Evaluating USC men’s basketball’s 2024-2025 season

On Thursday night, USC men’s basketball’s season came to an end with a 76-71 loss to Purdue in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament. With a final record of 16-17, the Trojans will certainly not qualify for postseason play this year.

With USC’s season now over, it’s time to take a step back and evaluate the year. Here is a postmortem of sorts on the Trojans’ first campaign in the Big Ten.

Rebuilding year

Year one of the Eric Musselman era was always going to be a major rebuild. The Trojans returned just one scholarship player from last season. It was always going to be an uphill battle for USC to be able to compete in the Big Ten right away.

Transfer-heavy roster

Because Musselman was hired so late (his introductory press conference was not until April 5 of last year) and he inherited so little, he was forced to put together a roster on the fly. As a result, USC’s team was made up almost entirely of transfers. While the Trojans had some good players on their team, they clearly lacked the team chemistry and cohesion of many of their opponents, whose players had been together for several years.

Signs of optimism

Although the record wasn’t great, USC did show signs of a foundation for the program’s future in 2024-2025. They went on the road and beat an Illinois team that was ranked in the top ten at the time. They upset a Michigan State team that would go on to win the regular season conference title. And at the Big Ten Tournament, they fought until the very end, taking down Rutgers and pushing UCLA to the brink.

Collapse down the stretch

However, there was also a lot that went wrong for the Trojans this year. After the Michigan State upset in February 1, USC won just two games for the rest of the regular season. Those two games were home contests against Penn State and Washington, the two worst teams in the Big Ten. And as the cherry on top, they ended the regular season by suffering a 90-63 splattering at the hands of crosstown rival UCLA.

Moving forward

Given that he had to put together a roster on the fly, it is hard to judge Musselman too much for this season. Moving forward, however, it is now fully Musselman’s program. It will be his responsibility to put together a significantly stronger roster next season and ensure that the Trojans are more competitive moving forward.

Musselman and USC landed a big commitment from five-star guard Alijah Arenas. The next steps are to ensure that this year’s breakout players Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates III stick around and attack the transfer portal for another potential starter or two.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: What's next for USC men’s basketball after 2025 season ends

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Evaluating USC men’s basketball’s 2024-2025 season

Rebuilding year

Transfer-heavy roster

Signs of optimism

Collapse down the stretch

Moving forward

Topics

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