ESPN

USC basketball's offseason won't compare to UCLA's, with the Bruins adding on big-time recruits Kyle Anderson, Shabazz Muhammad and Tony Parker, but the Trojans will also be a heck of a lot better in 2012-13 than they were in 2011-2012.

Of course, it doesn't take a lot to be a lot better than 6-26. But 15 wins is probably the baseline for next season's Trojans team, with 20 victories and NCAA tournament contention both legitimate possibilities. To that end, here is a projection of USC's 2012-2013 roster and lineup, taking into account the Trojans' remaining scholarship slot, which stands to be used on a transfer, probably a wing player of some sort.

That could very well be former Tennessee forward Renaldo Woolridge, who's visiting USC for the second time this weekend. So we took the liberty of including him here. It also could not, as the Trojans continue to pursue other prospects.

But here is the projected 2012-2013 lineup and, in basic order of contribution to the team, the bench. We provide brief comments on each player:

(Read full post)

LOS ANGELES -- As far back as he can recall, USC forward Garrett Jackson has never lost more games than he's won in a single season.

Not at any level, and not at any sport, either -- and he played four growing up.

But that much is a virtual guarantee for Jackson and the USC Trojans this year. With seven games left in the 2011-2012 regular season, USC (6-18, 1-10 in the Pac-12) would essentially have to win out, take home the Pac-12 conference tournament championship and make a run to the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 to even finish with as many wins as losses.

Suffice it to say, it's not happening to a team with just two wins since November and six scholarship players suiting up most nights.

(Read full post)

USC forward Aaron Fuller, the team's top rebounder and second-leading scorer, is done for the 2011-2012 season, he confirmed in a text message to ESPNLosAngeles.com Thursday morning.

Fuller, a junior, will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery next week to repair a torn labrum in his left (shooting) shoulder and is sitting out until then. He made the trip north this weekend for the Trojans' games at Oregon and Oregon State but will not dress and will sit on the bench.

He averaged 10.6 points and 5.9 rebounds in 18 games this season, his first with the Trojans after he transferred from Iowa in the summer of 2010. One of his best games for USC came in the December home loss to Kansas. Fuller scored in double-digits nine times, including six straight to start the season.

USC coach Kevin O'Neill couldn't say earlier this week whether or not Fuller would be available for the Oregon games. But the Trojans' third-year coach has said for quite some time that Fuller was battling serious injuries to his shoulders -- both the torn labrum in his left and a similar injury in his right.

He had not practiced of late and couldn't play in the second half of a home loss to Arizona earlier this month because of overwhelming pain. In a text message, Fuller said his surgery is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 26.

USC plays at Oregon at 5:30 p.m. PT Thursday.

LOS ANGELES -- A rivalry game would bring out the energy, right?

5-12 USC's chance to redeem itself a bit against crosstown UCLA would mean the Trojans would play with more focus than they had been exhibiting of late, right?

Wrong.

The Trojans played one of their worst games of the 2011-2012 season at the Galen Center on Sunday night, falling 66-47 to the rival Bruins in their sixth straight loss and ninth in their last 10 games.

"A game like that, you would think that we would come out and execute a lot better," freshman guard Alexis Moore said afterward. "Honestly, we embarrassed ourselves.

"We did a disservice to the university in our effort and how we played."

USC (5-13, 0-5 in the Pac-12) started off the game well, taking a 7-4 lead five minutes in. But UCLA (10-7, 3-2) fought back by the 12-minute mark and didn't come close to losing its lead from then on.

The Trojans shot just 36 percent from the field for the game, the sixth straight time they've shot under 40 percent. Point guard Maurice Jones had 13 points to lead them, but no other player was in double digits. UCLA had three players -- David and Travis Wear and Lazeric Jones -- with 13 points or more.

"We’re struggling to score obviously," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said. "It’s been one of our problems all year and it continues to be one of our problems."

O'Neill said he was disappointed with his team's energy on the defensive end in the first half. The Bruins shot 64 percent in the game's first 20 minutes to take a 37-19 lead into the break. The second half was more even, with UCLA outscoring USC by just one, 29-28.

Asked if he could see evidence that his Trojans are improving this season as they continue to lose games in what's now a full-fledged rebuilding year, O'Neill wasn't quite willing to say that he was.

"We are what we are," O'Neill said. "We’re pretty solid defensively, but we’re a team that struggles to score.

"We are who we are, and we obviously didn’t play well today."

Player of the game: Maurice Jones was the only USC player able to produce effectively on offense, although he again failed to shoot well. But he did finish with 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting, adding three assists while turning the ball over only once.

He hasn't had the type of numbers O'Neill indicated he would at the outset of this season, but the primary reason the Trojans are losing ballgames is not his performance. He is double-teamed with regularity as opponents realize no other player can produce his own shot.

Forward Aaron Fuller also earned praise from O'Neill postgame for playing 23 minutes and scoring eight points despite being bothered by injuries to both his shoulders. He didn't practice all week.

Stat of the game: USC was out-rebounded 44-19 by UCLA -- a margin that almost doubled the previous high this season, 13 against New Mexico on Dec. 10. The Bruins hadn't beaten a team by that much on the glass since Ben Howland's first season in 2003-2004.

It was also more rebounds than any USC opponent has posted this season, one more than the previous high by Nebraska on Nov. 14.

In a true rarity, UCLA rebounded more of its 25 missed shots than USC did, with 13 offensive rebounds to the Trojans' 11 defensive rebounds. (One went out of bounds.)

Quote of the game: "I was happy as hell to see that go in." -- O'Neill

Freshman guard Byron Wesley tried to throw an alley-oop pass with 1:25 left to go in the game, but the ball actually went directly into the basket for two points, which drew a laugh from fans still at the game.

It was one of two field goals the 6-5 Wesley scored on the night, as he finished with five points in 36 minutes.

Final notes: Announced attendance at the Galen Center was 8,474 -- the biggest crowd at the arena this season but the smallest crowd for a USC home game against UCLA since the arena opened in 2006...The jersey of former USC All-American Harold Miner was retired and raised to the rafters at halftime. Miner was also present at the game and gave a speech, thanking fans for the support. He said he hoped he gave Trojan fans "their money's worth each and every night" for the three seasons he played at USC...The 19-point margin of victory was the largest for UCLA in a game at USC since 1999

Leave it to USC Trojans coach Kevin O'Neill to call on the Bible to try to reach his team in advance of Sunday's home game against UCLA.

O'Neill, the Trojans' third-year coach finding himself under pressure to win now because of his team's disappointing 5-12 record, was conducting the final 15 minutes of a mid-week practice in preparation for UCLA and looking for a new way to practice shooting.

So he gave his struggling team a quick pep talk at mid-court of the upstairs practice courts at USC's Galen Center and spread them out for two-man shooting drills on the six available baskets.

In seconds, he realized the explanation he had given wasn't sufficient.

"Alexis!" he shouted from across the gym at freshman point guard Alexis Moore as he walked to one end of the court with Maurice Jones to complete their portion of the drill. "Have you heard of Noah's Ark?"

Moore looked at Jones, puzzled. Walk-ons near them snickered. Eyes went back and forth between O'Neill and Moore.

"Yes," the 18-year-old Moore said, unsure whether to laugh or look seriously at his head coach known to have a temper.

"What was it?" O'Neill asked, and the two exchanged responses until O'Neill grew satisfied that Moore -- and his teammates, from listening -- knew enough about it to let the drill go on.

His message: In the story of Noah's Ark described in the Bible, all the animals had to board the vessel in pairs to keep themselves safe and give each other company. O'Neill wanted his players to do the same for what has become the tough task of shooting this season.

"I wasn't sure our guys would know what Noah's Ark was," O'Neill said afterward, laughing when asked about his little lesson. "I bet if I'd asked some of them, they wouldn't have known.

"We were just trying to get into paired shooting, so I thought, Noah's Ark, they did things by pairs."

(Read full post)

LOS ANGELES -- They don't make shots, they don't defend well enough to win, and their free-throw shooting is abysmal.

You can combine those factors to come to a fairly easy conclusion about this year's USC Trojans basketball team. Or, if you're head coach Kevin O'Neill, you can sum it up in one succinct sentence courtesy of legendary college basketball coach Bob Knight: These Trojans won't be going to the senior prom.

"Bob Knight actually told me this one time," O'Neill said after Sunday's game, a loss. "When you make shots, you look pretty. You're the prom queen. When you don't, you don't get invited to the prom.

"And that's it."

It sure is. USC (5-12, 0-4 in the Pac-12) isn't getting invited to the prom this season -- not after a fifth-straight loss, this one by a 57-46 score to Arizona at the Galen Center. The Wildcats were in control all game in Sunday's matinee, never leading by fewer than double-digits once the game got going. USC put together a small, short run in the second half, getting within 10 points, but Arizona quickly squashed that with an and-one on the subsequent possession and two more baskets to follow.

Arizona's Jesse Perry led all scorers with 20 points, with no Trojan defender capable of matching his energy and inside-outside game. Former USC commit Solomon Hill had 11 points and a game-high 10 rebounds in 26 minutes, and Kyle Fogg also had 10 for the Wildcats, who are now 11-5 on the year and 2-1 in the Pac-12.

Maurice Jones had 14 points on 13 shots to lead USC but no assists and three turnovers. As a team, the Trojans shot a season-low 29 percent, including a miraculously bad 21 percent in the first half. The starting backcourt of Jones, Alexis Moore and Byron Wesley -- made eight of the 36 shots they attempted.

(Read full post)

LOS ANGELES -- This one was bad.

Bad, in that it was against a 4-9 Arizona State team with just one previous win over a major-conference squad. Bad, in that the Sun Devils played the game with just six scholarship players and managed to post their best shooting day of the season and their best road shooting day in eight years. Bad, in that USC scored the fewest points anybody's scored against ASU all season.

And bad in terms of outcome, too. The Trojans lost 62-53 to the Sun Devils on Thursday at the Galen Center, falling to 5-11 on the season and 0-3 in Pac-12 conference play.

"Our defense was very suspect," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said afterward. "We didn't do the job we normally do to give ourselves a chance to win the game."

Thursday's loss was the Trojans' seventh in their last eight games. USC's 2011-2012 season is quickly getting out of hand.

"I actually felt like we've let a lot slip away," said USC forward Dewayne Dedmon, who had eight points and seven rebounds in Thursday's loss. "But today, especially."

Carrick Felix led Arizona State with a career-high 22 points in 39 minutes. Trent Lockett, playing point guard for the first time the Sun Devils were missing two point guards because of suspension, added 19 points and four assists. The two combined to shoot a remarkable 15-of-21 -- 71 percent -- as ASU shot 61 percent as a team.

"Sure, they made some shots," O'Neill said. "But it's our job to make them miss."

"The bottom line is, if you're gonna let someone shoot 61 percent on your court, it's going to be hard to win."

Forward Aaron Fuller had a team-high 14 points for USC and guard Maurice Jones added 13, four assists and three steals.

As a team, the Trojans shot 38 percent from the field, their third straight under-40 display in Pac-12 play.

"That's not a recipe for success," O'Neill said. "That's a recipe for disaster."

Player of the game: There were no standout performances for the Trojans, but freshman guard Byron Wesley did put together a solid defensive game and double-digit offensive performance.

He finished with 10 points, four rebounds and two assists, although he did shoot just 5-of-15 from the field. One bright spot was his play on Felix, who he held to nine points in the second half after the ASU forward scored 13 points in the first half with Alexis Moore defending him.

"I thought he did a pretty good job," O'Neill said of Wesley's defense.

The 15 field-goal attempts were a career-high for Wesley, who had never attempted more than 11 in a college game.

Stat of the game: USC took 55 shots to Arizona State's 36 -- usually a great indicator of success.

But, while USC turned the ball over six times and forced 18 turnovers, the Trojans were so poor shooting the ball that they actually made fewer shots than the Sun Devils -- 21 to 22.

It was a statistical oddity.

"That's hard to figure," O'Neill said. "Any time you get 20 more shots than the opposition, you should have a great chance to win."

Quote of the game: "This isn't something that we're used to. This isn't something that we want. This isn't something that we want to be represented as, a team that plays hard but always comes up short. So we've gotta get back in the lab and do the little things so we can get over these humps." -- Moore

Moore, an 18-year-old freshman guard, has experienced losing like this before in his basketball career -- AAU ball growing up in Long Beach. But he said he refuses to accept it at this level, adding that the Trojans "have to win" their next game against Arizona.

USC is the only team in the Pac-12 still without a conference win.

Final notes: The Sun Devils played without three rotation players because reserve guard Chris Colvin and starters Keala King (Santa Ana Mater Dei) and Kyle Cain didn't make the trip to Los Angeles for "unacceptable conduct"...Because the game was not televised, the curtains at the north end of the Galen Center were open throughout the game, providing a view of the Downtown skyline...USC plays the Arizona Wildcats on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at Galen.

LOS ANGELES -- USC's defense is legitimately great.

The Trojans consistently hold teams far below their per-game point averages and force them to alter their offensive gameplans.

It's unfortunate, then, that they're also incredibly inept on the offensive side of the ball. If the Trojans were even average at putting the ball in the basket, they'd probably be staring at a top-two finish in the Pac-12 conference and an NCAA tournament bid.

But they're not, and so Kevin O'Neill's ragtag squad of undersized athletes, junior-college discoveries and major-college transfers will continue to lose games like Thursday's to Kansas, 63-47.

"We're always going to defend well enough to have a chance to win," O'Neill said after Thursday's game. "It's whether we can make enough plays or not.

"Tonight, unfortunately, we just didn't do that."

As O'Neill indicated, it wasn't that the Jayhawks overpowered USC. Kansas came up more than 12 points short of its season average and shot just over 40 percent from the field. None of Bill Self's players scored more than 14 points.

It was just that the Trojans (5-8) couldn't score -- at all. They scored 13 points total in the first half, with four each from Aaron Fuller and Alexis Moore. Fuller finished with 19 points to lead all scorers, but Maurice Jones' seven were second, and they came on 13 shot attempts.

And, with that, even the USC defense faded some late. After holding Kansas (8-3) to 25 points in the first half, the Jayhawks responded with 38 in the second, shooting 50 percent from the field after converting just 33 percent in the first 20 minutes.

Guard Elijah Johnson led the Jayhawks with 14. Conner Teahan added 13 for Kansas, who was playing its first true road game of the season and coming off an upset loss to Davidson earlier in the week.

"The game was a grinder, and we knew it was going to be like that," Self said afterward. "They wore us out in the game."

Said O'Neill: "It's hard to keep playing good defense when you just cannot seem to get anything going,"

(Read full post)

New Mexico is the break, really.

Kevin O'Neill's USC Trojans (4-5) have a two-week break between stretches of four games in eight days and three games in five days. The only thing breaking up the break is Saturday's 4 p.m. matchup against the visiting New Mexico Lobos at the Galen Center.

Finals, lasting until Wednesday the 14th, are the reason for the time off. But the Trojans are trying to use it to their advantage. They'll get one last week of preparation before Pac-12 play begins later this month, but this is the last chance until then they'll get to reset their season and start anew.

"It is an important time," O'Neill says, simply, mentioning the road-heavy schedule USC embarked on in the early part of the year and the tough opponents the Trojans will play later this month in TCU and No. 13 Kansas. During this time, he wants to focus on his team getting better in one area: defense.

That's not to say defense is USC's weakness. It's actually arguably the team's biggest strength. Rather, O'Neill wants the Trojans to focus on defense because he realizes that the team's other areas of struggle -- free-throw shooting and 3-point shooting, namely -- are not things that are going to be shored up suddenly.

It's like this: Either you spend your time working on something you know can get better with time, or you take a gamble and try to get lucky with the other stuff. O'Neill's picking the former, not the latter, even though his team's shooting a miserable 59 percent from the free-throw line and 29 percent from 3.

"It is what it is," he says. "We're pretty good defensively, for this point in the season. I like a lot of the things our guys have done."

Other things he likes include a low amount of turnovers and better rebounding. The Trojans' assist numbers are low, but their 13-turnover average isn't terrible. And Aaron Fuller's team-leading rebounding numbers have been important, although he's been bothered by some nagging injuries this year.

Another player nagged by injuries: forward Dewayne Dedmon, who was supposed to be out right now with a stress injury in his foot. Instead, he returned quickly and plans to play against New Mexico.

All of this, of course, could lead to speculation that the rest of this season is a sort of try-out for next season -- a rebuilding season, if you will. But O'Neill squashed any talk of that.

"I'm not thinking that at all," he said Thursday after the Trojans' two-hour practice. "I'm thinking we're gonna be a postseason team.

"We're planning on trying to play after the season's done."

Key players for Steve Alford's New Mexico team include guards Tony Snell and Kendall Williams, both Southern California natives, and forward Drew Gordon, he who once went to UCLA. The fourth scorer is a 6-2 guard named Demetrius Walker who was long the country's No. 1 player as a teenager.

The Lobos have reeled off four straight wins over the likes of Washington State and Boston College.

LOS ANGELES -- At some point, certain things become a tradition.

There's usually a time element involved -- as in, do something enough times over a relatively short amount of time, and it's officially tradition.

For USC, giving up a late lead and losing to Nebraska is now officially tradition.

It's the third straight season the Trojans have let up on the Cornhuskers in the final minutes. In 2009, USC led 46-43 and then lost 51-48. In 2010, USC led 39-26 at the half and 55-52 with five minutes to play but lost 60-58.

And Monday, the Trojans led by four with two minutes left in regulation and by three with a minute left in the first overtime period before losing 64-61 in double overtime at the Galen Center.

As USC guard Maurice Jones pointed out afterward, only two Trojans who played in 2010 also played in 2011 -- and none of the '09ers stayed until 2011. But make no mistake about it: This is clearly a tradition, and one that USC obviously wants no part of.

"You've gotta value each possession," said USC forward Aaron Fuller, whose former school, Iowa, will now play Nebraska twice a year after the Huskers joined the Big Ten this year. "We had multiple times to win it and unfortunately we made costly mistakes and didn't do it."

Trailing 25-23 at halftime, USC played a smart second half to take control 47-45 with four-plus minutes left on a Jones 3-pointer, but Byron Wesley and Jones both split ensuing trips to the foul line and the Trojans didn't score after that.

In the first OT, Fuller scored three straight points but Nebraska got lucky with a 3-pointer bouncing in, and then the Huskers took a 5-point lead in the second extra period that the Trojans couldn't come back from.

"I feel like if we had just one or two more stops the outcome may have been different," Fuller said.

There were some positives, like the significantly decreased number of turnovers -- 11 Monday in 50 minutes of play after 20 Friday in 40 minutes against Cal State Northridge. And the Trojans (1-1) also hit seven 3-pointers after going 0-of-15 from deep against CSUN.

But, of course, they didn't get the positive they wanted.

"We did everything but win the game," O'Neill said.

(Read full post)

LOS ANGELES -- He looked around the arena, soaking it all in, and gave his one of wide-mouthed smiles. He had the look of a man ready to start off a season.

But, inside, Dewayne Dedmon was freaking out.

Just before tip-off of USC's 2011-2012 season opener against Cal State Northridge on Friday at the Galen Center, Dedmon, the Trojans' 7-foot sophomore forward, tensed up for a second and realized what he was about to do.

In seconds, he'd officially be starting a game for the USC Trojans and getting his basketball career truly underway. He's played at other places -- a few minutes here and there in high school and as a post presence but little else for one season in junior college -- but never before was he counted on in such a big way.

Dedmon knew how important he was to his team's success -- both in Friday's game and in the 2011-2012 season in total. And that freaked him out, momentarily. Then he discarded those thoughts, won his team the tip-off and got to work on making his debut a success.

"After that, it was just, 'Let's get out here, and let's play,'" Dedmon said later.

He played, alright. Dedmon had his first points just 95 seconds after the tip when he dunked in a pass from point guard Maurice Jones, and he had eight points less than nine minutes into the game after he converted three straight jumpers.

Dedmon, who didn't start playing organized basketball until he was 18, finished the game with 16 points, eight rebounds and three blocks in 25 minutes, leading the Trojans to a 66-59 win over Cal State Northridge.

"I thought he played very well for the first time playing," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said after the game. "I mean, that's more than he scored his entire high school career.

"This guy's never played. I don't know how to compare it, he's just never had a chance to play at this level."

There certainly were issues: He didn't box out well at all and lost out on several rebounds as a direct result. His right hand, which had been in a cast for much of the last month until this week, appeared to betray him on occasion. He got in foul trouble and had to sit out the final eight minutes of the first half and then had to come out of the game in the second with cramps in his right leg.

USC (1-0) didn't play particularly well as a team, either. Dedmon was one of three players with 16 points for the Trojans -- forward Aaron Fuller and guard Maurice Jones were the others -- but O'Neill's squad turned the ball over 20 times and let visiting Cal State Northridge take a 4-point lead with five minutes to go.

From there, Dedmon and Jones combined to score 12 of USC's final 16 points to secure the victory.

"We're happy to get any win," O'Neill said. "It beats the alternative."

Player of the game: Fuller quietly dominated the paint for the Trojans, putting up a team-high-tying 16 points and a game-high nine rebounds.

USC ran very few plays for him, but he managed to come up with points just fine. He said O'Neill instructed him to make himself available near the top of the key to Maurice Jones.

He did it often, and didn't miss many of his shots either, going 5-of-7 from the field and 6-of-7 from the free-throw line.

"I thought Aaron Fuller had a great night," O'Neill said. "He really stepped up and made some great clutch plays."

"I thought Aaron did a great job getting to the middle of the court in the meat of their defense and making plays around the basket, getting to the basket and then getting to the foul line and making a few shots too."

Stat of the game: USC shot 15 3-point attempts and didn't convert a single one, good for precisely zero percent shooting from long range.

Jones and freshman guard Alexis Moore were the biggest perpetrators, each throwing up seven shots from deep. Walk-on Eric Strangis had the other failed attempt.

O'Neill has said all preseason that his team clearly lacked outside shooting, but nobody knew it was going to be this bad. He played Moore extensively -- 31 minutes -- because of his 3-point shooting acumen, but he wasn't pleased with a few of the freshman's shot selections.

"Obviously (0-for-15) is unacceptable," O'Neill said. "But I'm not worried about that at all. For the most part, I thought we had wide-open 3's. It's just somewhat we're going to have do, and we will. That's all there is to it."

Trend of the game: O'Neill started Strangis at shooting guard in a clear message to the other competitors for the spot that more was expected from them, but USC's lineup in the final seven minutes made it clear who O'Neill sees as the team's top-five players at this point in time.

The five: Jones, Moore, Wesley, Fuller and Dedmon. Asked about that trend afterward, O'Neill went off on a mini-rant on his displeasure with Moore's poor play of late.

"You know, Alexis isn't playing very well -- hasn't played very well in practice the last couple weeks, and he didn't play very well tonight," O'Neill said. "But he's a freshman, and when you're a freshman like that, you're just not going to play well. It's just the way it is.

"Unless you're one of these super guys that can drop off the moon like some of North Carolina's freshmen ... I know these guys are gonna struggle, but we've gotta play them."

Quote of the game: "Our guys think this is a kung-fu match. They think the harder I chop a guy, uh, boy, I'm a tough. I'm really tough, because I double-chopped him to the ground. Wow. That's not toughness. That's not smart basketball. What these guys need to understand is tough means doing the right thing all the time." -- O'Neill

The third-year USC coach was upset about his team's 20 turnovers and other various errors and was referencing the tomahawk-chop gesture Dedmon demonstrated after each of his three blocks.

Notes: Former USC stars DeMar DeRozan and Taj Gibson sat courtside for the game and were shown on the video board during the first half. DeRozan, who plays for the NBA's Toronto Raptors, was accompanied by teammate Ed Davis...Because the game was not broadcast on television, arena operators were able to keep the curtains open on the north side of the Galen Center, allowing for a view of the nighttime skyline in Downtown...The men's game was preceded by the women's basketball season opener, which the No. 23 Women of Troy won over Fresno State, 65-57...The announced crowd was 5,172.

Let’s get this out of the way, first off: 22-year-old USC forward Dewayne Dedmon is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Not necessarily better than anything you’ve ever seen, just different – significantly different.

He’s 7 feet tall, having grown four full inches between ages 18 and 21. He’s 255 pounds, having also gained upwards of 50 pounds in that same span.

And now for the weird but true, in progressive order: He’s the second-fastest player on the USC basketball team, coming in behind only 5-6 point guard Maurice Jones. He can play point guard in a pinch, Trojans coach Kevin O’Neill says. And, maybe the craziest statistic of them all: Counting exhibitions and summer league games and everything with an official and a game clock, he’s played in fewer than 100 organized basketball games in his life.

Truthfully, the last four years of Dedmon’s life – basketball-wise, at least -- have had to take the place of most kids’ entire adolescence, and probably more. He didn’t start playing organized basketball until he was 18 years old, and, even then, he didn’t play much at all until his second year of junior college.

And even then, he broke a bone in his forehead two months into the season and sat out a month. Now, 11 months since he arrived at USC, he’s finally almost fully healthy, having broken a bone in his shooting hand a less than a week into practice this October. He had to wear a gigantic makeshift cast on his right hand to be able to take part in practices until Tuesday of this week, when he had the thing removed once and for all.

He’s not pain-free, but he’s cast-free, and that’s a big step.

“This is how I explain him: He’s 7-foot and he runs like a deer,” says Jio Fontan, the USC basketball team’s captain, likely out for the 2011-2012 season with a torn ACL. “I tell people all the time, if you saw him in jogging pants just walking into the gym and asked him to shoot a jump shot, he’s gonna show you he’s a little different.

“He shoots the ball like a guard, plain and simple. But give him time. Understand that not only has he not played that many years of basketball, but he’s also just coming off sitting a whole year out.

“He’s gonna be special. It’s just gonna take time.”

The thing is, USC doesn’t have any time. Dedmon’s first major college game is Friday at 8 p.m. against Cal State Northridge, the Trojans’ 2011-12 season opener. It’ll be his first real game since February 2010. And O’Neill needs him to be the team’s No. 2 scorer and No. 1 rebounder in order the Trojans to have any real chance of getting back to the NCAA tournament this season.

It’s unlikely, but that’s what everyone said last year at this same time. And USC ended up finishing with 19 wins and sneaking into the First Four of the tourney.

Then the Trojans lost top scorer Nikola Vucevic to the NBA draft, starters Alex Stepheson, Marcus Simmons and Donte Smith to graduation and Fontan to injury. The question now is whether O’Neill can manage his new, similarly patchwork squad to similar heights.

Let’s break it down, splitting it up by backcourt and frontcourt:

(Read full post)

USC senior point guard Jio Fontan suffered a potentially serious left knee injury during the second quarter of the Trojans' eventual 81-70 loss to Mogi das Cruzes in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.

X-rays on the knee were negative, a team spokesperson said, but Fontan will undergo an MRI exam Wednesday. As of now, it's being called a sprain.

"I'm always worried about any injury," O'Neill said by phone from Sao Paulo late Tuesday. "But we won't know anything until tomorrow."

USC was up by six at the time Fontan went out of the game, but the Trojans quickly fell behind without their captain and senior leader. Forward Aaron Fuller also missed the game with an illness, so USC was forced to play walk-on Eric Strangis extensive minutes and work newcomers Greg Allen, Alexis Moore and Byron Wesley into the rotation.

O'Neill said they were in a "little over their heads."

Sophomore guard Maurice Jones led the team with 17 points and eight rebounds and center Dewayne Dedmon had his best game yet with 15 points, five rebounds and three blocks. Forward Garrett Jackson added 12 points and six rebounds and Fontan had eight points at the time of his injury.

"We actually played well, against another good team," O'Neill said. "Our guys did a great job."

USC will travel from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro Wednesday and then play its final game of the trip on Friday in Rio. The Trojans had planned on playing a game Wednesday or Thursday in one of the two cities, but those plans have been scrapped.

Trojans coach Kevin O'Neill and his team practiced one last time Thursday before they jet off for a land far, far away on Friday, as they'll spend the next 10 days in Brazil and land back in Los Angeles Aug. 21.

Thursday's session was quick, lasting under an hour. But it served its primary purpose all the same: to cement O'Neill's vision of the starting lineup and bench roles. Here's what he has planned for the trip, where the Trojans will play four games against Brazilian professional teams and one scrimmage:

PG: Jio Fontan

SG: Mo Jones

SF: Evan Smith

PF: Aaron Fuller

C: Dewayne Dedmon

Off the bench: F Garrett Jackson, G Greg Allen, G Byron Wesley, G Alexis Moore, C James Blasczyk

O'Neill also plans to play walk-ons Eric Strangis, Tyler Sugiyama and Daniel Munoz, all guards. Transfer forwards Ari Stewart and Eric Wise are sitting out the 2011-2012 season and are thus not eligible for the trip, per NCAA rules.

Also making the trip with the Trojans is senior associate athletic director Steve Lopes.

In other basketball news, USC has hired a new director of basketball operations, Jamal Boddie, a 2009 graduate of the University of Arizona who worked as a manager for the Wildcats while O'Neill was the head coach. The previous director, Ryan Hennick, spent two seasons on the job before resigning in the offseason.

In preparation for its Aug. 12 trip to Brazil, USC will hold 10 official practices beginning later this month in a scheduling quirk allowed by the NCAA.

All of the incoming freshmen will be able to get on the court with their new teammates for those sessions, but new transfers Ari Stewart (Wake Forest) and Eric Wise (UC Irvine) will be forced to sit on the sidelines and watch because of NCAA transfer regulations.

Both players are playing in local leagues during the summer, though -- Stewart at the Sayno Classic at LA Trade Technical College, with many of his teammates, and Wise at the Drew League in South Central.

We caught up with Wise last week after he spent much of a game guarding the Warriors' Dorell Wright. Here's the text of the conversation, complete with Wise's hour-by-hour recounting of the day he signed with the Trojans and his opinions on a couple USC coaches.

PM: Your situation’s kind of unique to most transfers. You’re moving between schools less than an hour away and jumping up a level from UC Irvine to USC. Was this a case of attempting to move up in the world for your final year in college?

EW: Yeah, pretty much. I didn’t have anything against UCI. I just thought it’d be best for me, in the long run, to go to another school, and that happened to be at USC.

PM: You contemplated transferring a year ago, right? After your sophomore year at UCI. What made you decide to stay?

EW: Yeah, that’s right. I was thinking about it last year but then ended up staying for my junior year. I was real cool with my teammates – they were like my brothers – and I wanted to try to win with them. I wanted to try to win the Big West tourney.

PM: How did the season go?

EW: We didn’t end up having a good season. We had some losses that we should have won. We had a couple memorable wins, though. We beat Long Beach [State] on Homecoming.

PM: And you played USC, right? At the Galen Center in November?

EW: Yeah, we did play them, early in the year. That was one of the games I got hurt in. I missed a couple games because of that.

PM: So your recruitment, as I understand it, was a bit abnormal this May. You told your coach, Russell Turner, in April you wanted to transfer away from Irvine but then stayed pretty quiet on it until late May when, all the sudden, you had signed your scholarship papers with USC and were going to be a Trojan. Take me through that.

EW: It all happened in like, a day. I don’t really know -- I think it was the last day of the period they could talk to somebody. I had to give them my release so they could talk to me, so I remember running around that day. And it happened to be the day of the big compliance meeting in Arizona so all the compliance people were gone, from both schools, so I remember I was running around all day trying to get it cleared and get it faxed. I ended up driving up there from Riverside around 5 o’clock on a Friday.

PM: About Riverside -- you went to high school with Kawhi Leonard, a 2011 first-rounder of the San Antonio Spurs. Is his ascent from not being seriously recruited by any big schools, at first at least, to the Sweet 16 and nearly the lottery an inspirational story for you as a former teammate?

EW: Mmhmm, exactly. I remember nobody – none of the big schools were recruiting him, but he actually wanted to go to USC out of high school. But they weren’t interested in him. And so he happened to go to San Diego State and then ended up working out for him. We all knew he could play -- I don’t know why everybody else couldn’t see it.

PM: What about you? Who else recruited you out of high school?

EW: Cal Poly SLO, Montana State offered me my junior year but they took it away my senior year, Boston University. A couple of other schools did but I lost contact with them; the only ones I stayed talking to were Irvine and SLO.

PM: If you had to guess, now that you’re at a Division I program, what would you say is the reason you couldn’t attract big-college interest out of high school?

EW: I think it was the size. They didn’t think I was athletic enough. They didn’t think I’d be able to play down low at the Division-I level.

PM: And what about USC? Do you get the idea that they pay more attention to basketball skill, as opposed to size? Their top two guards (Maurice Jones and Jio Fontan) are listed at 5-7 and 6-foot. Aaron Fuller’s no taller than 6-6 and a power forward.

EW: Yeah, they do. It just doesn’t matter to them as much. You see, Maurice, when we played them in November, he was the one that did the most damage against us, so I could tell they didn’t care how tall he was or anything. He’s like 5-6 or 5-7. If you can play, you can play for them.

PM: Two of those undersized players transferred in to USC over the last couple of years. Have you talked to them about the process at all? It’s not generally a happy time, to be sitting out a full year and all.

EW: Yeah, that’s what they said. They said it’s kinda hard but it can be beneficial if you work out and use the time to your advantage. Aaron said he lost 15 pounds and put on a lot on a muscle.

PM: You and Aaron are sort of similar players, it seems like. Both undersized forwards, both pretty productive at other schools…How would you compare your two games?

EW: We both are kinda undersized but can shoot the jumper and go from the inside out. Right now he’s a lot stronger than me, so hopefully by the time my year comes I can get in the same shape he’s in.

PM: Speaking of shape, the stylings of USC’s strength and conditioning coach, Shaun Brown, have gotten a lot of publicity from the guys on the team on Twitter. They’re always saying this and that about Shaun and how he’s working them out way harder than they’re used to. Are you ready for that?

EW: It’s gonna be hard, but it’s gonna be worth it. He’s really good. He worked in the NBA for a couple years, and he knows a lot.

PM: About the NBA, that’s one of the things recruits cite as the appeal of USC’s head coach, Kevin O’Neill. He’s been a head coach in the league, he’s been an assistant. Now, as a college basketball coach, he knows how to prepare you guys for the league. Were you interested in that?

EW: Yeah, exactly. He knows how to get there and he knows what it takes. You have to listen to him. He’s been where everybody wants to be.