2011-12 Southern Cal Basketball Season Preview
October 28, 2011
Southern Cal had a decent year in 2010-11 having a 19-15 record and also a 4th place finish within the Pac-10 conference. Within the Pac-10 tourney the Trojans advanced to the semifinals, then proceeded to drop the play-in game to Virginia Commonwealth. With the departures of the team’s top two rebounders, it will likely be fascinating to see how the team replaces those stats.
Recap
USC had a decent year in 2010-11 having a 19-15 record as well as a fourth place finish in the Pac-10 conference. In the conference tourney Southern Cal made it to the semifinals, then proceeded to go down in the play-in game of the tourney to Virginia Commonwealth.
USC obtained results by being a good defensive team. Southern Cal held their opponents to 40.9% from the floor shooting and also to 63.3 points per game.
The departures of Nikola Vucevic and Alex Stepheson is going to be challenging to replace. Vucevic averaged 17.1 points every game and brought down 10.3 boards per game. Stepheson was the team’s second leading rebounder at 7.2 every game and also contributed 9.8 points.
2011-12 Overview
Kevin O’Neill has been the Trojan head coach for two seasons and has supplied the fans teams that play tough and improve as the year progresses. This year’s team has a whole lot of production to replace, but O’Neill does have Jio Fontan, Maurice Jones, and Garrett Jackson all back. Together with a solid recruiting class the Trojans brought in transfers Aaron Fuller and Dewayne Dedmon.
Backcourt
USC is going be heavily relying on their guard starters of Fontan and Jones. Fontan sat out fall semester last season, but returned to pace the group in assists and ended up second in points at more than ten points each contest.
Jones was 3rd on the Trojans in offense with 9.9 points every game, dished out 110 total assists, and set the team record with 69 steals as a freshman. His achievements helped to get paid a place on the Pac-10 All-Freshman squad.
Bryon Wesley is a 6’5″ freshman perimeter player who is expected to contribute on the offensive side immediately. Alexis Moore is another freshman who really should see action and contributes properly on each side sides of the floor. Junior college transfer Greg Allen can be a solid defender and can shoot 3.
Frontcourt
USC’s three big men should be Aaron Fuller, Dewayne Dedmon, and James Blascyk. Fuller was forced to sit out the 2010-11 year soon after transferring from Iowa. In his sophomore season for the Hawkeyes he was honorable mention on the All-Conference team with 9.7 points and almost 7 boards every game.
These players will likely be pushed in practice by a couple of transfers who will sit out this year. Ari Stewart came over from Wake Forest and Eric Wise is a transfer from UC-Irvine.
Every single year we provide our USC basketball predictions in order to get you ready to beat the NCAA basketball lines.
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