One and Done...Are you Kidding me?
by Paragon SC on Mar 20, 2008 7:36 PM PDT
in USC Basketball
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PrintWell that was quick...so when does the tournament start again?
Talk about a crash and burn! Out of position, no boxing out, foul trouble and just zero effort, that's what I saw tonight. I will analyze the game tomorrow but right now I want to talk about the state of the program.
Forgive me if I jump around a lot.
Was OJ Mayo worth it? Yes he was if for no other reason the exposure he created for the program. Was he as good as advertised? Depends on whom you read. He certainly didn't cause the problems off the court that some, including me, thought that he would and he had some absolutely incredible moments on the court. I will have more on Mayo in a later post that I have been working on.
I had a bad feeling about this game as soon as I saw the bracket. If SC expects to EVER be a contender Tim Floyd needs to gets these guys to develop quicker and he needs to get a big man. Most important, at least to me, is that SC needs to recruit players that will stay and build a foundation that will help the program grow. Think for a minute, how would have this team performed if they had Young and Pruitt? Senior leadership matters and if players continue to come to SC that only stay for a short time we will always be a 2nd tier program as no continuity will ever be forged. By the way, Pruitt is now languishing in d-league ball so I guess leaving early really paid off for him.
I'm pissed not because we lost, but how we lost. I am more than willing to be patient if players are willing to put the time in to stick around and develop to build this program. I am not asking this program to become Duke or UNC but I think we need to have a plan to set this program in the right direction. I was talking to DC Trojan on the phone and I told him that I would have still been pissed if we had lost by 3 but at least it would have shown some effort I saw some very sporadic effort tonight.
Some of the comments in the game thread really hit home and while I don't agree with all of it some of it is dead on.
Like this one from Zoulou:
I say we are right where we were after Floyd's first year: a second tier program with aspirations to become an elite program. OJ's goal, quoted in the LAT, was to build a program, wasn't it, to take us deep into the tourney, to help establish USC as an elite program. None of that has happened. We lost to an 11th seed, and we looked bad doing so. OJ's gone, Taj might follow, odds are Devon will be forced to follow because he might not make it through another academic year. While UCLA pulls in another top rated class, we have to waste a scholie on a washed up rapper so we can attract another five-star one-year wonder.
Yeah, we probably won't have gone to the tourney without OJ, but after all the hype, I feel like a client with Eliot Spitzer's escort agency. That's it, that's all there is.
I completely agree with what I emphasized above. SC fans have never been all that into hoops, we are a football school pure and simple and this sort of effort with these type of one and done players won't help the program build and it won't increase interest in the program. Sure, there is always a possibility that OJ could stay another year and help build the program like he said he would but does ANYONE really believe that? I don't...
And there is this one from DC Trojan:
DC is also dead on and Garrett knows it.
Garrett also said that future recruiting of players who might leave after one season, as Mayo has the opportunity to do, won't be hasty decisions. Garrett said that Mayo promised to finish his classwork for the school year so that the Trojans do not have to forfeit his scholarship slot if he decides to leave.
"That's the agreement," said Garrett, who said Mayo has fulfilled every expectation during his freshman year. "In the next years, we'll go case by case. We're looking for character."
Character is nice and all but if it doesn't stick it's hard to reap the benefits from the effort put forth by the institution to try and build a program.
I think there is a lot to be said of setting standards. You can't deny the talent of an OJ Mayo but he is only one guy and without consistent play around him it's hard to build a team. I am not sure I can get excited about another year like this if SC can't get some players that will help build the program. If this team stays together with DeRozan coming in then maybe we could have a serious conversation about the stability of this program, but until then its not happening. It's going to be built on a house of cards. This is all on Coach Floyd and he has my full support but he needs to start competing for the type of players that other programs get. I am not asking for a bunch of 5-star players but players that will develop to build this program.
Again I wasn't expecting a championship but I expected to at least get out of the 1st round. I just don't see the disciplined play like you see elsewhere. We have no identity outside of Mayo and that is not enough. So that's where its at, I have no interest in watching the rest of the tourney said for a couple of potential match-ups.
I'll have more in the coming days...
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Davon
"It hurt us a lot, but we weren't boxing out that much and they kept getting offensive rebounds. We just didn't want it tonight."
I don't want to come off as an indignant commenter, but to be honest, I'd rather build a team around five Ryan Francis's, kids with no guaranteed NBA future and kids who want it every night, than five Davon Jefferson's, kids with NBA athleticism but who want it some nights, not so much on other nights.
The same post on Wolf's blog:
Will he want it enough to come back next year? Stay tuned in the coming weeks.
What will be interesting over the next year whether there is any tension between Floyd, who wants to win now (re his comment in his first year that he only wanted players that would be recruited by Arizona), and Garrett, who seems to be looking more longer term.
is that code?
Experience
Agreed, the loss was due to a lack of experience, and it would have made all the difference to have Nick Young on this team. However, Young was ready to take his game to the NBA and it was right for him to go. Gabe Pruitt might have helped but he was always in academic trouble and that was not likely to change this year. Pruitt belongs in the d-league; he is an idiot and we're better off without him. Conversely, Mayo is a good student and a good teammate, if Mayo signs up for another year Gibson will too. Mayo will improve his draft stock tremendously, as will Gibson. Hackett and Lewis need to stay all four years. Sadly, Jefferson is not going to remain academically eligible and will be joining Pruitt in the d-league. Demar DeRozan will make be a nice replacement for Jefferson.
In 1996 the bRuins threw us an anchor; just consider the damage caused by that mean and underachieving bRuin reject Henry Bibby. Finally the rebuilding has started and it will take years; but thanks to Floyd (at least on weekends) our fantastic Galen Center rocks with excitement and optimism for the future. You should come out for a visit next season.
Good points
I don't think Floyd's mentality with OJ was "win now, forget long-term"; I think Floyd's feeling was that OJ's presence and the resultant media attention that came with him might put us in a better position to get looks from a bigger pool of talented players. Clearly, the Derozan/Romeo situation is based on the same strategy. The debate about whether that's a good approach or not is legitimate, but I don't fault Floyd's aim.
Floyd definitely aint building
Floyd came out here to a place where he had no history, connections and family (except his daughter, who wanted to try out acting) because he thought that with a new arena and the large LA recruiting base he would win and win quickly. I mean, he had some decent and competitive teams at Iowa State, imagine what he could do if he coach at a school in a large metro area. He probably thought he could replicate a Carroll, an ex-Pro coach turning around a program overnight.
My prediction is that Mayo and Gibson and Jefferson will be gone next year, DeRozan will post impressive numbers (better offensive stats than OJ) but this time the team, without any inside presence or a bench, will be merely an NIT team, alumni will start grumbling, DeRozan bolts and Floyd will start regretting he turned down the LSU job.
I give Floyd more credit
Floyd knew he had a new arena and the support of Garrett and a university that wants to grow it's bball program, but I doubt he thought all the upper echelon hs players who were looking at Georgetown/UNC/Duke/Westwood High/et al were automatically going to drop us into that same list of schools for those reasons.
I think Floyd's perspective is that USC needs to get into the conversation for more blue-chip players, and getting an OJ Mayo and (hopefully) a Demar Derozan is the way he went about doing it. It's an experiment that's still in progress. I'm not ready to predict gloom-and-doom yet, sorry.
Do we really want OJ to stay
He seemed not that different from the way he did when USC lost to Mercer in the opening game of the season. Disappointed, but not devastated. It was as if this were a summer tournament, and there were more games to play.
Or, you could say, it was as if it were one of 82.
Yep, that is the OJ Mayo era in a nutshell. SC is just another one of the four high schools, numerous AAU teams he played on. That's my only issue with OJ. He's polite but ultimately to mercenary, to "professional" to get excited about.
Let's look at Floyd's record
In order for the basketball program to grow, we need to consistently win 20 games a year. USC basketball has fielded some great teams in the past. Sam Clancy in 2001, Harold Miner in 1992 to name a few. But we seem to only have a decent team every 5 or 6 years.
The Sports Arena had a lot to do with our inability to recruit. Now we have a coach that is in demand, we have arguably one of the best facilities in the country. All we need now is to keep the string of successful seasons going. If Floyd keeps winning 20 games a year, and finishes in the top half of the pac 10, then we will get a good share of recruits.
Do we want OJ to stay?
I was at the Mercer game. After the game was over, OJ walked straight to the locker room without shaking hands with the Mercer players and coaches. He seemed to be really flipping pissed off to me.
For the LA times to speculate how OJ felt after each loss is a load of crap.
Here is my answer to the OJ question.
Hell yes I want him to stay. OJ has been nothing but a supportive teammate, and a receptive player to coaching. He earned a GPA well above the national average, and handled himself well with opposing players, coaches, referees, and media.
If the only thing you have against this kid is the fact that he wasn't appropriately pissed off about being beaten out of the tournament in the 1st round, then you're reaching to find a problem with this kid.
Agreed
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