PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2024

Andy Enfield

DJ Rodman

Joshua Morgan

USC Trojans

Postgame Press Conference

Arizona - 70, USC - 49

ANDY ENFIELD: It's always difficult to lose your last game. Very proud of our team, the seniors, these two guys here and some others. Our team really battled today. First half our defense was outstanding. Really made it tough on Arizona. And they made it tough on us.

And just didn't bounce our way. Our offense wasn't good enough. We missed a lot of shots and flipped some balls up off balance.

But very proud of our team the last month, playing great basketball. Really turned our season around after all the injuries we had and all the adversity. Very, very proud of our team to come back and play our best basketball.

This team has improved dramatically from the beginning of the season, especially with guys in and out of the lineup all season. And for them to stick together and really compete the last month, they've done a great job.

Q. After the long stretch of improved play offensively, you had that drought towards the end of the first half, six minutes without a bucket. Just from the last time you played Arizona, what went wrong there? Was it their defense? Was it just the mental aspect of not being able to hit a shot? What went on there?

ANDY ENFIELD: It was a very physical first half. I think we had six fouls before they had one. So very, very physical. Both teams were competing at a high level. I think it was 19-16. Isaiah had the and-1, missed a free throw.

We were in the lane a lot the last six minutes of the first half. Had a couple of shots blocked at the rim, didn't set ourselves and didn't finish in the lane. And we also didn't kick out to open shooters.

A lot of those shots that went in last Saturday just didn't fall for us today. It's hard when your leading scorers, especially Boogie, had a tough shooting night. We just didn't convert when we had open looks. And as I said we were off balance too much when we got in the lane.

Q. What's it like to be part of the last Pac-12 Tournament, at least of its kind?

JOSHUA MORGAN: It is a bummer. When I came here, the Pac-12 was my favorite conference. I always wanted to come to a Pac-12 school. And grateful every day that Andy recruited me here.

It's definitely bittersweet. I am happy I was able to play in the last Pac-12 Tournament. Obviously it didn't go the way we wanted it to, but at the end of the day I am just happy with the team, happy with the program and very grateful to be here.

DJ RODMAN: Been in it five years. I wasn't emotional because we lost, but more so because the journey that I took -- I don't want to sound selfish -- but just the journey I took to get where I am. And the Pac-12 has meant a lot to me.

Obviously I transferred and stayed in the Pac-12 because I loved it so much, and just being close to home. So it means a lot. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Q. The way this season began, the hopes you guys had, the recruiting class, the veterans, what have you. When you look back at everything, ultimately is this just kind of a disappointing season when you sum up everything that's happened the last few months?

ANDY ENFIELD: No, I'm not disappointed at all. We've been to four straight NCAA Tournaments. We had a bye in this tournament. For the first time in five years we had to play on opening night. We're the only team that finished third or better the last four years. And we were 95-36 the last four seasons, which is the fourth or fifth best record in the country. So we're used to winning.

We had some serious offseason injuries and surgeries and we had some serious injuries in November. And then, of course, the first week of January we had our two leading scorers get out the same time, with Boogie with a hamstring and Isaiah a broken hand. And Josh got sick and lost 15 pounds.

We lost three starters all at once and lost six straight games. Was it hard to go through that? Of course. Disappointing? No. Challenging? Adversity? Yes.

Keeping these guys together mentally, guys playing different positions when we had all the injuries -- in November we practice with seven players for three weeks because we had five guys out. Bronny and Vince didn't even start the season on time.

So, was it challenging? Absolutely it was very, very challenging. Disappointing? Absolutely not because the last month, once we got healthy, Boogie and Isaiah came back. Boogie finally recovered from his hamstring injury. And then Josh came back.

We're very proud of this team. We compete at a very high level, winning five out of the last six. In fact we could have had seven or eight wins in a row. I know we lost in overtime or a double-overtime game and a win at the buzzer on a road game.

Looking back on the season, a lot of challenges. But as a head coach I've never had this many injuries in my 29, 30-year coaching career. My first job was 1994 with the Milwaukee Bucks. That's 30 years ago.

And this is five, six, seven, 10 times the amount of injuries we've had in one season, especially with your best players at the same time. And you take our leading shot blocker out.

So we'll look back on this everybody has to go through adversity in their academic, their athletic career. That's what college students, sometimes especially athletes, some people think that they're beyond what a normal person goes through. But there's adversity in every college students' life, and these guys did it on and off the court and to battle.

And that's what college athletics is about, to figure out, stay together as a team. So I'm very proud and our staff is very proud of these young men for sticking together because what they went through this year from a mental aspect, it really -- I think they'll remember this the rest of their lives of how to stay together and compete.

Q. In the first half, seemed like the offense was pretty stagnant. Isaiah, a lot of dribbling up at the top of the key, getting into something very late in the shot clock. Was that intentional?

ANDY ENFIELD: We don't like a stagnant offense. If you want to just come out and say our offense sucked, that's okay, if that's what you want to say. But we rely on Boogie and Isaiah for a lot of shot creation. When they drop coverage with Ballo and Krivas, we have an advantage, because when we set a ball we can get in the lane. We got in the lane a lot.

We didn't have a lot of movement off the ball. Did a better job in the second half. We call a lot of sets and plays for our shooters and for our scorers in the first half. They do a lot of switching, and they're a great defensive team. We played great defense the first half, so did they.

Sometimes you run your initial screening action and it's guarded. And a lot of these plays, on both sides of the ball, if you've been watching college basketball, it ends in a ball screen or something to get your guard free because their big's in drop coverage.

It wasn't necessarily the stagnant part. It was our lack of finishing in the lane because we did not set ourselves. We didn't shot fake. We got shots blocked at the rim. We didn't kick it out. And some of the guys, when they get sped up and drove in the lane, they didn't have the ability to stop pivot, shot fake, and make the right play. And we did that last Saturday at a very high level. Tonight, in the first half especially, we did not do that.

Q. DJ and Josh, Kobe has talked a lot about how you guys have found your roles since everybody got healthy. How do you feel like the last six-, eight-game stretch has brought you guys together in winning?

JOSHUA MORGAN: As coach said, we had struggled a lot with changing lineups because of injuries. A bunch of different things. I'd say this past month, especially in March we've been really buying into exactly who we were as players.

I have my role. DJ has his role. All the stars have their roles, and even people coming off the bench know and we need expect them to know what they can and can't do. I feel like that's something we've been doing.

On defense, I would also think that everyone bought into, especially this month, as a whole everyone bought into the program.

We talked a lot about being on the string, if someone gets beat, someone helps you. And I think that we've been doing that a lot better.

Unfortunately, you've got to give it to Arizona. They definitely went out. They played their brand of basketball. Unfortunately ended up in a loss for us.

Q. You entered the season with the top five recruiting class. I want to be fair. This season you battled injuries as you aforementioned. What needs to happen for the team to take a step forward, and what's your plan in helping the team move forward?

ANDY ENFIELD: We haven't thought about moving forward yet, to be honest. We're focused on today's game. We were focused on getting this team better. Every year in college basketball you have changeover in your roster.

We'll look at that here quickly, with the nature of the transfer portal and NIL, and we'll have to figure out who will be back on our roster and what we need to fill in the different positions and our different needs going forward. So that will be all determined probably in the next week or two, and we'll move on from there.

Q. Bronny completing his freshman year today. Where would you say, how has he grown the most throughout this year, and how would you assess his first season in college?

ANDY ENFIELD: Well, Bronny's a typical freshman. He went through a lot this year physically and mentally.

He's never wavered from being a great teammate and working extremely hard in practice, and you can count on him as an individual. He's on time. You need him to be somewhere, he's there, and you need to count on him as a teammate or as a coach he's there for you.

A lot of positive things to say about who he is as a person, his character, how he buys into the team concept.

We love coaching him. He's a typical freshman and has learned and grown a lot this year. We'll keep improving.

Q. DJ, you came to USC. Obviously meant a lot to have more wins/successes than you guys did. So just kind of how frustrating is that for you, and also what are the main lessons and things that you will take away from this season and the experiences you went through?

DJ RODMAN: It's not frustrating at all. I mean, it's frustrating -- it's frustrating, not winning as much as we have. But I'm not mad at what I did or mad at what the team did. We did all that we could.

And sometimes that's sometimes in the grand scheme of things it's not enough. That's what happened today. We just came up short. Whether it's not hitting shots or it's not doing certain things right and all that type of stuff -- lose those games, and it happened. And the injuries obviously sucked a lot. It's hard to get a rhythm.

Everyone saw that at the end of the year when everyone was healthy we finally got a rhythm. It was frustrating -- the most frustrating part is just not being healthy the majority of this season. Not necessarily not winning, because if we're healthy, we win. I'm not frustrated because it's uncontrollable. You know, I can't say -- I'm kind of in shock. I don't even know what to say.