Click on any of the links below to get the lowest prices online on authentic NCAA approved USC Trojans merchandise:

Discount USC Trojans Football Jerseys

Discount USC Trojans Hats

Discount USC Trojans Tee Shirts

Thank you for stopping by and please let us know what you think by clicking on the comment link at the end of the post.

From: Examiner

We continue with our preseason assessment of the men's Pac-10 basketball teams, and today we take a look at USC, which we expect to finish eighth.

Washington State was picked ninth (see WSU story here), and the other conference schools will be reviewed in inverse order of predicted finish over the next few days.

At USC, the whirlwind offseason has left the Trojans almost starting from scratch. Not only did they lose three starters – wing DeMar DeRozan, center Taj Gibson and point guard Daniel Hackett – but they lost coach Tim Floyd amid allegations of NCAA violations.

They have new players in a number of key roles and will have to adjust to a new coach, Kevin O’Neill, who has been in charge just a few months. O’Neill is strictly a man-to-man coach defensively, and he prefers a half court game offensively. Those are not dramatic changes for the Trojans, who played a variety of defenses and offensive styles under Floyd.

Whatever success the Trojans have will be based on the play of guard Dwight Lewis and forward Alex Stepheson. Lewis was the team’s leading scorer last season, and he will probably improve on his 14.4 points of a season ago. Stepheson, a tough 6-9 power forward in his first season of eligibility at USC after transferring from North Carolina, will have to provide points, rebounding and a physical presence inside.

Donte Smith, who played little last season, will be the team’s starting point guard when the season opens, but Mike Gerrity, who will be eligible in December after transferring from Charlotte last year, is expected to be the Trojans point guard in conference play.

Leonard Washington, who may add some inside muscle, won’t be eligible until the next term either, because he is academically ineligible in the fall.

USC will have to get production from forwards Nikola Vucevic and Kasey Cunningham, who missed the past three seasons with knee problems, to move up in the standings.

The Trojans just don’t have the offensive weapons or the athleticism they have had the past two seasons. They are also short on experience and don’t have a proven point guard, all of which they had last season when they finished 9-9 in the conference but won the Pac-10 tournament to get an NCAA Tournament berth. Adjusting to a new coach won’t make the transition in personnel any easier.

They play their first four games at home, including the Nov. 17 opener against UC Riverside, and don't go on the road until December. That may help some, but we still picked USC to finish eighth.

Related posts:

1. USC Basketball Picked To Finish 9th In Pac-10! From: LA Times It sounded like a compliment. "As he goes, basically, we'll go," first-year USC basketball Coach Kevin O'Neill said of guard Dwight Lewis. Members of the media don't expect that to be very far. In a vote, they...
2. USC Basketball Preview From: Sports Network Taj Gibson is gone. So, too, are DeMar DeRozan and Daniel Hackett. Those three players combined to score over 40 of the team's 68.5 ppg last season, so there is no wonder why first-year coach Kevin O'Neill...
3. USC’s Leonard Washington likes to be a bully in the block From: LA Times By Baxter Holmes Growing up, Leonard Washington hated it when people talked trash to him on the basketball court. But Washington, who became academically eligible for USC on Dec. 22, doesn't much abide by the Golden Rule....
4. USC Trojans Basketball Team Ends Season On A Bad Note But Things Are Looking Up… Watching the NCAA tournament game between the USC basketball Trojans and the Michigan State Spartans all I kept thinking was that the Spartans were getting a lot more calls then were the USC Trojans. That's to be expected I guess...
5. WSU Basketball: Trojans Look to Defend Homecourt Against Cougars Los Angeles, CA –The Washington State (13-5, 3-3) men's basketball squad will travel south to Los Angeles this week for a pair of Pac-10 road games. First up for the Cougs will be the USC Trojans on (11-6, 3-2) Thursday...
6. USC-Washington: Trojans Impose Big D on the Basketball Court, Defeat Huskies Supposing someone said before last fall’s football campaign that the USC defense would implode on the football field, as it did at Oregon and at home against Stanford, but that after being ruled out of any postseason rewards the Trojan...
7. Gerrity takes unusual path to success at Southern California Coming out of Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei High in 2005, Mike Gerrity had a vision for how his college career would play out. He would sign with a school close to home and start for four years, culminating in...
8. The Skinny on USC Hoops: 4 Straight NCAA Tourney Appearances? Your SC Hoops Primer Though I was a little more optimistic than most of the college basketball media who predicted the Trojans to finish 9th in the Pac-10, I didn’t expect much from a program reeling from an NCAA investigation, the loss of a...
9. USC Basketball Team Finally Plays With Some Urgency It is believed that the USC Trojans basketball team has to reach the finals in the Pac 10 conference tournament in order to reach to NCAA tournament which begins on Thursday of next week and while it may seem like...
10. Hoops Preview: Q & A with California Golden Blogs More photos » Tony Avelar - AP Browse more photos » After one crazy signing day on the football side of things, today brings a highly competitive Pac-10 basketball matchup against California, which is [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Hoops Preview: Q...