Saint Thomas propels USC men’s basketball to win over Idaho State
LOS ANGELES — They needed a spark, and so Saint Thomas ripped off the mask.
He shouldn’t have really. He broke his nose three weeks ago, in an exhibition against UTSA, and the black guard over his face was the only thing allowing him to step on a court. Head coach Eric Musselman, certainly, didn’t tell him to take it off.
But Musselman had told Thomas, when he first transferred to USC from Northern Colorado, to wear his identity on his sleeve. He wanted him to play with passion. With fire. They were alike, in that way. So Thomas removed the cumbersome mask, with less than a minute to play Thursday night against Idaho State and a sloppy game hanging in the balance, because he knew he’d need to come up big.
On cue, with the shot clock winding and USC up a point on Idaho State with under 20 seconds to go, Thomas rose up from the top of the arc and buried the dagger that’d seal a 75-69 win.
“I mean, hopefully I wasn’t gon’ get hit,” senior Thomas grinned postgame. “But, yeah, I had to take it off.”
He bounded downcourt, pumping his fist and roaring after a subsequent stoppage. Talking, to anyone in a courtside seat who’d listen. Talking, like he’d had all night, to the Idaho State bench that bounced his Northern Colorado team last year in the end-of-season Big Sky Tournament and now was chirping Thomas to come back to the Big Sky. He screamed after whipping assists and clapped his hands fervently, and at one point told his bench they needed to pick their energy up.
“Games like this, where we might not want to play, and the other team might be, um, a mid-major team and they want to come in here and try to beat us on our home floor … especially, we don’t have a crowd right now,” Thomas said, the stands at Galen once again littered thin for Musselman’s second game. “So, our bench got to be the biggest supporters for us on the floor.”
Energy, indeed, ebbed and flowed on Thursday night, at the mercy of referees’ whistles and a parade to the free-throw-line that often left USC behind. By the time Claude went one-of-two from the stripe midway through the second half, the Trojans were just 13-of-23 from the free-throw line. It kept Idaho State in a game they had no business being in, pushing Thursday night’s game down to the wire, USC done in further by a 40-to-25 rebounding differential in favor of the Cougars.
“You can’t have two defensive rebounds from your centers, especially when you play in the Big Ten,” Musselman said postgame. “So, overly concerned about our defensive rebounding, for sure.”
They were buoyed, though, in the first half by Thomas, a 6-foot-7 forward who assumed straight-up point guard responsibilities after Xavier transfer Desmond Claude got into foul trouble. He finished with nine assists before the break, whipping skip passes to corners and dump-offs to bigs, Musselman marveling postgame at the senior’s IQ.
“He sees, like, second, third, fourth options,” Musselman said, “where maybe other guys only see one option.”
Senior UMass transfer Josh Cohen was excellent offensively, the center scoring a USC-high 19 points and burying a much-needed midrange jumper to put USC up 68-65 with 2:25 to go. Two minutes later, Thomas hit the shot, these Trojans’ sudden de-facto point guard and emotional heartbeat on a night that could’ve easily slipped away.
“I’m emotional, he’s emotional, I relate to that,” Musselman said postgame, of Thomas. “You know, guys that are Joe Cool and don’t play with fire, it’s a little harder to relate to.”
“And we need him.”