USC Trojan Outlook

After reaching the NCAA’s “Elite Eight” last season and posting a 25-8 record, coach Andy Enfield’s USC Trojans will contend for another post-season bid during the 2021-2022 campaign led by junior Isaiah Mobley.

USC will be seeking is fifth post-season appearance under Enfield, who has guided the Trojans to a 157-110 record the past eight seasons with three NCAA and one NIT participations. Enfield’s past two USC teams have combined to win 47 of 64 games (73.4 percent) with 26 Pac-12 victories in 36 contests (72.2 percent).

One of 20 players named to the watch list for top power forwards in Division I, the 6’10 Mobley was also a first-team pick on the 2021-2022 Pac-12 preseason first team where the Trojans were selected as the third-best quintet for this coming year behind UCLA and Oregon. Isaiah Mobley heads the roster of Trojan returnees as he averaged 9.9 points and 7.3 rebounds last year with 32 starts.

During USC’s “Elite Eight” run, Isaiah Mobley averaged 16.0 points and made 10 of 15 shots from beyond the arc. Mobley’s 233 rebounds last season rank second among returning Pac-12 players. He registered six double-doubles which tied for third among Pac-12 players.

In 63 career games at USC with 40 starts, Isaiah Mobley has averaged 8.0 points and 6.3 rebounds a game with 50 blocks. He posted a team-high of 19 points in the Trojans’ “Elite Eight” setback to Gonzaga after scoring 15, 17 and 13 points in NCAA wins over Drake, Kansas and Oregon, respectively.

Other returning players with starts last season are guards Drew Peterson, Isaiah White and Eithan Anderson, and forwards Chevez Goodwin and Max Agbonkpolo. Peterson and White averaged 9.8 and 7.6 points per game, respectively, last season and combined to score 79 points and grab 30 rebounds in the Trojans’ four NCAA games in March.

The top newcomer is junior guard Boogie Ellis, who started 15 of 28 games last season at Memphis where he averaged 10.2 points per game and made 51 three-point baskets for a Tiger team that captured the NIT title.

The American Athletic Conference’s co-Sixth Man of the Year last season, Ellis became a starter in February and averaged 12.3 points in Memphis’ final 13 games. Ellis scored 23 points in the NIT championship win over Mississippi State. As a Memphis first-year student-athlete in 2019-2020, Ellis started 27 of 31 games and averaged 8.0 points and 3.3 rebounds a game.

Prior to playing Saint Joseph’s in the Paycom Wooden Legacy on November 25, USC opens the 2021-2022 schedule with home games versus CSUN (November 9) and Dixie State (November 22) and road games at Temple (November 13) and Florida Gulf Coast (November 16).

The winner of the inaugural Paycom Wooden Legacy in 2007, when the tournament was known as the Anaheim Classic, USC will be playing in their eighth ESPN Events in-season tournament with a 14-7 overall record. The Trojans also won the 2009 and 2017 Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head.