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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

USC pitcher Mason Edwards.

(Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)

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 top recruit Saniyah Hall during the final match of the U19 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup last summer.

(Lukas Kabon / Anadolu via Getty Images)

—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

Hannah Einbinder, left, and Jean Smart in “Hacks” season 4.

(HBO Max)

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.

NEW YORK — President Trump’s administration this week acknowledged it made a significant error in figures it used to help justify a fraud probe into New York’s Medicaid program, a glaring mistake that undercuts a federal campaign to tackle waste, mostly in Democratic-led states.

The error, which the administration admitted first to the Associated Press, prompted health analysts to question how many of the Republican administration’s sweeping anti-fraud efforts around the country were based on faulty findings. One of a few mischaracterizations the administration made about New York’s Medicaid program, the error also reflected a common criticism that’s been made of Trump’s second administration — that it tends to attack first and confirm the facts later.

“These numbers could have been cleared up in a phone call, so it’s really slapdash,” said Fiscal Policy Institute senior health policy adviser Michael Kinnucan, whose recent analysis called attention to the Trump administration’s inaccurate claim.

The mistake appeared in comments made last month by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, in a social media video and in a letter to New York’s Democratic governor announcing the fraud investigation.

Oz claimed that New York’s Medicaid program last year provided some 5 million people with personal care services, which assist people in need with basic activities like bathing, grooming and meal preparation. That would add up to nearly three-fourths of the state’s 6.8 million Medicaid enrollees.

“That level of utilization is unheard of,” Oz said in the video, adding in his post that New York needs to “come clean about its Medicaid program.”

But the real number of New Yorkers who used those services last year was about 450,000, or between 6% and 7% of total enrollees, CMS spokesman Chris Krepich told the AP this week. He said the agency misidentified New York’s approach to applying billing codes and had since refined its methodology.

“CMS is committed to ensuring its analyses fully reflect state-specific billing practices and will continue to work closely with New York to validate data and strengthen program integrity oversight,” he said in an emailed statement.

Krepich said the probe was ongoing as the administration still has concerns with New York’s oversight of personal care services and the Medicaid program and is reviewing the state’s response to last month’s letter. CMS had raised other flags about New York’s program, including that it spends more per beneficiary and per resident than the average state, has high personal care spending and employs so many personal care aides that the job category is now the largest in the state.

Health analysts said the state’s high spending reflected both high costs for services in New York and a policy choice to provide robust at-home care. Cadence Acquaviva, senior public information officer for the New York Department of Health, called Oz’s initial mischaracterizations “a targeted attempt to obscure the facts.”

“New York State remains committed to protecting and preserving vital Medicaid programs that deliver high-quality services to New Yorkers who depend on them,” she said.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “The initial claim by CMS was patently false, and we are glad they now admit it.”

“Governor Hochul has been clear that New York has zero tolerance for waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, or any other state programs, and will continue her efforts to root out bad actors, protect taxpayer dollars, and safeguard the critical programs that New Yorkers rely on,” spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds said.

New York probe is part of a larger crackdown

The Trump administration’s investigation into New York comes as it has similarly approached at least four other states, including California, Florida, Maine and Minnesota, with investigations into potential healthcare fraud. The anti-fraud effort appears to be expanding as voters in the upcoming midterm elections say they’re concerned about affordability.

Trump last month signed an executive order to create an anti-fraud task force across federal benefit programs led by Vice President JD Vance. As part of that project, Vance announced the administration would temporarily halt $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns, a move over which the state has since sued.

Kinnucan, the analyst with expertise in New York’s Medicaid program, said he’s concerned that the Trump administration’s adversarial approach to targeting fraud in some states “politicizes” a conversation that should be a team effort.

“We want to think collaboratively among all the stakeholders in the program about how we can actually fix it,” Kinnucan said. “We don’t want to have fraud be this political football.”

Oz made other claims New York advocates say are inaccurate

In his video, Oz made at least two other claims about New York that Medicaid advocates and beneficiaries say distorted the facts.

In one instance, he said the state recently made its screening for personal care eligibility “more lenient by allowing problems like being ‘easily distracted’ to qualify for a personal care assistant.”

Rebecca Antar, director of the health law unit at the Legal Aid Society, said the opposite was true — that the state in a rule change that went into effect last September instead made its program requirements more stringent. She said being “easily distracted” doesn’t appear anywhere among them.

Krepich said the administrator was referring to whether New York’s standard for personal care services was “sufficiently rigorous.”

“When standards are overly permissive, it risks diverting resources away from individuals with the highest levels of need and placing long-term pressure on the sustainability of the Medicaid program,” he said.

Oz in the video also referred to personal care services as “something that our families would normally do for us, like carrying groceries.”

Kathleen Downes, a 33-year-old who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and uses personal care services in New York’s Nassau County, said she was offended by the notion that all Medicaid beneficiaries have family members who are willing and able to help.

Downes, who has been disabled since birth and needs personal care help for things like showering, using the toilet and eating, said she hires both her mother and outside assistants for personal care services, so her aging mother doesn’t have to take on those tasks full time. She said her mother did the labor unpaid for years, precluding her from pursuing other career opportunities.

“He’s assuming that everybody wants to and can just do it for free forever,” Downes said. “And that’s not feasible for a lot of people.”

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this report.

March 26 (UPI) — A Trump administration attorney admitted in federal court that the Department of Justice misrepresented an internal memo to justify arrests in immigration courts.

U.S. attorney Jay Clayton acknowledged in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Castel that the department had been incorrectly relying on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo to make arrests in immigration courts. This led to agents showing up to immigration hearings and detaining dozens of people.

The memo, “2025 ICE Guidance,” directed federal agents that they “may conduct civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information” that a person targeted for detainment would be “present at a specific location.”

Clayton wrote that the Trump administration was unaware of the error until Tuesday. ICE personnel received an email reminding them that “the May 27, 2025, Guidance does not apply to Executive Office for Immigration Review courts, regardless of their location.”

“Based on our discussions with ICE today, this regrettable error appears to have occurred because of agency attorney error,” Clayton wrote. “We deeply regret that this error has come to light at this late stage, after the parties have expended significant resources and time to litigate this case and this court has carefully considered Plaintiffs’ challenge to the 2025 ICE guidance.”

Civil Rights organizations brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the arrests of people attending immigration court hearings last year.

“In the months since the Court relied on the government’s representation to deny Plaintiffs preliminary relief, Defendants have continued arresting noncitizens at their immigration court hearings, resulting in their detention — often in facilities hundreds of miles away,” the New York Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union responded in a court filing.

Amy Belsher, an attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union representing plaintiffs, said in a statement that the admission by the Trump administration was a “shocking revelation.”

“It is yet again another example of ICE’s brazen disregard for the lives of immigrants in this country,” Belsher said in a statement. “It is now clearer than ever that there is no justification for ambushing and arresting people who are showing up for court.”

In January, former Milwaukee County, Wisc., Judge Hannah Dugan resigned from her post after being convicted for obstructing law enforcement last year. Dugan was charged after helping an immigrant evade federal immigration agents who showed up at their immigration hearing to detain them.

Dugan faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. She has not been sentenced.

Two future high major-league draft picks, Anthony Murphy of Corona and Striker Pence of Corona Santiago, showed off their talents Tuesday. Corona rallied for a 9-7 victory.

Pence, who touched 99 mph, struck out Murphy for one of his six strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings. He left the game with a 3-2 lead. Then Murphy hit a home run off Pence’s replacement, Thomas Padilla, to tie the score. Murphy was on the mound in the seventh to strike out Pence and get the save. Pence finished with two RBI singles.

“Those are two amazing baseball players and what a treat for them to get after it,” Corona coach Andy Wise said.

Striker Pence of Corona Santiago gets excited against Corona.

(Craig Weston)

The two went to middle school together. Murphy, a senior center fielder, is shaping up as a potential first-round pick. Pence, a sophomore, might reclassify to be eligible for the 2027 draft.

Errors played a big part in the game. Corona committed three errors, making it 20 errors in its last three games. An error by Santiago opened the door for a six-run sixth by the Panthers. Danny De La Torre had the big hit, a two-run double.

Corona’s defense is expected to get a lot better come Friday when infielders Joseph Flores and Kobee Finnikin become eligible after the sit-out transfer period ends.

Southern California teams got their first chance to show how good Southern California baseball is during Wednesday’s opening games of the National High School Invitational in Cary, N.C. Three came away with dominant wins.

Orange Lutheran received 16 strikeouts from Gary Morse, tying a tournament record, in a 3-0 win over Colorado Regis.

Unbeaten St. John Bosco (8-0) got two hits and two RBIs from Jack Champlin in a 14-1 win over Tennessee Nolensville.

Harvard-Westlake took care of North Carolina Wakefield 16-0 in five innings. Justin Kirchner struck out 10 and Ethan Price had three hits.

In the quarterfinals on Thursday, Harvard-Westlake will play Florida Venice, Orange Lutheran will face Florida Trinity Christian Academy and St. John Bosco will take on Arizona Casteel.

Servite 11, Santa Margarita 2: Eli Rubel had a triple, double and three RBIs for the Friars.

Tesoro 2, Aliso Niguel 1: Corwin Allard threw a complete game with six strikeouts and one walk for Tesoro.

Newport Harbor 8, Edison 2: Keaton Anderson struck out four in six innings. Grant Horsley had two hits.

Huntington Beach 8, Edison 4: Dane Cunningham, Ely Mason and Jaxon Greer hit home runs for Huntington Beach. Cunningham had three hits.

Villa Park 13, Foothill 0: Aiden Young went four for four with five RBIs and Logan Hoppie threw the shutout.

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 11, Crespi 1: AJ LaSota struck out five, walked none and gave up two hits in five scoreless innings. Troy Trejo and Benett Pace each had two hits and two RBIs. Freshman Anthony Daniel had three hits.

Bishop Alemany 5, St. Francis 1: Matthew Serrano gave up two hits in six innings and Alex Noble contributed three hits for the Warriors.

Sierra Canyon 11, Chaminade 2: Brayden Goldstein went three for three with three RBIs.

Hart 3, Ventura 2: Jaiden Chan had the walk-off hit for Hart. Malachi Wobrock threw a complete game.

West Ranch 11, Canyon 1: Blake Johnson hit a three-run home run for West Ranch. Josh Price had two hits and four RBIs.

Saugus 11, Valencia 2: Joey Nuttall finished with three hits for Saugus. Logan Feldman added four RBIs.

Simi Valley 11, Camarillo 1: Ryan Whitson and Kai Stones each had three RBIs for Simi Valley.

Rancho Christian 3, Valley View 2: Jake Brande struck out 10 in a complete game.

Brighton should have been awarded a penalty in their 1-0 loss at home to Arsenal on 4 March, the Premier League’s Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has said.

The Seagulls were trailing to Bukayo Saka’s ninth-minute goal when they pushed forward in the third minute of first-half stoppage time.

After a cross was delivered from the left, Brighton midfielder Mats Wieffer tried to run into the box towards the flight of the ball but was hauled to the ground by Gabriel Martinelli.

Referee Chris Kavanagh allowed play to continue and it was cleared by the video assistant referee (VAR), Michael Salisbury.

Fabian Hurzeler complained to fourth official David Webb and the Brighton boss ended up exchanging words with Mikel Arteta on the touchline.

The Premier League Match Centre wrote on X that the VAR “deemed there was no clear and obvious error”.

But the KMI Panel voted 4:1 that a spot-kick should have been awarded on the field, and 3:2 that it was a missed VAR intervention.

The ruling said: “Martinelli is not looking at the ball, holds Weiffer into the area and prevents the Brighton player from challenging for the ball.”

It is the second time this season Arsenal have escaped a VAR penalty in an away game they have won 1-0.

In December, Everton should have been awarded a penalty for William Saliba’s challenge on Thierno Barry. The VAR was Michael Salisbury for that match, too.

There have now been 18 VAR errors logged this season, matching the total for the entire 2024-25 campaign.

From this same gameweek, Leeds United should have been given a penalty in their 1-0 loss at home to Sunderland for Luke O’Nien’s holding offence on Pascal Struijk.

The Gunners have had no VAR mistakes against them.