ESPN

ESPNU Top 100 No. 1 recruit Shabazz Muhammad officially visited USC this weekend, touring the campus, attending the Trojans' football game against Stanford and receiving a specifically-tailored marketing presentation by athletic director Pat Haden.

He came away pleased with what he saw.

"I think he has a huge interest in USC," his father, Ron Holmes, said in a telephone interview Sunday night upon returning to Las Vegas, where they live. "He loves the school."

Muhammad visited alongside Holmes and his younger brother Rashad Muhammad, a class of 2013 recruit. Holmes, a four-year basketball letterman at USC from 1981 to '85, has played a big role in Muhammad's continued interest in USC, but he says he doesn't have to convince his son to keep the Trojans in the running.

Haden met with Muhammad and his family Sunday before the Salute to Troy event at the Galen Center and presented him with a number of different ways the Trojans planned to showcase him at USC, beginning next November with the 2012-2013 season. Holmes characterized it as a "great marketing presentation."

"I think they're really trying to change the atmosphere in the basketball program," he said of Haden and USC head coach Kevin O'Neill.

A big part of O'Neill's pitch, Holmes said, is what he expects his team to be like during Muhammad's freshman season. The Trojans will have a ton of talent returning in the backcourt, and Muhammad would appear to fit right in at small forward.

"Well, he likes the guys that he brought in," Holmes said of O'Neill, mentioning Wake Forest transfers J.T. Terrell and Ari Stewart and Jio Fontan, out for the year because of a torn ACL but expected to return next season. "He thinks he has a formidable team."

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For the second time in a month, USC will visit the Las Vegas home of 2012 No. 1 recruit Shabazz Muhammad, a source close to the program said.

USC head coach Kevin O'Neill and associate head coach Bob Cantu will make the visit with Muhammad and family late Tuesday, the second-to-last day of the NCAA-allowed contact period, which began on Sept. 9. O'Neill and Cantu also visited with Muhammad and his family on the first day of the period.

Muhammad is the son of former USC forward Ron Holmes, who some say is the driving force behind Muhammad's interest in the Trojans. But his interest appears to be growing in recent weeks, with a surprise visit in August to the USC campus and then the Trojans' in-home visit with him last month.

The 6-6, 215-pound Muhammad is the No. 1 overall player in the ESPNU 100. He's defensively adept and well-built for a 17-year-old, capable of dominating most high-schoolers and many AAU opponents with a polished left-handed mid-range game. He's considered a likely bet to start right away as a freshman, whether he chooses USC or any of the other schools he's considering, including Kentucky, UCLA, UNLV, Duke or Kansas.

Muhammad still plans to visit USC the weekend of Oct. 28, which would fall on the same weekend as the USC-Stanford football game. His other known scheduled visit is at Kentucky on Oct. 14 for the Wildcats' Big Blue Madness practice-kickoff event.

The Trojans have two players committed in the Class of 2012: Phoenix guard Larry Lewis, a 6-3 slasher who verbally committed to USC in March 2010, and 6-8 Strahinja Gavrilovic, a Serbian forward spending his senior season at La Jolla Prep near San Diego.

Shabazz Muhammad, the top basketball recruit in the class of 2012, plans to officially visit USC the weekend of Oct. 28., a source said Sunday night, after the Trojans made an in-home visit with Muhammad in Las Vegas on the first day of the new NCAA-allowed contact period Friday.

Muhammad, the No. 1 overall player in the ESPNU 100, is a 6-foot-6, 215-pound left-hander who plays on the wing for Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas. His father is former USC forward Ron Holmes.

The Trojans have been recruiting him since his freshman year of high school but have only recently put somewhat in the spotlight on his recruitment. Recruits can take only five official visits, so Muhammad scheduling a visit with USC would indicate he has the school firmly in his top five.

Other schools believed to be high on Muhammad include Kentucky, UCLA and UNLV. Kansas and Duke are also in the running, among others. UNLV's first-year head coach, Dave Rice, is the older brother of Muhammad's high school coach Grant Rice.

USC head coach Kevin O'Neill and associate head coach Bob Cantu visited with Muhammad and his family early Friday morning before coach Ben Howland and UCLA did so later that day.

Muhammad, 17, has proven capable of dominating opponents at the high school level with his wide variety of moves near the basket and arsenal of offensive options. His defense is college-ready and he has been described as a much better player, makeup-wise, than most top recruits in recent years.

Of note: A new NCAA rule instituted this year allows college coaches to call all recruits an unlimited amount of times between now and Oct. 5, the end of the current contact period.

USC will visit the Las Vegas home of top Class of 2012 recruit Shabazz Muhammad on Friday, the first day of the next NCAA-allowed contact period, a source said Wednesday.

Head coach Kevin O'Neill and associate head coach Bob Cantu will make the in-home visit with Muhammad and his family Friday morning as the first set of coaches to make a visit. Expected to be present at the meeting are Muhammad's father, former USC basketball player Ron Holmes, and his mother, former Long Beach State basketball player Faye Muhammad.

USC was not thought to be particularly high on Muhammad's extensive list of potential suitors until the 6-6, 215-pound left-hander showed up on campus for a surprise visit last month. The Trojans are still not believed to be leading the race to sign him,, but it's clear they at least have somewhat of a shot.

Muhammad, the No. 1 overall player in the ESPNU 100, is well-built for a 17-year-old, capable of manhandling high-schoolers and many AAU opponents with a variety of moves within 15 feet of the basket. His defensive skills are also better than most top recruits at his age.

The contact period beginning Friday ends October 5, after which begins a so-called evaluation period, when in-home visits are not allowed. 2012 recruits can sign letters of intent with colleges between November 9-November 16 or wait until the other signing period in April.

The Trojans currently have one player committed in the Class of 2012: Phoenix, Az. guard Larry Lewis, a 6-3 slasher who verbally committed to USC in March 2010.

2012 recruits Zena Edosomwan (North Hollywood, Calif./Harvard Westlake) and Joe Rahon (San Diego, Calif./Torrey Pines) will also officially visit the school this weekend. Edosomwan, a 6-8, 220-pound forward, has been a top target of the Trojans for quite some time.

Longtime USC assistant coach Bob Cantu, who interviewed for a head coaching position at UC Davis at the Final Four in Houston earlier this month, is no longer a candidate for the spot and plans to stay at USC for the 2011-2012 season, he confirmed Thursday.

Cantu, now the Trojans' associate head coach under Kevin O'Neill, had also been a candidate for the head coaching vacancy at Fresno State, which was filled by former Texas assistant Rodney Terry. Those were the only two spots he was known to be up for this offseason.

"I am not a candidate for any head coaching positions," Cantu said Thursday, the day after the NCAA-sanctioned spring recruiting period came to a close. "I'm focused on recruiting and next season."

The upcoming season will be Cantu's 11th at USC and his second as the school's associate head coach. He has worked under four head coaching regimes with the Trojans: O'Neill, Tim Floyd, Henry Bibby and interim coach Jim Saia.

At the team's annual postseason banquet last month, O'Neill told a crowd of boosters and alumni he expected Cantu to get a head coaching job sooner rather than later.

Cantu, who coached the Trojans in the Pac-10 tournament semifinals against Arizona after O'Neill was suspended for the game, is also the Trojans' lead recruiter.

USC associate head coach Bob Cantu remembers the time he first realized Derrick Williams could be something special.

It was Feb. 19, 2008.

Williams was a junior in high school, his La Mirada team going against fellow junior Jordan Hamilton and Compton Dominguez in the second round of the playoffs as heavy, heavy underdogs -- at Dominguez, to boot.

But Williams, in a performance that now seems somewhat similar to his monster game Thursday in a Sweet 16 win over Duke, posted a 28-point first half -- 31 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks in all -- and almost led La Mirada to an upset win over Dominguez.

When Cantu, now in his 10th year as an assistant with the Trojans, left the Dominguez gym, he immediately called then-USC head coach Tim Floyd.

"We've got to get this guy," he said.

The Trojans did get Williams -- to sign with them, at least. He signed a letter of intent to attend USC later that year and had every plan to enroll at the school the next summer before Floyd's resignation and all of the controversy surrounding it.

But, shortly after Floyd resigned on June 10, 2009, Williams and two other USC signees -- Lamont 'Momo' Jones and Solomon Hill -- were released from their signed letters, per their requests and allowed to sign with different schools.

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It was a funny sight inside the Galen Center, where all the USC basketball coaches huddled to wait for the 3 p.m. NCAA tournament selection show to hear official word on the next week of their lives.

Associate head coach Bob Cantu, who coached USC's Friday game against Arizona in Kevin O'Neill's absence, and assistant Dieter Horton sat in Cantu's office and watched the end of the Atlantic 10 tournament final intently. Richmond played Dayton in the final, and the Trojans needed Richmond to win in order to save them an at-large bid.

Richmond won, convincingly. Horton stood and did a dramatic fist pump.

USC's players were following the game, too. Junior guard Jio Fontan asked Twitter followers for updates on the game in between "Go Richmond!" tweets. Senior forward Alex Stepheson, in a slight stretch, said he'd been a lifelong Spiders fan.

Now Cantu sat in his office, alone, looking at a bracket report on his laptop. Horton and fellow assistant Tony Miller -- along with strength and conditioning coach Shaun Brown -- were leading the Trojans through a weightlifting session 30 feet away.

What was O'Neill doing? A whole bunch of things.

He ran the 2.5 miles to work this morning from his downtown Los Angeles penthouse, hearing a few catcalls from fans and passersby along the way. He's suddenly become a lot more famous, he noted.

He took calls in his office, almost non-stop, thanking well-wishers for their support during what he called the very tough times of the last three days.

Bracket talk was on in every television in the coaches' offices. Preparation for the next opponent must wait, of course, until the Trojans knew who their next opponent was.

They hoped to find out sometime in the 3 o'clock hour, during the NCAA selection show. They could also find out sometime in the 6 o'clock hour, during the NIT selection show. Obviously they were hoping for the former.

If the Trojans do make the Big Dance, they could be asked to play in the new First Four play-in games in Dayton, Ohio, on Tuesday or Wednesday.

ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi was projecting the Trojans as the last team in the tournament and projected them to play Clemson on Tuesday or Wednesday in Dayton as a play-in game for a No. 12 seed.

An interesting note: If USC does make the tourney as one of the First Four -- the last four, technically -- and wins the play-in game, it will play its first- (and possible second-) round game in either Denver or Chicago.

LOS ANGELES -- It has been a while since USC associate head coach Bob Cantu was the head coach of a basketball team.

Fifteen years, to be exact -- and that was as a JV head coach in his hometown of San Luis Obispo. But when USC head coach Kevin O'Neill was suspended Friday afternoon by Trojans athletic director Pat Haden for his role in an altercation with an opposing booster that took place Thursday night, Cantu took the reins of the squad for which he has served as an assistant coach for the last 10 seasons.

And, going against the class of the Pac-10 in No. 16 Arizona, Cantu's Trojans (19-14) held their own until the final minutes, eventually falling short, 67-62, to the Wildcats in the semifinals of the conference tournament.

“That was unbelievable, in my eyes," said USC guard Jio Fontan, who had seven points and five assists in 28 minutes. "To be honest, I didn’t expect him to do the job he did today. I knew myself, as a leader, I was gonna go out there and try to lead my team -- but Coach Cantu today, that was almost unreal.

"That’s one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever dealt with, throwing a coach into the fire to face a top 15 team just on the fly, two hours before the game."

Cantu said he learned he'd coach the game at 3 p.m., three hours before tip-off. He made plentiful use of his fellow assistants -- Dieter Horton was in charge of substitutions, Tony Miller called out defensive assignments and strength coach Shaun Brown focused on Nikola Vucevic -- but Cantu was the play-caller and the guy in charge of the huddle.

And his players, from Fontan and Vucevic to seniors Alex Stepheson and Marcus Simmons, praised his performance.

"He didn’t show us any sign of fear, any sign of confusion or anything," Fontan said. "He was ready for the moment. He didn’t try to be KO, he was himself. He was different. He was real confident in himself, and I think that’s what made the team go the way we did today."

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USC (18-13, 10-8) enters the Pac-10 Tournament as the first conference team out of the likely NCAA Tournament field, but the Trojans fortunately have enough time left to prove themselves this week in advance of Selection Sunday.

Projected to finish sixth in the conference entering the season, USC tied for fourth with Cal and won the fourth seed in the Pac-10 tourney based on conference tiebreakers. The Trojans started off the season pretty badly, actually, going 4-4 in their first eight games against zero likely NCAA tournament teams. But when December started, USC kicked it into gear, slamming No. 20 Texas at home and, two weeks later, barely losing to No. 3 Kansas on the road. A win over No. 18 Tennessee followed, and the Trojans finished off the year with a convincing small-school win, an overtime loss against conference favorite Washington and a win over Washington State, now a team just about as much on the bubble as they are.

From there, things went back and forth. USC beat UCLA impressively, then lost at Oregon and Oregon State. The low point on the year came midway through February when the Trojans fell to 13-12 and 5-7 in conference after losing at home to the Ducks. But the Trojans have won five of six since then and are now apparently peaking at the right time, as multiple players said in practice last week before the Washington trip.

Let's recap what's led to that peak as we approach Thursday's tournament opener against Cal:

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LOS ANGELES -- In Donte Smith's three years at USC since transferring from nearby Mt. San Antonio College, the redshirt senior guard had never managed to score more than 14 points in a game.

He matched that number in less than four minutes Saturday, connecting on four 3-pointers and a key breakaway layup when Northern Arizona got close in the second half of Saturday's game at the Galen Center, leading the Trojans to 60-52 victory.

"I thought Donte really stepped up for us, and that's kind of an understatement," USC coach Kevin O'Neill said. "What he did tonight won the game for us."

USC (6-4) led just 40-37 with 9:27 to go after NAU's Cameron Jones poured in a 10-footer, but Smith hit a 3-pointer on the Trojans' next trip down the floor, converted a layup after a Marcus Simmons steal, and then hit three consecutive threes -- interrupted by one Lumberjack triple -- to open up the lead to 54-40.

The Trojans then dealt with one more NAU push before sealing it with two free throws from freshman Maurice Jones (nine points and four assists in 40 minutes) in the final minute. The Lumberjacks (7-3) played an oddly solid defense throughout the game -- "kind of a man and zone at the same time," forward Nikola Vucevic described it -- and forced USC to rely either on the outside shot or the inside game, with no in-between.

With Alex Stepheson and Vucevic combining to shoot just 7-of-20 from the field for the Trojans, they were fortunate Smith was on his game.

Player of the game: Smith finished with a career-high 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 5-of-9 from 3-point range. Picking up for freshman Bryce Jones, who O'Neill said struggled on defense in the second half, he also had a season-high three steals in 31 minutes.

He's done the whole shoot-well-off-the-bench shtick before, but he took it to a new level this time. The fourth three, particularly, was fun to watch. Smith showed some maturity in not demanding the ball right away on the possession and instead waited for the ball to come around to him at the right elbow, calmly and smoothly converting the shot when it did.

"Donte is that type of guy," said Vucevic, who had his sixth double-double of the season with 13 points and 10 rebounds. "He's going to come off the bench and hit a few big shots and get us going. In the second half, we kinda stopped playing hard at one point and Donte came in and hit like three threes in a row, and that got us going.

"That's what he does. He's just a guy who comes in and brings a lot of energy."

Stat of the game: Vucevic and Stepheson each had four blocks in Saturday's game -- by far the Trojans' most this season. USC's previous high had been four. The two forwards also added 21 rebounds.

NAU didn't start a player taller than 6-foot-7, although the Lumberjacks did have two legitimate forwards available off the bench. Vucevic and Stepheson's dominant defensive play a inside the keymade those players -- 6-foot-9 Austin Smith and 6-foot-10 Josh Lepley -- fairly obsolete.

NAU scored only 18 points in the paint and was out-rebounded by 12, 41-29.

Quote of the game: "Jio Fontan is going to start for us. I don't know who else is going to start or not start for us, but Jio is going to start."

O'Neill has strictly maintained all season that Fontan, a transfer from Fordham, would immediately become the Trojans' top guard when he became eligible to compete after the end of the first semester.

Well, that time has come.

By the time USC plays its next game -- at Kansas next Saturday, conveniently -- the fall semester will be over at USC and Fontan will suit up with his team and immediately be inserted into the starting lineup. O'Neill's goal for his team was to stay in reasonably good shape for his return, and the Trojans have done that, although their resume was significantly damaged by an embarrassing home loss to Rider last month. Now, Fontan's debut will give the team its full roster just in time for the key Kansas and Tennessee road games.

Said Lumberjacks coach Mike Adras, who took over at NAU in 1999 for now-UCLA coach Ben Howland: "USC is a good team, and they are going to be even better when Jio Fontan becomes eligible."

We'll have more on Fontan in the coming week.

Notes: The Trojans improved to 5-0 when holding the opponent to a field-goal percentage of 40 percent or worse and 5-1 at home on the season. ...NAU had entered the game on a seven-game winning streak, beating Pepperdine on the road during that span. The Lumberjacks also came within four points of beating Creighton last month. USC assistant coach Bob Cantu tweeted after the game that NAU will win its conference -- the Big Sky -- this season. Said O'Neill: "They're obviously a very good team and I thought they played exceptionally well."

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See what Smith had to say to the media after the game, including intriguing comments on the chemistry present with this year's Trojans squad and his hard work last offseason:

Basketball assistants Gib Arnold and Phil Johnson will not be retained, the university officially announced in a statement Tuesday.

The decision came after a long process, USC coach Kevin O'Neill said.

"This is a decision I wrestled with for a while," O'Neill said in the statement. "It had nothing to do with their coaching ability or performance, or with any issues related to the current status of the Trojan program.

"It simply has to do with the vision I have for how I want to structure this program."

Arnold and Johnson were brought on when former coach Tim Floyd was hired in 2005 and each spent five seasons with the team. Arnold said he had known for "some time" that O'Neill intended to bring his own assistants at some point.

"I understand and support this decision and wish Kevin, his new staff and the USC basketball team all my best," Arnold said. "I am thankful that I was able to help Kevin during his transition year."

Johnson, who also served as an assistant coach with Arizona and the NBA's Chicago Bulls, said he was proud to be a part of USC's three straight consecutive winning seasons under Floyd.

Added Johnson: "I have no doubt that Kevin and his new staff will do extremely well and I'm sure exceed that."

Bob Cantu, often named one of the top assistants in the nation, will stay with the program. Cantu has served an assistant under former USC coach Henry Bibby, Floyd and O'Neill.

The official statements from O'Neill, Arnold and Johnson are available here.