At the dawn of a new day for USC men’s basketball, a white horse awaited inside the doors of Galen Center. It was an unusual sight — the school’s live mascot, Traveler, on display for an entirely indoor news conference — but on a Friday morning intended to inject passion and pageantry, fire and hope in a coach meant to save the Trojans from sliding back into stagnancy, it was a fitting metaphor.
And that was before the band started blaring and smiling song girls started swaying, boldly welcoming USC’s new coach, Eric Musselman, into his new role with all the pomp and circumstance of a victory parade. The message, amid the feverish introduction, was clear: The Muss Buss is all gassed up at USC.
“This is a transformational day for USC men’s basketball,” USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen declared.
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Almost 11 years had passed since similar proclamations were made about a fresh, new era for USC basketball. But so much had changed in the decade-plus since Andy Enfield had taken the reins of a program in complete disrepair. The Trojans’ trajectory, under Enfield’s watch, had steadied considerably since, climbing as high as the Elite Eight in 2021. But even as Enfield continued to ascend up the all-time wins list at USC, it became clear over a losing season in 2023-24 that his time with the Trojans had run its course, a fact even he seemed to recognize as he exited stage left to Southern Methodist on Monday.
Enter in his place, a coach who, more than once, has served as a shot of adrenaline to a program in desperate need of one. At Nevada, Musselman took over a 9-22 team that hadn’t reached the NCAA tournament in a decade, then proceeded to reach the tournament in three of his four seasons. At Arkansas, where the Razorbacks had been a middling program since the early 1990s, Musselman led the program to the Elite Eight by his second season, then reached the tournament’s second weekend in each of the next two.
Even his lengthy tenure in the NBA featured some immediate success, though it was often short-lived. In 2002-03, his inaugural season as the Golden State Warriors coach, Musselman finished second to Gregg Popovich of the Spurs for NBA Coach of the Year.
“He not only builds elite, high-performing teams, he knows how to sustain them,” Cohen said. “He has a bold vision and a plan for USC basketball. And it centers around very high expectations and standards for himself, for his players, and for his staff.”
For Cohen, Musselman’s hire marks the first step in her own bold vision for USC athletics, the first head coach she’d been tasked with hiring since her arrival in August. She wasted little time in making a decision, never moving much past exploratory phone calls with other candidates. The ink had barely dried on Enfield’s new deal in Dallas before Cohen was flying to Fayetteville on a private plane to pick up her new coach.
“That was her top choice, immediately,” university president Carol Folt said Friday.
In Musselman, whose passionate reputation precedes him, Cohen has perhaps found a more natural counterpart than the mild-mannered Enfield. Musselman’s passion has long been his calling card as coach, even before he climbed atop a scoring table, took off his shirt and swung it around after Arkansas upended top-ranked Kansas in the 2023 NCAA tournament.
Last month, as Arkansas was ousted early from the Southeastern Conference tournament, Musselman had to be restrained by assistants. It wasn’t the first time.
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“I’m going to state the obvious on this one: He’s not shy,” Cohen said, with a smile. “We all know that.”
But at USC, the university’s leaders view the coach’s enthusiasm and intensity as an ideal fit for a team that has historically shrunk in the shadow of the school’s other powerhouse programs.
The feeling was mutual for Musselman, who said he awaited final word from Cohen with “great angst”.
“We think the potential here is through the roof,” Musselman said. “We believe that with all the things going on, with the USC brand, with going into the Big Ten, that this is really an incredible fit for us as a family, and an incredible fit for USC. I think it’s great all around.”
Los Angeles, after all, was where Musselman’s career in basketball began. Fresh out of the University of San Diego, Musselman’s first job was with the Clippers as an account executive in 1987, selling tickets to a team that was scraping the bottom of the NBA standings.
The job ahead at USC might not be so staggering. But as Musselman takes the reins, he does so without much known help on the roster. Only three players are still committed to the team — Harrison Hornery, Arrinten Page and Brandon Gardiner — while all of Enfield’s previous commits, including blue-chip Harvard Westlake guard Trent Perry, reopened their recruitments this week.
The coach’s pitch to those players was already underway Friday, as Musselman fired off text after text to current players and former commits, among them freshman Bronny James, who announced he would declare for the NBA draft and enter the transfer portal just a few hours before the new coach was introduced.
Some might still opt to stay amid the transition. Freshman Isaiah Collier, who’s expected to be an NBA lottery pick, was in attendance for the coach’s news conference.
Even if he’s rebuilding from scratch, Musselman — and USC — projected as much passion as one possibly could for a program with far more questions than answers. He called USC a “dream job.” University leaders raved about him as “a perfect fit.”
But even Musselman knows the initial burst of a new era means so much for a program that has never quite been able to sustain the energy.
“Now,” he said, “the real work begins. We’ll see where we’re at in November.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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