USC men’s basketball has best roster under Eric Musselman: ‘We look the part’

Eric Musselman is part coach, part salesman. He has to be, given his DNA.

His father, a journeyman basketball coach known for packing arenas wherever he went, taught him that an essential portion of his job was to raise fan interest.

So after taking the USC men’s basketball job a little more than two years ago, Musselman has invited fraternity brothers to practices, bought food for students and played pickleball with men’s tennis players — all in an effort to fill the Galen Center.

In his third season with the Trojans, Musselman might finally have a team that sells itself.

The roster features five McDonald’s All-Americans. The highest-rated freshman class in program history. Three players with Southern California ties.

If one put out a casting call for elite college basketball players, these guys fit the bill, which is important when you play in the shadow of Hollywood.

“You know, only time will tell,” Musselman told the California Post during a wide-ranging exclusive interview, “but yeah, when you’re getting off a team bus or getting off an airplane, we look the part as far as length and size and good positional size and all that.”

Musselman said these Trojans have a similar feel to his Arkansas teams, which twice reached the Elite Eight and made an additional appearance in the Sweet 16. USC fans would be giddy with either of those destinations given a program that’s made the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament only three times since the turn of the century.

The roster was completed after star freshman Alijah Arenas committed to coming back for a second season with the Trojans. Musselman said he didn’t give Arenas a hard sell about returning, providing space to make his own decision.

Beating out the NBA wasn’t the Trojans’ only concern.

“One, there’s the decision to come back to college,” Musselman said, “and then there’s the decision, if you do come back to college, are you going to go in the portal or are you going to stay? He was pretty all-in from the beginning.”

Musselman divulged to the Post that Arenas, the son of former NBA All-Star Gilbert Arenas, further won his respect by playing through a sprained ankle over the season’s last five games.

“It was a bad sprain,” Musselman said, “and I’m telling you, most guys would have been out a month.”

The injury was so severe that Musselman said Arenas only recently was cleared to resume practicing. His return gives the team a silky scorer and playmaker to pair on the wing alongside the presumed starting backcourt of Rodney Rice and KJ Lewis.

Both of those guards are also rounding into form from injuries. Musselman said Rice, who averaged a team-leading 20.3 points in six games before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury, won’t be fully cleared before the end of the summer.

The same goes for Lewis, who is recovering from an ankle injury he suffered in his one season at Georgetown. Musselman’s elation in landing Lewis was palpable over the phone after the coach had recruited the guard out of high school and once he entered the transfer portal following two seasons at Arizona.

“He’s a high assist player for being a scorer,” Musselman said, “and gets to the foul line at a high level.” 

The tallest newcomer could solve the team’s longstanding problems at center.

Eric Reibe, a 7-foot-1 transfer from UConn, brings pedigree to go with that size, having been a McDonald’s All-American before he played sparingly last season as a freshman behind Huskies big man Tarris Reed.

But several factors made Musselman and his staff believe that Reibe could have a super sophomore season. One, a player’s biggest jump in college usually comes immediately after his freshman year. Two, beyond the flashes he showed as a mobile big man who can protect the rim, Reibe also has the ability to stretch the floor by making 3-pointers.

That could be a theme among this team’s big men.

Twin freshman 7-footers Adonis and Darius Ratliff also shoot 3s in bunches, with Musselman essentially giving Adonis the green light by telling him to go for the school’s single-season record from beyond the arc (it’s 93 3s, by the way, set by Glen Miller during the 1992-93 season).

While Adonis will play both forward positions, Darius will man power forward and center. Their positional versatility is shared by fellow freshman Christian Collins, a McDonald’s All-American from St. John Bosco High who can play shooting guard, small forward and power forward.

Collins should become an immediate fan favorite because of his courageous battle with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that can cause respiratory and digestive problems.

“He wants to bring awareness to what he’s playing with and that you can play even while diagnosed with something of that nature,” said Musselman, who added that the team’s medical staff felt comfortable clearing Collins without any minutes restrictions.

Musselman was also thrilled to bring back Jacob Cofie after the forward who started every game last season flirted with going to the NBA.

Five other transfers were brought in to round out the roster in point guards Jalen Cox (formerly of Colgate) and Aaron Hunkin-Claytor (Hawaii); guards Isaac Bruns (South Dakota) and Jadis Jones (Lindenwood); and forward Joshua Hughes (Evansville).

The addition of two point guards to assist Rice with ballhandling duties could help the Trojans get better organized in their offense, something that Musselman felt was lacking in his first two seasons.

“It worked at Nevada and it worked at Arkansas,” he said of using that approach at previous stops where he took his teams to the NCAA Tournament on a nearly annual basis.

Can Musselman make it work at USC?

By midseason, take a look around the Galen Center. Then close your eyes and listen. The din could say it all.

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