The Media's reaction to USC Hiring Andy Enfield

I will not lie, it is nice to have some positive story on USC these days...especially about Basketball.

Here is what the media saying on the Enfield hiring.

Gregg Doyel

The players at FGCU were low-level recruits, not three-star recruits or two-star recruits but zero-star recruits. In most cases they were too small or slow or unskilled to go anywhere, basically, but FGCU. They were chicken slop Enfield turned into chicken salad, but that's what he has always done. That's his gift.

It's how he turned himself into a 2,000-point scorer at Johns Hopkins University and the all-time best foul shooter in any division, men's or women's, at 92.5 percent. You know how Florida State all of a sudden became an NCAA tournament mainstay in Leonard Hamilton's seventh year there? He hired Enfield in 2006. The Seminoles, always physically ferocious, suddenly developed skill. Enfield did that.

Like I have noted earlier, the expectations for USC hoops are much lower even when you consider what the athletic department has done as a whole.

Enfield has a rag tag bunch to work with right now. His #1 priority is his staff. Will he keep Cantu? Does Cantu even want to stay? Once the staff is set then he has to nail down some recruits....that is also part of the #1 priority. He will need to hire at least one solid coach with big time SoCal connections.

The SoCal AAU circuit is not real familiar with Andy Enfield. He will have some bridges to build.

Andy Glockner

So while it would be easy to say that USC was seduced by a week of hype about Dunk City and made a kneejerk hire, the truth is Pat Haden and the Trojans rolled the dice on an exciting up-and-comer with significant qualifications who handled this run, on and off the court, extremely well. He looks the part of a major-conference head coach, and now he is one.

The gamble is a calculated one for the Trojans. Once UCLA installed Steve Alford to replace Ben Howland, the opportunity was there to counter with a style that’s much more appealing. That’s exactly what USC did, which should help them in recruiting the local (and national) markets. You’d assume UCLA will revive locally under Alford, but there are going to be kids that want to build something at USC while throwing and receiving lobs. Adding assistants to his staff who have had success recruiting in California and/or the league would be a huge help.

I really don't care about what goes on at UCLA.

Maybe Alford will do well, maybe not. Most UCLA fans are living in the past anyway...the job over there isn't what it used to be. Even Guerrero knows that.

I really just want USC basketball to be fun to watch. I want them to get to the dance consistently and even once in a while go deep. Other than that I don't really expect much...at least not yet.

Andy Enfield has a chance to do two important things...Make USC relevant in basketball and further build the Enfield brand.

It really is as simple as that.