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LOS ANGELES — They could not be more different, and yet they are one and the same, the 5-foot-5 spittle-spewing coach on USC’s sidelines and the 6-foot-7 effusive man in the mask.
Saint Thomas, Eric Musselman reflected in mid-October, is an emotional player. Maybe that’s why they’ve connected, as they have. Musselman, a man who’s come in for pregame speeches in his short USC tenure sporting beach chairs and boxing gloves to make points on separate occasions, hates a quiet locker room. Thomas, often, is the loudest one in any locker room.
“He’s just a guy,” Musselman put it in mid-October, “that loves to play.”
It’s been a strange road to USC for Thomas, a 6-foot-7 forward who once stepped away midseason from Loyola Chicago, dipping his toes in NBA Draft waters this spring after a breakout junior year at Northern Colorado only to wind up back in the portal. But he’s shouldered an immediate role as a leader on a brand-new USC roster — even more so, a true heartbeat — and his love to play poured out cardinal-red on USC’s home floor Thursday night in a 75-69 win over Idaho State.
He was recruited, by Musselman, not just as a forward, whereas Thomas often felt pigeonholed by coaches in their evaluations. He was brought to USC to play one-through-five, on a versatile roster teeming with wings. In the summer, when Xavier transfer guard Desmond Claude was sidelined with an elbow procedure, Thomas shouldered the majority of point-guard reps.
“I mean, at first, I didn’t really know that he could pass that well,” freshman Jalen Shelley said of Thomas in early October.
The majority of the collegiate basketball world didn’t know, either, until point-guard Claude was benched often with foul trouble Thursday and Thomas suddenly just…became USC’s point guard. For the better part of an otherwise sloppy first half, the mask-wearing forward orchestrated USC’s offense, fulfilling Musselman’s mad visions and whipping skip passes and dump-offs galore. After a final feed to center Josh Cohen before the halftime buzzer, Thomas skipped away with a remarkable ninth assist of a half in which he’d totaled just two points.
He came out of the break, too, with a fire in his white Nikes. After canning a three on USC’s first second-half possession, he pointed in earnest, turning on his way back down the floor and immediately chirping at Idaho State’s bench. A couple of possessions later, he grabbed an Isaiah Elohim airball for a put-back, again chirping at the nearest Idaho State chap within earshot.
It wasn’t enough, though, to light a spark that’d last. Musselman’s teams, historically, have emphasized getting to the rim and drawing free throws, but making them is a different story. USC shot themselves over and over again on the line on Thursday. By the time Claude went one-of-two from the stripe midway through the second half, the Trojans were just 13-of-23 from the free-throw line, keeping their Big Sky opponents tightly in range in a game USC could’ve long put away.
With just under eight minutes remaining, a Cohen layup snapped a nearly eight-minute stretch for USC without a field goal, retaking a one-point lead on an Idaho State program that had little business hanging around this Thursday night. And yet they did, at every late inflection point. A USC fast-break, up two with 4:30 left, ended in a turnover. Chibuzo Agbo Jr. and Clark Slajchert missed free throws on late-game trips to the stripe. The game, slowly, devolved into a sludge of whistles and stoppages, the Trojans unable to establish a shred of momentum.
However, with USC in need of one final push, Thomas donned the cape. With the shot clock off and USC up 68-67 late, he took a dribble-handoff from Cohen at the top of the arc and rose without hesitation into a triple.
It fell, and Thomas fist-pumped in ecstasy, spouting off to anyone who’d listen in courtside seats.
Cohen was excellent offensively, leading USC with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Thomas finished with 10 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. And USC improved to 2-0 at the start of Musselman’s tenure.
LOS ANGELES — They could not be more different, and yet they are one and the same, the 5-foot-5 spittle-spewing coach on USC’s sidelines and the 6-foot-7 effusive man in the mask.
Saint Thomas, Eric Musselman reflected in mid-October, is an emotional player. Maybe that’s why they’ve connected, as they have. Musselman, a man who’s come in for pregame speeches in his short USC tenure sporting beach chairs and boxing gloves to make points on separate occasions, hates a quiet locker room. Thomas, often, is the loudest one in any locker room.
“He’s just a guy,” Musselman put it in mid-October, “that loves to play.”
It’s been a strange road to USC for Thomas, a 6-foot-7 forward who once stepped away midseason from Loyola Chicago, dipping his toes in NBA Draft waters this spring after a breakout junior year at Northern Colorado only to wind up back in the portal. But he’s shouldered an immediate role as a leader on a brand-new USC roster — even more so, a true heartbeat — and his love to play poured out cardinal-red on USC’s home floor Thursday night in a 75-69 win over Idaho State.
He was recruited, by Musselman, not just as a forward, whereas Thomas often felt pigeonholed by coaches in their evaluations. He was brought to USC to play one-through-five, on a versatile roster teeming with wings. In the summer, when Xavier transfer guard Desmond Claude was sidelined with an elbow procedure, Thomas shouldered the majority of point-guard reps.
“I mean, at first, I didn’t really know that he could pass that well,” freshman Jalen Shelley said of Thomas in early October.
The majority of the collegiate basketball world didn’t know, either, until point-guard Claude was benched often with foul trouble Thursday and Thomas suddenly just…became USC’s point guard. For the better part of an otherwise sloppy first half, the mask-wearing forward orchestrated USC’s offense, fulfilling Musselman’s mad visions and whipping skip passes and dump-offs galore. After a final feed to center Josh Cohen before the halftime buzzer, Thomas skipped away with a remarkable ninth assist of a half in which he’d totaled just two points.
He came out of the break, too, with a fire in his white Nikes. After canning a three on USC’s first second-half possession, he pointed in earnest, turning on his way back down the floor and immediately chirping at Idaho State’s bench. A couple of possessions later, he grabbed an Isaiah Elohim airball for a put-back, again chirping at the nearest Idaho State chap within earshot.
It wasn’t enough, though, to light a spark that’d last. Musselman’s teams, historically, have emphasized getting to the rim and drawing free throws, but making them is a different story. USC shot themselves over and over again on the line on Thursday. By the time Claude went one-of-two from the stripe midway through the second half, the Trojans were just 13-of-23 from the free-throw line, keeping their Big Sky opponents tightly in range in a game USC could’ve long put away.
With just under eight minutes remaining, a Cohen layup snapped a nearly eight-minute stretch for USC without a field goal, retaking a one-point lead on an Idaho State program that had little business hanging around this Thursday night. And yet they did, at every late inflection point. A USC fast-break, up two with 4:30 left, ended in a turnover. Chibuzo Agbo Jr. and Clark Slajchert missed free throws on late-game trips to the stripe. The game, slowly, devolved into a sludge of whistles and stoppages, the Trojans unable to establish a shred of momentum.
However, with USC in need of one final push, Thomas donned the cape. With the shot clock off and USC up 68-67 late, he took a dribble-handoff from Cohen at the top of the arc and rose without hesitation into a triple.
It fell, and Thomas fist-pumped in ecstasy, spouting off to anyone who’d listen in courtside seats.
Cohen was excellent offensively, leading USC with 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting. Thomas finished with 10 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. And USC improved to 2-0 at the start of Musselman’s tenure.
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
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