Onyeka Okongwu and Isaiah Mobley had known each other through the local basketball circuit for a few years, but once they first joined forces with the Compton Magic AAU team a few summers ago they realized just how dynamic they could be on the court together.
If that was going to carry over to college, though, it was all on Mobley to make it happen.
"He always knew that I was coming here," said Okongwu, the 6-foot-10 5-star forward from Chino Hills High School. "Since I was in eighth grade, ninth grade I was always going to come to USC -- it was my dream school. And he made the decision when his dad got the job here."
Mobley, the 6-foot-10 5-star forward from Rancho Christian School in Temecula, Calif., admits he was leaning toward UCLA early in his recruitment. But circumstances changed there and at USC -- where his father joined the coaching staff before last season -- and teaming up with Okongwu again only further eased the decision.
"The way stuff unfolded, I'm glad I'm a Trojan now. Leading up to it I knew that's where he wanted to go, and we had such a great chemistry it only made sense to come here," Mobley said this week.
Okongwu and Mobley would end up as the headliners in a six-man recruiting class that ranked No. 7 nationally. Those newcomers, plus a couple grad transfers and four returning Trojans are driving anticipation and optimism for this season despite the program's struggles last year.
"I think we're going to turn a lot heads toward USC this year," Mobley said, happy to indulge the hype for this freshman class.
He and Okongwu are roommates, but more importantly for the Trojans' hopes this season is the connection they share on the court.
Coach Andy Enfield has some intriguing options to toy with as Okongwu, Mobley and 6-foot-11 senior center Nick Rakocevic give the Trojans the option of rolling out a really talented big lineup for which few opponents will have a defensive match. At the least, the rotation between those three should ensure the team is loaded with talent in the frontcourt for most of 40 minutes every game.
"We know each other's spots, we know where each other likes it. We feed one another a lot. We're roommates, so yeah, it's a close bond," Mobley said. "He runs, he's a real enforcer defensively and stuff. So if he gets a rebound he can throw it up to me and he runs the floor. I like to pass, he likes to jump, so just throw it up to him. And on the halfcourt set, I can shoot a little bit, he can go inside, so if they double he throws it out to me. If two run out to me, I can drop it off to him."
Mobley didn't get to play during the Trojans' summer exhibition tour through Spain and France as he was recovering from a broken foot. He was cleared about a month and a half ago and has had the whole preseason to further that chemistry on the floor with both his roommate and his new teammates.
"I think we have a real brotherhood and I think that's going to take us far," Mobley said.
Okongwu added that he's known freshman point guard Ethan Anderson since the seventh or eighth grade and fellow freshmen Kyle Sturdivant and Max Agbonkpolo for a couple of years now.
"We're very talented and we all love playing with each other. We have great team chemistry, and I'm very excited to play with my group of guys," he said. "… We're all very close now."
Enfield, meanwhile, noted that aside from Anderson -- the final addition to the signing class, from Fairfax HS in Los Angeles -- the Trojans staff put years of recruiting into the group.
"We knew who they were as people before. Sometimes it's hard to judge if you don't recruit players that long, but we've known Onyeka since he was in ninth grade and Isaiah after his ninth grade season," Enfield said. "Ethan Anderson was the quickest guy we recruited, but we had followed his career through Fairfax High School. Kyle we've known for three years and Max the same thing. So we had a good feel for them as people, how hard they worked, the types of programs they came from -- they were all winners in high school, they all worked hard. So we thought that bringing them in together would be a great addition to our program and really complement what we have."
This class may have been years in the works for Enfield and his staff, but coming in with such a talented group has been the vision for Okongwu for even longer. Despite USC's up-and-down basketball history -- including just two NCAA Tournament appearances in Enfield's six seasons -- this was what he dreamed about.
And if this group is indeed able to complement the veterans in such a way that truly elevates the program, well, that would be the real dream, he said.
"It would mean the world to me because it's my dream school, and if I [have] a serious impact to making this team win a lot it would an achievement," Okongwu said.
Given the recent struggles of the program, most USC basketball fans would concur. At the very least, though, they should be excited to see just what this young collection of talent can do.
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