, but I think the summer leading up to it a lot of times has been, 'Let's wait and see how it goes' or 'I think we can be good' and things like that. I think this year people think we can be good, we should be good and there's a couple added elements to it I think people are really excited about."
Indeed, this team should be good, but for any number of reasons -- some discernible, some harder to diagnosis from the outside -- it hasn't gone that way.
Even coming off a big win on the road at rival UCLA last Saturday night, the Trojans are just 11-16 and 5-11 in the Pac-12. They aren't anywhere near the NCAA tournament bubble.
Despite the surprise return of leading scorer Boogie Ellis for an extra season. Despite adding the top recruit in the country in five-star point guard Isaiah Collier, who has shown plenty of flashes as to why he garnered that stature. Despite the intrigue of adding Bronny James, another top-50 prospect with a Hall of Fame lineage. While returning defensive stalwart Kobe Johnson. And the best shot-blocker in the league Joshua Morgan. And the potential of what former five-star 7-footer Vince Iwuchukwu could be in his second year with the program. Etc.
Why this Trojans season has unraveled so frustratingly is not the topic of this column -- that would require more words and bandwith than we have allotted for today. To hit the key points, though, Enfield has said in hindsight he thought the tough non-conference schedule may have been more than this particular group was ready for, obviously James' season was thrown off pace by his cardiac arrest scare over the summer, Ellis sustained a major hamstring injury in early January, Collier broke his hand and Morgan was out for a bit with illness. Those are factors. There is certainly room for other critical analysis.
But with four regular-season games remaining -- starting Thursday night at Washington State -- and the Trojans coming off one of their most encouraging performances of the season, the more relevant question at this point is whether there is anything left to be salvaged from this USC men's basketball season?
The reality is crystal clear -- the Trojans have to win the Pac-12 tournament to force their way onto the NCAA tourney bracket.
But is it at least in the realm of possibility? Could there be some latent intrigue left after all?
It's a longshot for any team to win four straight games in four days, and USC would have to show a lot more these final four games than beating an uncharacteristically up-and-down Bruins team to inspire even the boldest optimists to think it's going to happen.
But is there intrigue? Yeah, there sure is -- for the moment at least.
It may be fleeting if USC delivers a dud on the road against a No. 19-ranked Washington State team that is second in the conference standings at 21-7 overall and 12-5 in the Pac-12.
With a win, though, the conversation gets more interesting as winnable games at Washington and home vs. Arizona State -- two teams with losing records in the league -- follow, leading into the finale vs. first-place Arizona. The No. 6-ranked Wildcats (22-6, 13-4) look to be in their own tier with the rest of the conference probably not separated by all that much, records aside, based on the upsets across the league this season. (Maybe we're sleeping on the Cougars too much, as they did win on the road at Arizona, but they've also been beaten by middle-tier teams like Utah, Cal and Arizona State.)
If the Trojans win in Pullman, it's worth tuning back in to a team that still has all the components that fueled those preseason expectations.
Ellis has returned to form the last two games with 30 points in a double-overtime loss to Colorado and 24 to lead the way in the 62-56 win at UCLA. He simply hasn't been that player for much of the season, and his importance to this team is undeniable.
"He's the Boogie Ellis we've known. After he hurt his hamstring at Stanford Jan. 3, the first week we win those two games in a row, and he hurts his hamstring at Stanford and Isaiah broke his hand the next game and Josh was out sick. So Boogie has not looked like Boogie Ellis until [the Colorado game] and then tonight," Enfield said after the win over the Bruins. "He has played very poorly because he fought through that hamstring -- he was out for three weeks, then he came back and he looked like older than me trying to play. He had no explosiveness, he had no change of speed, no change of direction.
"I gave him a lot of credit -- he's a very, very tough young man. He fought through that injury. ... Saturday and tonight he looked like the Boogie Ellis, the first-team all-league guy we've known for a couple years."
Collier, meanwhile, has been back for five games now, averaging 17.8 points per contest in that stretch and continue to flash his five-star talent.
Despite allowing UCLA to close the first half Saturday on a 15-1 run to erase an early lead, the Trojans by and large played better defense against the Bruins than they have most of this season. UCLA shot just 33.3 percent, turned it over 15 times and talented big man Adem Bona managed only 3 rebounds.
It wasn't a dominant performance by USC, but it was encouraging enough to have me already past my projected word count in this column.
"We finally have our team healthy. We've had very good practices. It's hard to play with your two leading scorers and shot blocker out at the same time. We lost six games in January," Enfield said. "We were playing well early in January, won two games in a row, and they all got hurt at the same time. It was difficult on our team because offensively we struggled, and defensively we're getting better, but it's nice to have everybody back and be able to practice hard and practice like we play in games. ...
"We've been so sporadic with our lineups all season with guys being out from November all the way through now. The last two weeks we've had the best practices we've had all season."
In a way, the pressure is a little lightened these next four games as nothing the Trojans do can get them to the NCAA tournament bubble. So it's a four-game stretch to iron things out and perhaps build some momentum for the Pac-12 tournament, when hot guard play (which this team is certainly capable of) and good defense can spark an unexpected run. Especially if USC can end up on the opposite side of the bracket from Arizona.
"We haven't even thought about Las Vegas or the Pac-12 tournament -- we'll get to that. We just need to keep improving," Enfield said. "It's nice as a coaching staff to be able to practice with a full roster and actually see improvement in your basketball team. We've been missing that almost the entire season."
Hey, we're not saying it's going to happen. We may even lament this whole column if the Trojans come out flat in Pullman on Thursday night.
But, sure, what was supposed to be one of the most intriguing USC basketball seasons in years may yet deliver some in this final stretch.
