For Eric Musselman and USC, the margin for error in the portal is much smaller this spring

Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where it’s officially team-building season across college basketball. It’s a critical time for any program in the transfer portal era. But for Eric Musselman and USC this April, it’s especially paramount.

The last two springs, Musselman has had to rebuild USC’s entire roster essentially from scratch. The coach’s first two teams each had just one carryover from the previous year. Two years ago, just as USC was joining the Big Ten, Musselman had to make over the roster in May … a month after everyone else. Then last spring, he lost his top two scorers (Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates) somewhat unexpectedly — one on the very last day of the portal.

This offseason, Musselman is starting from a more stable place. USC announced last week that guard Rodney Rice, who was expected to be USC’s best player a year ago, will return next season. He’s a future NBA player. Forward Jacob Cofie should be back after dipping his toes in the NBA draft waters, along with 7-foot-5 center Gabe Dynes. Then there are three top-25 recruits on the way in Darius and Adonis Ratliff and Christian Collins.

It’s looking more and more likely, too, that Alijah Arenas will buck his long-standing plans to declare for the draft and return to college. Whether that would be at USC or somewhere else, however, remains to be seen.

Whatever happens, there is at least a semblance of a nucleus for USC to build around this spring. Which is fortunate for Musselman, given there will be less means to lure players from the portal.

At this time last year, NIL spending had yet to be capped. So Musselman and his staff were given a significant chunk of change to work with, a number nearing eight figures. And they used it to pay up for the likes of not just Rice, Chad Baker-Mazara and Ezra Ausar, but also reserves such as Dynes, Jordan Marsh and Ryan Cornish. The reasoning was to pay a bit above-market to build the team Musselman wanted, to take advantage of their limited window with Arenas, who they hoped would be a program catalyst.

The return on that investment was … less than stellar. Arenas got into a car accident, then had knee surgery, and didn’t play until January. Baker-Mazara, the highest-paid player on the roster, was dismissed from the team before the end of the season. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. But also, many of the bets USC made went belly-up.

This time, the budget won’t be quite as bottomless, both because of NIL restrictions and as a matter of course correction. The approach will have to be more conservative, more targeted. Considering the portal isn’t getting any cheaper, with most starters now going for north of $1 million, it’ll be on Musselman to use his funds expeditiously.

That means, presumably, much less spending on the middle of the roster. It’s part of why Amarion Dickerson isn’t returning, even though USC would’ve presumably welcomed him back. There’s no room to spend up on a sixth man at the moment. Especially one who sat out most of last season.

A lot of basketball programs are reckoning with those realities now that spending is, in some sense, more capped. But many of those programs have a general manager handling those matters. At USC, that’s Musselman. He’s the coach and GM.

He prefers it that way. But it also adds an extra layer of pressure ahead of next season.

Musselman has proven himself plenty capable of building a basketball team. His first serious job in the sport was as general manager of the Rapid City Thrillers in the now-defunct CBA. He built that team into a juggernaut in his early 20’s.

Musselman won’t be able to do that at USC in just a single transfer portal window. But the moves USC makes over the coming weeks should tell us plenty about how much he learned from the last one.

Baseball bounces back

After a historically strong start to this season, the Trojans suddenly found themselves in a four-game slump heading into the weekend. But the slide was stopped dead by USC’s ace pitcher, Mason Edwards.

In one of college baseball’s more dominant pitching efforts this season, Edwards struck out 16 of the 30 Iowa batters he faced Friday. Twelve of those 16 came on swinging strikes. Through eight innings, Edwards gave up just one hit before Iowa finally chased him in the ninth.

Thanks to its stellar rotation, USC walked away with a sweep over Iowa, right when it needed one most. Awaiting the Trojans on the road next weekend is Nebraska, which has lost just two Big Ten games this season and just one of its 16 home games.

—USC has officially hit the $200 million fundraising mark for its Athletics West capital project. That means at least $25 million has been raised since the start of last football season, which is quite a bit to ask of your big-time donors. But what’s maybe more impressive is that during that same stretch, USC also managed to increase the size of the Trojan Victory Fund by more than 770%, according to athletic director Jennifer Cohen. Those extra funds are how USC is managing to stay afloat in this new era where money matters more than ever. The question is whether it can keep up the pace for the foreseeable future.

—The future of USC women’s basketball was on display at the Nike Hoop Summit. A trio of incoming Trojans were featured in Portland last weekend, headlined by No. 1 overall recruit Saniyah Hall, who continues to look like a Day 1 difference-maker on both ends. She led all scorers with 19, while also adding eight rebounds and four steals. Sitaya Fagan and Sara Okeke both suited up for the World team, and Fagan, in particular, impressed with her work in the paint. She got to the line early and often and ended up leading the World team with 15 points.

—The USC women are losing five players to the transfer portal. None of the five — Vivian Iwuchukwu, Gerda Raulusaityte, Yakiya Milton, Dayana Mendes and Malia Samuels — would’ve made much of an impact in a much deeper rotation next season. Samuels played the most of the five last year, but struggled in a reserve point guard role. The Women of Troy will need some reinforcements from the transfer portal, but any additions will be more about padding the rotation instead of finding starters.

—National title-winning Michigan coach Dusty May got his start in college basketball as a USC video coordinator. A quarter-century before May led the Wolverines to a championship, he was a part of the 2001 Trojans team that went to the Elite Eight. Henry Bibby gave May a job on the blind recommendation of two Indiana assistant coaches, who were impressed with his time as an Indiana student manager. He broke down film during the season and ran camps during the summer. In between, he helped out with day-to-day operations. May worked under Bibby through the 2002 season, when legendary Hoosiers coach Bob Knight hired him to do the same job in Bloomington.

Olympic sports spotlight

A hat tip to Times of Troy reader, Craig Schrager, who noted that I’d made no mention recently of USC’s top-ranked women’s water polo team, which had won a dozen matches in a row heading into Sunday’s MPSF tournament final against No. 2 Stanford.

The Trojans looked on their way to a 13th straight win and an MPSF tournament title before the fourth quarter of Sunday’s final. Entering the last quarter with a lead, USC gave up six goals in the final minutes and only responded with two in return, costing them what should’ve been their first MPSF title since 2021.

In spite of the loss, USC should be one of the leading contenders for an NCAA title, when the tournament begins on April 24.

What I’m watching this week

It’s rare these days that a hit show calls it quits at the right time. More often than not, they hang on too long, wringing out every possible drop of content and damaging the show’s legacy in the process.

“Hacks” is a rare exception. I wasn’t sure at the time how this HBO comedy would do a second season, let alone a fifth. But it has proven me wrong at every step. Jean Smart only seems to get better with age, while this show has managed to re-invent itself on multiple occasions. Its final season follows Smart, again as comedian Deborah Vance, as she’s found herself legally unable to perform after breaking her late-night host contract. And somehow, it’s just as funny as ever.

Until next time …

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.