With the start of the basketball season of the college at the beginning of November, Inside the Hall takes a team-for-team to the Big Ten and a player-per player looks at the schedule of IU basketball in the next two months.
Today our team reviews will continue with USC.
Earlier: Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, Washington, Nebraska, Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon
Veteran coach Eric Musselman is hopeful that season two of his term of office in Los Angeles will turn out to be much better than his debut last winter.
Musselman overhauled the USC selection before the 2024-25 season and ended 7-13 in the Big Ten with an appearance in the Basketball Crown Tournament College. The Trojans completed the season 17-18 in general.
For the second consecutive year, the Trojan horses have completed a schedule and have a large number of newcomers to integrate in a short period. After the season, the Trojan Horses Wesley Yates III and Desmond Claude lost to the transfer portal, which required the emergency aid.
Musselman worked the portal to land two of the more coveted guards in the country in Rodney Rice and Chad Baker-Mazara.
The 6-foot-5 rice, which started his career at Virginia Tech, comes from a breakout season in Maryland under Kevin Willard. Rice was an average of 13.8 points on a sweet sixteen team in College Park and shot 37.4 percent on 3s on nearly six attempts per match. On 6-foot-5 he has an excellent measure for a combo guard.
Baker-Mazara played last season in Auburn, who reached the Final Four 2025 under Bruce Pearl. The 6-foot-7 Baker-Mazara, a graduated senior, on average 12.3 points, three rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 steals in 25.6 minutes per match while 38.1 percent shoot at 3 seconds.
The Trojan horses also added UNC Asheville transfer Jordan Marsh and Dartmouth Transfer Ryan Cornish from the portal to solidify the defense rotation.
Marsh, a 5-foot-11 junior, filled the Statblad last season. He on average 18.8 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists and two assists and earned Big South Newcomer of the Year Honors. More a point guard than rice and baker-Mazara, Marsh will probably be asked to facilitate more than scoring for the Trojan horses.
Cornish, a 6-foot-5 graduated senior, an average of 17.1 points and shot 37.2 percent on 3S in the Ivy League last season.
The Trojan horses hoped that five-star signator Alijah Arenas would be a large part of the rotation of this season, but a knee injury is expected to keep him out of his first-year season for most, if not all of his first-year season.
First -year Jerry Easter II, National a four -star perspective, and graduated transfer EJ Neal from the state of Sacramento, will offer a half of the defense and virtue depth. The 6-foot-5 Easter, a resident of Toledo, Ohio, was the number 43 player in the last 247sports composite rankings for the 2025 class. Neal made 55 3-Pointers last season and shot 34.2 percent remotely.
The only recurring piece for the Trojan horses has graduated Senior Forward Terrance Williams II, who started his career in Michigan. Williams appeared last season in just seven games at USC for a seasonal wrist injury. Before he was injured, Williams had an average of 10.6 points and 4.6 rebounds in 32 minutes per match.
In the front will the new look rotation of USC include Utah Transfer Ezra Ausar, Virginia transfer Jacob Cofie, Robert Morris Transfer Amarion Dickerson, Samford Transfer Jaden Brownell and Youngstown State Transfer Gabe Dealnes.
The 6-foot-9 Ausar, a senior, was the second leading scorer and rebounder for the Utes last season. Ausar was on average 12.5 points and five rebounds and started 31 of the 33 games of the team. He will probably get the first shot at the start with the four.
The 6-foot-10 Cofie started half of the Virginia matches last season and on average a solid 7.2 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.1 Steals per game. Cofie tried 41 3-Pointers, but connected to only a clip of 24.4 percent.
Dickerson is a 6-foot-7 wing that was an all-horizon League second team-pick last season and the defensive player of the competition of the year. He on average 13.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.3 blocks and 1.1 steals per game.
The 6-foot-10 Brownell brings size and experience with the new look Trojan Frontcourt. Brownell on average 14 points and four rebounds for the Bulldogs last season while shooting nearly 40 percent at 3s.
The 7-foot-5 Dynes was in the Horizon League all-defensive team last season and blocked 104 shots, which led the country. Although Dynes cannot play many minutes, he will be helpful as a rim protector against many Big ten -enemies with size.
After a somewhat disappointing debut season at USC for Musselman, the Trojan horses in the rankings in the competition classification in year two will try to step. Bart Torvik is Bullish about that happens, because his pre -season projections currently have USC in the top 25 national in the top 25 with less than two months until the season starts.
Bottom Line: The use of transfers was the specialty of Musselman before it became transmission portal what it is today, so the turnover of the selection should not be a problem to navigate. The Trojan horses have one of the better defenses of the Big Ten with Baker-Mazara and Rice and have to have more depth than last season, provided that they can stay healthy. The expectation should be to compete for a NCAA tournament.
Sacrifice: “I think we have a fairly good idea of ​​who should play (this season). So who gets minutes early and how they get about it, is a kind of case on case, year-year-year deal. It is just a kind of a matter that works well with their teammates and then they will play.” – Musselman earlier this month about sorting out a rotation this season.
See more: Comments, 2025-26 Big Ten Preview, USC Trojans
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