The USC Trojans have a new head coach for the men’s basketball program, with Eric Musselman taking over. With that has also come plenty of roster turnover this offseason.
Amid that turnover, Musselman has needed to rebuild the roster. That’s a process that he recently shared some insight into.
“For us, we try to start with high quality, high character guys,” Eric Musselman said. “At USC there’s the academic piece as well. Our pool of recruits is different than maybe other places that I’ve been. So, I think that that is an added piece to the recruiting process here.”
USC’s 2024 recruiting class is ranked 17th in the country, according to the On3 2024 Industry Ranking Basketball Team Recruiting Rankings. It’s a class that includes two highly recruited four-star players. Musselman then heavily used the Transfer Portal. There, USC has the 12th-ranked class in the On3 2024 College Basketball Team Transfer Portal Rankings. It’s a class that took 11 players and lost seven.
Of those players who Musselman has added through the portal, two are coming from power conference teams. Meanwhile, six players have decided to transfer out of the program. That’s a number that doesn’t include Bronny James, who put his name in the portal but ultimately decided to enter the NBA Draft.
“We wanted guys that really wanted to be here, and then from a stylistic, we wanted guys who could play multiple positions. We felt in year one it was super important that we had versatility, guys 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, 6-foot-7. We do have some duplications of that, some guys are going to have to play out of position.”
Eric Musselman went on to explain that USC still has holes to fill. In particular, the team needs to figure out its depth at both center and point guard going into the 2024-25 season.
“We’re probably a little thin at two really important positions, meaning up front at the center spot and point guard where those two spots we don’t have a lot of numbers. We’re gonna have to get a third or fourth guy who can play the point in case foul trouble and it’s going to be a unique experience for that player because I don’t know if it’s Jalen Shelley who’s been a high school four-man or if it’s Matt Knowling who’s played the four at Yale,” Musselman said.
“We don’t really know. We’re gonna kind of experiment with that.”
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