Sunny California
Tradition-rich USC making it -- in basketball
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- "Nyah, nyah, nyah. Ha, ha, ha. You're just the second team in LA, SC."
Is that, like, supposed to bother Tim Floyd?
"There's a reason for that talk," says the USC mentor with a shrug. "We are the second team in LA."
But a coach can dream, can't he? And what does Coach Floyd envision for the future?
"I see UCLA and USC being the Duke and Carolina of LA," he says, and with a straight face, too.
UCLA needs no introduction. John Wooden. Lew Alcindor. Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe. Bill Walton. Eleven national championships. UCLA is basketball blueblood coming off an appearance in the 2006 championship game. They're a No. 2 seed this season, and it wouldn't exactly be a shock to see the Bruins in the Final Four for the 16th time.
SC (as everyone in Southern California calls them) has a proud tradition, too. Frank Gifford. John McKay. O.J. Mike Garrett. Carson Palmer. Matt Leinart. Reggie Bush. Pete Carroll. And several hundred other marquee folk going back to the '20s (including John Wayne, nee Marion Michael Morrison). You could name names until Labor Day.
Wrong sport.
Well, they do play basketball at SC and the team Tim Floyd will put on the floor tonight to play North Carolina is pretty good. The fifth-seeded Trojans are 25-11 and qualify as a certifiably dangerous opponent for anyone. Win or lose this evening, Tim Floyd wants the world to know he's planning on coming back, and when he does, he has no plans to take any prisoners.
Timing is everything in life, and Tim Floyd says he knows that better than anyone. He was asked to take over the Chicago Bulls the year after Michael Jordan left for the final time (bad timing). Now he's taking over the reins at USC when the Trojans are making -- some would say finally making -- a serious commitment to basketball (good timing).
After decades of talk, talk, talk about getting an on-campus facility that would get them out of the crumbling LA Sports Arena, the Trojans have just finished their first year in the $147 million multi purpose Galen Center, which seats 10,258 in appropriate modern splendor and which makes Tim Floyd the first SC coach who is not fighting the all-important recruiting battle with one hand tied behind his back.
"This staff has not had to go into home visits and start the home visit by apologizing, or explaining because of what other recruiters have put in kids' heads," Floyd says.
This, meanwhile, is a bonus year while Floyd and his staff are utilizing the Galen Effect to build a future powerhouse. Coming off a 17-13 year and an 8-10 Pac-10 finish, Floyd has found success with a team built around versatile 6-foot-6-inch forward Nick Young and a bunch of youngsters. Three freshmen and two sophomores see a lot of floor time.
One of those freshmen is a kid who should be a senior in high school. He is actually the back end of a tragic story. A young man named Ryan Francis was the incumbent starting point guard, a member of the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team, but he was murdered last May while riding in the backseat of a car in his hometown of Baton Rouge, La.
This sad event triggered a thought in the head of Daniel Hackett, a high school senior-to-be at St. John Bosco High in Bellflower, Calif. Long story short: Hackett accelerated his academic life to graduate early and start his college career. He is now a valued rotation player who started the team's first 12 games while starter Gabe Pruitt was academically ineligible.
Another quality freshman is 6-9 Taj Gibson, a Brooklyn native who found his way to SC via Calvary Christian High School in San Fernando, Calif. The slender Gibson gives the Trojans 12 points and eight rebounds per, and, according to his coach, "is an exceptional passer who forces teams to go play him one-on-one."
Young, Gibson, Pruitt, and Lodrick Stewart start every night, while the fifth starter could be one of three or four people. "At this part of the season it's not about altering it for anything as far as confidence," Floyd explains. "It's been matchups, and we'll start a lineup [tonight] that will give us the best matchup opportunities."
Trojan fans can't help but think about next year, when this core group will be joined by the somewhat infamous O.J. Mayo, the peripatetic 6-5 guard who seems to change states every year, and who recruited himself to SC because he wanted to market himself at a high-profile school before heading off to the NBA. The kid carries more baggage than Zsa Zsa Gabor on a European jaunt, and Floyd has been placed in major rationalization mode to justify taking a kid who will be perceived as wanting the coach to shine his shoes.
The coach says we have young O.J. all wrong. "He's a 'yes, sir, no, sir kid,' " Floyd insists.
Whatever.
Mayo will be one and done. That's a given. Floyd's real job will be to recruit well enough to fulfill his goal of making SC every bit as relevant in basketball as its cross-town rival. Toward that end, he says he has no bigger booster than Pete Carroll.
"The whole thing gets down to talent," Floyd says, "and having talent and keeping talent. They have invested in this program. There is no reason why this can't be a top-5 program. Take a look at Florida and Oklahoma, because that's why I took the job. I looked at it, and said, 'If you can sign 75 football players and build an NFL program, you ought to be able to get 12 or 13 basketball players.
"As far as the football goes, Pete's been an ally," Floyd says. "Pete is a basketball guy. He pulls like heck for us. They have a 'Trojan Tour' of the state and Pete insisted I go along with him. He thought it would be great for our program."
So look out, UCLA, here come the Trojans.
"What we're trying to do is take it to where Duke and Carolina are," Floyd says. "They are 9 miles apart. They are already established. There's 5 million people in this area to recruit from. Our kids have forever been leaving and going to the East Coast to play, kids that should be at USC."
If they get by the Tar Heels tonight, that will be great. This time it's just the dress rehearsal. Sooner or later, it will be opening night of "The Producers."
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com. 