USC Morning Buzz: No, 2016 Is Not 1971 When Talking Basketball

USC forward Ron Riley, an all-Pac-8 first-team pick, against Stanford in 1971 at the Sports Arena.

USC forward Ron Riley, an all-Pac-8 first-team pick, against Stanford in 1971 at the Sports Arena.

USC is 13-0, ranked No. 23 in the nation and surprising contender as Pac-12 play begins Wednesday. But that perfect start is drawing unnecessary comparisons to the 1970-71 Trojans, who started 16-0 and finished 24-2.

Let’s just look at the 1971 Trojans’ 14 non-conference games. USC beat four-ranked teams: No. 14 Houston (77-64); No. 17 Florida State (94-85); No. 18 LSU (80-76) and No. 20 BYU (101-65). This year’s Trojans have not played a ranked team, a deliberate bit of scheduling by Andy Enfield.

So just enjoy how great this season started without listening to any noise about how it compares to 1971. That classic team does not deserve to hear this comparison, unless USC goes 16-2 in Pac-12 games.

54 thoughts on “USC Morning Buzz: No, 2016 Is Not 1971 When Talking Basketball

  1. The bottom line is our guys still haven’t lost in the season, so there’s no point in dwelling on the future losses that haven’t occurred yet. I’ll enjoy the ride as much as I can especially because this perfect start is a pleasant surprise and wasn’t expected by many. Let’s keep going, boys!!!

  2. That 70-71 was special, and a cut above this years squad, no doubt. SC may still have to claw it’s way into the tournament, as a lot of losses could be looming in conference play. But Wolf can’t accept the fact that Enfield is building the program up, and doing so despite poor decisions on early NBA entries(Jacobs) and injuries this year. Our

    • Back in 1970 Sydney Wicks personally took control of that 1st game at the Sports Arena with USC in the lead. Watched him yelling at the others as to where they were to move to – Patterson, Rowe et. al. Wicks was the general that night and USC didn’t have anyone to counter him.

      • It still pains me to think about that game. Maybe SC’s best team, but ucla was a little better, and they knew how to win games like that.

        • Sad reality was there was not one guy on the squad that had an ‘attitude’ – they were all xlnt players but there was not a real leader as Wicks was for the Bruins.

  3. Saw part of the Wyoming game, they hung there with a hot shooting Cowboys team. There are 3 other Pac12 teams in the top 25, UCLA, Az, and the Ducks. Wish the Trojans the best, conference play will be tough. We’ll see how great this team is. Going far in the conference tourny should be expected at this point.

  4. bozo u defeats Omaha. Huge!

    Andyain’twinning makes a living scheduling cupcake BB teams and defeating them by 2 points in empty, third rate casino arenas.

  5. Blogger doesn’t want you to compare them to the 1971 team…and then compares them to the 1971 team. SW Logic.

    • He’s got to get his pre-slam in there…. has to justify his condemnation of Haden for hiring him (and Helton). Shrew, much?

  6. Today 27th December 2016 – the USC players ‘might’ not be as skilled as bel-air tech ‘but’ there’s no question USC has the better coach and in a close contest THAT’s the difference!

  7. USC is number 22 Blogger. Get up to speed. I know that you have more important things to be concerned about like feeding your negative narrative about USC but try to be honest.

  8. At least the 2016 team isn’t competing with Sam Gilbert. That 1971 Non Conference Schedule would make a great Football Non Conference Schedule today.

    • What position did Sam Gilbert play on the 70-71 UCLA BB team?

      As I recall, bozo u lost only 2 games that season – both to UCLA; but, I can’t locate Sam Gilbert’s name in either games stat sheet.

      The 70 -71 bozo’s were no doubt a good BB team, just not good enough to win Pac-8 conf. or receive an invitation to the NCAA tournament.

      • You may want to leave off that “or”. Back in that day, you had to win your conference to go to the tourney.

      • I was a HUGE UNLV fan back in the Tark hey day. You wouldn’t have found a bigger fan than me. However, you would never have heard me argue that the program was clean or the players were choir boys. Just own it. It doesn’t diminish what UCLA accomplished IMO (and most others outside the homers on this board). But, pretending your program was “clean” when it’s well documented it wasn’t, is just dumb.

        • True, USC ended up on probation in 1982 for football and the ruins ended up on probation for football and basketball.

  9. Well as usual microbe brain, you’re WRONG!

    On Sunday Nov. 13, 2016, the bozo u BB team defeated the Omaha Cupcakes 82 – 72 in the empty Galen Barn – a signature bozo u creampuff victory so obscure even loser bandwagoners like yourself missed it.

    Andyain’twinning sort of panhandles his way up AP BB ranking on cupcakes and cream puff wins in empty 3rd rate arenas.

    #where’stheshuckster?

      • So now the bozo u Omaha win that you claimed never happened, has been upgraded to “an insignificant blip” bozo u victory?

        Well your rampant ignorance is understandable, nobody attended the game except maybe Leinart and his posse.

        Appreciate the nothing reply.

  10. Who’s comparing this bunch with the ’71 Trojans? Really. Nobody, that’s who. Just another false SW narrative.

    That ’71 team was our best team ever, probably by far (at least in modern times), ended up ranked #5 by the AP, and we lost to ucla both games that year, so we couldn’t make it to the tourney. In fact, USC has only won the conference twice since 1960 if you can believe that.

    With the way #2 ucla is playing this year, and ORE and ARIZ, we probably won’t win the conference again. At least we’ll get to the tourney, pretty sure of that. If not, that’s USC basketball for you, very much like ucla football – can’t get over the monster across town.

  11. YES that year may never be equaled,I remember it well…but the Bibby 2000 team,and this one strike a chord…we can dream…hope, and consider what might be,or have been if some had stuck around 1 more year…

  12. It’s funny, if I see negative stuff posted on other websites about USC, such as 6 players disqualified because of academics, I quickly go to this bog to verify. I know that if there is anything negative about USC then the blogger will have it up. He spins a lot of stuff but if it is negative and about USC it will be here for sure.

  13. I was at the LSU game. SC was down most of the game and came back at the end to win it. We sat right behind LSU’s bench. My dad heckled Maravich’s dad, LSU’s coach, so bad he turned around and told him to go to he!!, which got everyone in the section heckling him then.

    Here’s some info about that team, no one was a 50% shooter from the field ( Ron Riley was 48%, Westphal was 47%) and only 1 player was above 80% from the free throw line ( a bench player was 2 for 2 ). As a team they shot 68% from the line.

    They beat USF by 3, UTEP by 2, UDUB by 1 and Utah by 9.

    And the attendance was awful, AWFUL.

  14. My gosh Scooter…you ARE a tedious, cranky little thing. Why? Is it a ploy to get people to respond to you? Desperate times, ‘eh?

Comments are closed.