Eric Musselman was frank and candid about the state of his USC basketball rebuilding effort after the team's first Big Ten game early last month -- an 8-point loss to then No. 12-ranked Oregon.

“I don’t know how many Big Ten games we’re gonna win,” Musselman said that night. "... We were right there. And like I said, if you lead for 30 minutes, it’s the last 10 minutes of play that we’re not used to winning as a unit. There’s probably going to be other nights that we play really well, and whether we can walk away with the win or not, I don’t know in Year 1. But the effort was there."

It sure seems like these Trojans have accelerated the process of learning how to finish and win, as they did again Tuesday night in a thoroughly impressive 99-89 win over Iowa inside Galen Center.

USC never trailed in the game and backed up its upset win on the road Saturday at then-No. 13 Illinois to improve to 11-6 overall and even its Big Ten mark at 3-3.

After watching his team shoot 64.9 percent from the field (including 10 of 15 from 3-point range), earn a 37-20 rebounding advantage and respond well late after Iowa cut the lead to 5 inside the final 5 minutes, Musselman praised that growth he had hoped would come if the team committed to developing together.

"The one thing with this team, even the games we've lost, when we've come up with themes and we've come up with keys, even when we lose they come pretty close," Musselman said. "... For the most part, this team practices so hard, they follow the game plan. Like, our huddles are so good, even when we're not playing well. They listen, they talk to each other, they communicate. Again, we're happy we won two games in a row. This league is so hard, every game's hard, but we're back to .500 in league and I think the overall character of the locker room, I don't know if you could have better chemistry internally."

Musselman's three keys for the team Tuesday night -- which were posted in a video clip on social media -- were to shoot better from 3 than the Hawkeyes (12-5, 3-3), limit their fastbreak point and win on the offensive glass.

Check, check and check.

But the offensive performance was something to behold, as point guard Desmond Claude led the way with 25 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds, Saint Thomas added 24 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists on an incredible 9-of-10 shooting in his best game as a Trojan, Wesley Yates III scored a career-high 21 on 8-of-11 shooting and keyed the fast start and Chibuzo Agbo also added 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting.

The collective 64.9-percent shooting and 66.7-percent 3-point shooting were season-bests, as was the Trojans' 27 assists and 99 points. USC is now 11-0 this season when scoring 75 or more points.

And the Trojans needed all of that production while going against an Iowa team that is tied for first nationally in scoring at 89.5 points per game.

"We've really expanded our playbook a lot. The guys will tell you that we have a new play every game. There's been years that we run that play and then we scrap it -- we've kept all of our new plays. So however many games we've played, that's how much the playbook has expanded," Musselman said. "And then the execution of them understanding the second and third options. I think early in the year we would run a play and they would get to the first option and then we just kind of froze. Now, I think we're getting to third and fourth options ... and when plays break down I think now they understand concepts instead of just play patterns.

"I think that's been the biggest difference for us offensively, and we're running harder. ... We're running way harder than we were early in the year."

Said Claude: "I feel like we've shown were tough, we're a good team, we have a lot of pieces. One of the biggest things was just staying disciplined on what we do, our core principles and just staying consistent with it and trusting it. ... Once we fully locked in, once we continued to get more comfortable with each other, you see what happens."

It's no coincidence the Trojans have found their recent momentum at the same time Yates, the redshirt freshman transfer from Washington, has delivered a string of breakout performances. While steadily progressing since joining the starting lineup last month when Terrance Williams went down with injury, Yates was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week for his two performances last week -- 18 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists in the loss at Indiana, and then 15 points and 6 boards on 7-of-8 shooting in the upset win at Illinois -- and he was even better Tuesday night.

Yates scored 10 of USC's first 22 points, including a pair of 3-pointers, to stake the Trojans to a 22-13 lead. He had 16 first-half points overall, including 4 3s, as the Trojans went into halftime up 48-32.

"He stepped up a lot," Claude said. "... Just seeing him figure it out and him do his thing that we see him do every day in practice is amazing. When T-Will went down, we was a little worried about who was going to take that step up, that's what Muss was preaching at practice, 'Who's going to step up?' And I feel that Wes took the challenge and he's doing a really good job and he's continuing to learn and I feel he's getting better each game."

Yates has emerged as the secondary ball-handler behind Claude and often defends the other team's best guard.

"I think that Wes' minutes and evolution have changed our season, to be honest with you," Musselman said. "We don't know where it goes from here, but right now, look, he's changed things because he can make 3s, he stretches the floor for us, he's given us another ball-handler, he's super strong, he's really aggressive. So his mentality, his toughness, his physicality, and then I think obviously in Year 1 in our program it's really important that a young player kind of emerges. He's really good right now -- you can only imagine what he can do next year after he gets a full year and all this playing experience. He already is a really good player, but your confidence you can kind of see it growing by the game."

Thomas, meanwhile, had his best offensive game as a Trojan while highlighting his ever-versatile value to the team.

"He's been great. He wants to be a defensive stopper. I think he's really been focusing defensively, he's really been focusing on rebounding. I think he's trying to find like where do we have holes and how can he plug in. Because he can do so many things," Musselman said. "He's like a baseball player that you can put him at shortstop, second base, centerfield, left field, right field -- he's one of those guys you can just put him all over, which that is what we want all of our team to be like, as many of those guys as possible.

"But he's a triple-double threat. It's hard to get one in college in a 40-minute game, but he and Des are right there bordering on being close to triple-double guys on a nightly basis."

The 6-foot-7 senior who transferred in from Northern Colorado is averaging 10.5 points and a team-high 6.2 rebounds for USC.

"I really still to this day don't know my role," Thomas joked Tuesday night. "I'm like an army Swiss knife, so every game, it changes for me. Like last game at Illinois I had to be a defensive guy and stop all their big guards, and today just my role was just go out there and they were looking at Desmond and whenever they would double-team him just find an opening and score the ball."

Again, though, it's the collective production and chemistry the Trojans have found that is spurring their recent momentum and perhaps raising expectatiosn for the rest of the season.

With Williams and key reserve Matt Knowling sidelined, Musselman has gone with a tight rotation. In this game, Claude, Thomas, Yates and Agbo all played at least 37 minutes, while Rashaun Agee added 9 points and 10 rebounds in 29 minutes off the bench and center Josh Cohen logged just 11 minutes as a starter.

"If we shot 30 percent there would have been probably more subbing, but maybe not," Musselman said.

The formula is working, though, is the bottom-line.

After Iowa cut USC's lead to 85-80 with 4:35 to play, the Trojans answered with an 8-3 run to push the lead back to double-digits and remove any potential for late drama.

"I think at that point the game is all of a sudden in jeopardy -- it really is. They come down and hit a 3 and now what? But I thought like in the huddles, it wasn't me saying it, it was the players -- 'Hey, they made the run, let's buckle down on defense. ... No 3s. ... Defend without fouling, they're in the bonus,'" Musselman said. "... That's when you know you've kind of turned the corner from a chemistry standpoint."

Musselman addressed how the team coped with the devastating fires across Los Angeles while on the road last week, saying a staff member was constantly relaying real-time updates to the team.

"Obviously, things are way bigger than basketball, and we talked about it while we were on the road. Obviously, coach [Will] Conroy, coach Quincy [Pondexter], [director of operations] Caleb Cline, their loved ones were evacuated. It's tough. [Guard] Clark [Slajchert] was worried about his family, and all you can do as a group and a unit, organization and program, whatever, is talk about it. And we were super anxious to get back home. We wanted to do anything that we can," Musselman said. "I know Coach Conroy and I have been talking about some things that we can possibly do this week.

"For us, it's hopefully we're a little bit of an avenue for people to get away from it tonight and enjoy two hours of basketball. I think our guys have handled it really well because they have talked about it."

...

Claude surpassed 1,000 career points in the win (now up to 1,011).

The Trojans will return to Galen Center this Saturday to take on Wisconsin. Tip-off will be at noon with the game televised on the Big Ten Network.