Basketball Notes

It’s almost time for basketball season!

With all the controversy surrounding OJ Mayo over the summer it was hard to really look at the upcoming basketball season with any interest. But life goes on and its time to start getting ready for the upcoming season even with the Mayo situation still unresolved.

With Mayo and Davon Jefferson heading to the pros and with Angelo Johnson transferring it means that core of the team is Taj Gibson, Daniel Hackett and Dwight Lewis along with incoming freshman phenom Demar DeRozan coming in the expectations are no longer of just making the NCAA tournament but they need to get a high seed and go deep into the tournament.

Tim Floyd has led the USC basketball team to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. If the Trojans make it a third time, it would mark the first time in school history that has happened.

But merely qualifying for the Tournament isn’t good enough anymore.

Floyd is eyeing a deep run and believes, in his fourth season, that he has the depth to do it.

“We want to get to the point where we have a high seed,” Floyd said Tuesday at a news conference to preview the 2008-09 season. “We want to try to get to the tournament and make something happen.”

USC lost in the first round last season after reaching the Sweet 16 the year before.

Injuries were a season-long theme — at times the Trojans had only six scholarship players - but USC has a bevy of options now.

It wil be interesting to see how the chemistry of this team will come together this season with another potential-one-and-done player in DeRozan.

Of course the more intersting aspect of today's media preview was Tim Floyd's thoughts on ucla...

[...] Floyd did acknowledge that UCLA — as the reigning Pac-10 champion — is on USC’s radar.

“That’s the team that everybody’s chasing,” Floyd said. “We’re going to try to fire our shots this year just like everybody else in the league.”

Well at least he didn't have the school put an ad out in the LAT proclaiming SC was taking over the basketball world in L.A....

Anyway paractice begins Friday so it should be fun to watch!