USC men’s basketball continues to hit stride with blowout of Montana State

LOS ANGELES — Everything he says in front of a microphone, Eric Musselman smirked Sunday, is calculated. And he speaks, firstly, not to the general public. He speaks, firstly, to his own program.

Two weeks ago, USC reeling amid a three-game losing streak, head coach Musselman told reporters “I don’t know how many Big Ten games we’re gonna win” after a loss to Oregon. It was not the work of loose lips, fueled by emotion. It was planned. It was a coach who was fully aware his players had eyes and ears and social media, and would no doubt see a clip of their head coach questioning his program’s very ability nine games into their season.

And in the weeks to come, as guard Desmond Claude affirmed Sunday night, Musselman’s players have wanted to hit the hardwood and show him.

“I would say,” wing Saint Thomas said Sunday, with a smirk of his own, “I definitely seen what he said.”

There is life in this USC program yet, and life in the Galen Center, life created by the media-manipulation mind games of a 60-year-old HC who was forged amid the drama of the NBA.

A week after the Trojans followed up that Oregon loss by bludgeoning Washington on the road, they returned home to blitz Montana State on Sunday night in an end-to-end 89-63 win.

“I mean, we were playing bad basketball a couple games ago, and that’s the real,” Thomas said. “And him speaking up like that, I think, kind of got us out of our funk.”

Claude continued a three-game stretch of immaculate play, finishing with 19 points on 6-of-8 from the floor and 7-of-8 on free throws. Thomas added 17 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks.

USC never once trailed, and the ballgame was all but over by the 10-minute mark. Thomas drained a three to put the Trojans up 27-5 early on an overwhelmed Big Sky opponent.

Suddenly, in a conference known for plodding big men and gritty offense, free-flowing USC (7-4, 1-1 Big Ten) looks like the kind of program that could give a host of Big Ten schools fits.

“We’re starting to turn it around,” Claude said postgame. “And — yeah, we just wanted to prove everybody wrong.”

The team’s “only problem” at the moment, as Thomas said postgame, was guarding the ball and playing team defense. Maybe not only. But regardless, it had bit USC for weeks, and with his ideas already exhausted Musselman turned to his roots.

He and staff, after the Oregon game, reached out to a host of NBA teams and coaches for ideas on defensive drills, Musselman said after Sunday’s game. Since then, they’ve drilled two-on-two pick-and-roll actions for 14 days straight.

“We just needed to put them in some different situations,” Musselman said postgame. “And I thought it really helped us.”

For minutes, to open Sunday’s game, Montana State had difficulty even getting a shot off before red zeroes blared. MSU started just 2-of-13 from the floor, and USC’s defensive rotations and help in the paint look massively improved. And on the other end, a team that had played a sort of discombobulated your-turn, my-turn offense swung the rock as if they’d been buddies since childhood.

One possession with about nine minutes remaining in the first half was pure symphony. First came a slew of DHOs to get Thomas driving off a pick-and-roll. Then came a baseline cut by Matt Knowling and a find by Thomas. Then came a touch-pass to the corner from Knowling to Clark Slajchert. Then came an immediate drive-and-dump by Slajchert to big Rashaun Agee, a slew of split-second instinctive reads culminating in a thunderous jam from Agee.

After USC took a 47-21 halftime lead, Claude kept his program afloat in the second half, repeatedly breaking down bigs off pick-and-roll actions and attacking downhill relentlessly to the tune of 15 points after the break.

“He’s become a really, really hard player to defend,” Musselman said postgame.

Two weeks ago, in front of that microphone at Oregon, Musselman could’ve taken a wildly different route. They’d lost in the final minutes to the then-12th-ranked team in the nation, after all. It was a sign of progress.

But the man was thinking steps ahead and dropped the words that have sparked a turnaround.

“The truth hurts sometimes,” Thomas said, on Sunday. “But hey, the truth got us to where we are now.”