USC’s Basketball Rankings Are Strong This Week

USC is making a big impression in the post-NBA draft declaration polls: The Big Lead has USC ranked No. 5. Yes, who doesn’t always follow the Big Lead’s rankings? But so does Fox. And USC is No. 8 per FanRag (another great title for a site); CBS has USC No. 9 and Yahoo has USC No. 9.

USC is considered a national power. So where are the marquee opponents on the schedule? If not now, when? Right now, UC Santa Barbara and North Dakota State are on the home schedule. USC plays Arizona only once next season, so Andy Enfield knows one less loss is on the schedule. Can he add Michigan State, Duke or Kansas? Will it matter to the USC homers? Probably not.

Enfield seems to still think he is at Florida Gulf Coast.

30 thoughts on “USC’s Basketball Rankings Are Strong This Week

  1. Scooter,
    Give it a rest. They play Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and SMU. That is three tough opponents. yes, one more would be nice. However, a lot of teams have scheduled their seasons years in advance. It is kind of hard to schedule a series 5 months from the beggining of the season. Besides, the ruins play San Fernando State College this year. So they are playing the top notch teams all the time either.

    • It is not USC place to schedule the PAC 12 league. You can look at this way, Arizona is not playing USC two games which means they can only lose one instead of two.
      Scooter, you have to look at it both ways before you write.

  2. This is page 2 of the Wolf playbook. When a USC team is getting good press or performing well mock the schedule.

  3. Enfield knows what he is doing. SW’s just shooting arrows at a coach who is finally enjoying at least limited success at an SC program that has been lost in the desert for years.

    The tougher schedules can come later. Let them slowly improve as USC establishes itself as a consistent tourney performer.

  4. Last time we had a team with this kind of talent we were upset by NC-Wilmington or some NC school. This team has depth and should be in the thick of things next year.

    • Will the basketball curse end next year? This is our best shot since 1971.

      • Bibby never recovered from that 1sr round loss and never had the players to compete from that point. Enfield allows his players to play their own while.being able to stay within a team game and it’s working. Time to prove that we’re capable of winning some meaningful games.

        • I forget the player’s name but, because of some goofy pre-game stunt, Bibby kept his best player out of that NC-Wilmington game until it was too late. He had no credibility after that debacle – he had justifiably to wear it.

          • Don’t remember but I do recall the announcers were wondering why Bibby wouldn’t put him in as the game steadily bled out for a humiliating loss to a 15 or 16th

          • Bibby’s hard nosed or old school ways hurt us in a lot of games when he would bench players. He would rather make his presence felt by teaching lessons during games to get his point across while he was hurting the teams full effort because our point guard or go to guy had to be in timeout.

          • Well that’s exactly what happened – he chose to ‘make a statement’ and get humiliated in a 1st round game.

            Overall, save for baseball and womens basketball, the USC athletics is coming along. Haden did make a lot of good choices coaching wise – on his stint, he really did, save for that football hire and what was uncovered about his personal gain, nearly a year ago, that had absolutely nothing to do with athletics.

          • Swann’s hiring process for the women’s basketball coach was horrible. He said he wasn’t going to rush it so he could make the right choice but in the end he was turned down by his choices and hired a coach that was let go by USC. Say what you will about women’s basketball, we’re not packing the arena and making dollars but Swann fumbled this hire. The SC baseball team has won 12 National Championships and Swann is well aware of what Rod Dedeaux built and it’ll be interesting to see what kind of hire he’ll make down the road. We haven’t had much success with keeping it in the family with Hubbs. USC baseball should never be this bad.

          • Swann acted as Gierrero did when he (Guerrero) hire Altford – he (Swann) had no choices other than 2 he’d been handed by some poor staff assistant.

            Swann is what Nikias and Haden both wanted to provide cover when Haden was outted – someone who wouldn’t make Haden look too bad just as Kiffin was hired to replace Carroll – someone who would never make Carroll forgotten. No one wants their replacement to look better than they were – no one.

          • The times are changing with USC Basketball and Baseball. Basketball’s becoming a program on the rise and has high expectations for the first time in a long time while Baseball continues to struggle and is not winning NC’s, but worse cannot even reach the regionals. I guess we just have remain patient and let it play out.

          • Women tennis was subpar and coach resigned. Women indoor volleyball had a bad last season, and time for a coaching change. Men volleyball was poor with a Haden hire of former ‘ruin Nygaard from previous staff. Swimming teams have struggled for many years with some good swimmers, but not enough to compete for the top spots nationally. Last men title was in 1978 or a couple of years earlier. Women won once in mid 1990’s. Haden had the one good hire of women soccer coach taken from WSU. Helton and Enfield will prove him right or wrong this year.

          • Womens soccer hire was Haden’s. The womens basketball won back-to-back when they did way back in the 80’s. We dominated swimming until IN made their move some 40 years ago. To allege Haden wasn’t any good is ridiculous – a definite sea change occurred under his watch as I note.

            Remember I am no fan of Haden but facts are facts.

          • It was not that low of a seed, but definitely a disappointing loss. Bibby got the Trojans to the elite eight ( 8 ) year before. He had his character flaws, but his teams were exciting. Enfield has not even made the sweet 16 yet,
            so his approach still in question when it comes to results.

  5. Did Wolf just criticize SC for the Pac 12’s rotating basketball schedule?

    • Yes. Great logic by the blogger. It’s SC ‘s doing they only play Arizona once.

      • LOL. Andyain’twinning loves scheduling cupcakes, it’s what he does best.

        • Like Pacific, CSUN, UC RIVERSIDE, UCSB, Portland, Western Michigan?. All these heavyweights were on the bruins schedule last year. Go back to your Hillary Clinton get together and leave the adults alone

  6. Not appreciative of the “one less loss” against AZ. We have a good shot against anyone on any day. Let’s keep it positive and Fight On!

  7. A 36 game season over 4-5 months. Play a tough enough schedule to grow but don’t burn your team out. They are kids and some are trying to be students. It’s not all about the entertainment Wolf.

    • Contrast that with the one and done Lonzo Ball.

      Today on PMS Don McClean had nothing good to say about Lonzo Ball’s overall shooting ability and that the Lakers had better not let the crazy father, LeVar, box them in per his comments towards the Celtics.

      Who knows if it works it works but they also discussed the weight of what happens if Griffin decides to sign with the Warriors?

  8. Scottie gets cranky when it comes to hoops….. bring it on! love to see you get your cackles up.

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