nikola jovanovic – Rush The Court

Assessing Andy Enfield’s Accomplishments At USC

Andrew Murawa (@Amurawa) — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 17:01:51 +0000

Andy Enfield’s first two seasons at USC were…let’s just say underwhelming. An overall record of 23-41 actually looked good next to his conference record of 5-31. What little news Enfield was generating was by way of his mouth, rather than the effectiveness of his team’s play on the court. There was the intended-to-be-off-the-record shot at the cross-town rival (“if you want to play slow, go to UCLA”). Then there was the feud with former USC and current UTEP head coach Tim Floyd, which started over accusations that Enfield tampered with UTEP commit (and current UCLA junior) Isaac Hamilton. That spat continued with [...]

USC Preview: The Andy Enfield Experiment Continues

Andrew Murawa — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 20:31:02 +0000

In the next three weeks leading up to season tipoff, the Pac-12 microsite will be evaluating each of the league’s 12 teams. Today, we head to Los Angeles.

USC Trojans

Two years into the Andy Enfield experiment, the state of the USC basketball program is still in doubt. In season one, the Trojans, despite an 11-21 overall record, showed sporadic reason for hope, earning wins over Xavier and a road win at Dayton in non-conference play. Year two? No such luck. Until the Trojans outscored Arizona State 18-4 in the final nine minutes to win an opening round Pac-12 Tournament game (that, [...]

Pac-12 Media Day Roundup: Part One

Adam Butler (@pachoopsab) — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 16:31:34 +0000

Adam Butler (@pachoopsab) of Pachoops.com is back for another go-round on his March to Vegas. He covered the Pac-12 Media Day in San Francisco on Thursday. Check back later in the day for his notes on the conference’s other six teams.

In Case You Needed A Reminder, Pac-12 Media Day Means Actual Basketball Games Are Just Around the Corner

USC

Coach Andy Enfield took the stage with his starting power forward (or center, Enfield noted both), Nikola Jovanovic, and provided opening remarks lasting about as long as a USC possession: 16 seconds. It was swift and brief. He was complimentary of [...]

Pac-12 Season Preview: USC Trojans

AMurawa — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:51:31 +0000

The Pac-12 microsite will preview each of its league teams over the next few weeks, continuing today with USC.

USC Trojans

Strengths. Let’s get this out of the way immediately: This USC roster is not one that is going to win the Pac-12 or likely to find its way into the NCAA Tournament. And really, that’s no surprise given that this is a squad that won two conference games last season and lost the team’s top four scorers to boot. But this is a program in the middle of a complete rebuild and change of identity. The strength of this version of the Trojans is the [...]

Checking In On Andy Enfield and USC

Andrew Murawa (@AMurawa) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:40:01 +0000

In all likelihood, the last time you saw USC play, if at all, was on opening night when the Trojans put on a public display of masonry in a 13-point loss at Utah State. Since then the Trojans have taken care of business against four overmatched teams, and were it not for some Lane Kiffin-like quotes from the team’s new head coach Andy Enfield, you could say that the team was flying a bit under the radar. But since Enfield was one of the bigger stories in the preseason Pac-12 chatter, it is high time we check in with USC and [...]

Pac-12 Team Preview: USC Trojans

AMurawa — Mon, 21 Oct 2013 17:01:14 +0000

Today we begin unveiling our team-by-team breakdowns, in roughly the reverse order of where we expect these teams to finish in the conference standings.

USC Trojans

Strengths. Energy and experience. New head coach Andy Enfield brings to the program a swagger that has been largely missing from this USC program about as long as guys like Daniel Hackett, Taj Gibson and Demar DeRozan have. He’s trying to carve out an identity for the Trojan basketball program as a fun place to play and a fun team to watch. And while guys like Jio Fontan, Eric Wise, Dewayne Dedmon and Aaron Fuller [...]

USC Post-Mortem

AMurawa — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 23:21:43 +0000

Now that we are officially in the offseason, it’s time to take a look back and evaluate each team’s 2012-13 performance. Next on our list: USC.

What Went Wrong

The biggest thing that went wrong were lofty expectations for a group of mostly transfers who had failed to have any success as a group in any of their previous stops. Despite the fact that this was a program coming off a six-win season, instead of playing with a chip on their collective shoulders, this team came out not just softly but selfishly. They went to a Maui Invitational with hopes of establishing themselves [...]