I think it really depends on what expectations are for the USC basketball program are.

Yes, it was an awesome win. But this is a losing season, and basically all the top players are leaving.

We have a complete rebuild ahead of us, and I’m not sure what the expectations are for next season.

Again, great win. But for serious programs, it’s a footnote on a disaster of a season, with a very bleak looking future.

I think you are saying something like, 'Andy is OK -- and if you want a solid program, maybe he is your guy. But if you think USC should be elite, we need someone better.' It is a defensible position, but my hesitation is that if we rewind to Oct, the situation was that Enfield had led USC to be a pretty consistent mid-seed tournament team, and he had assembled a group with the potential, if things broke right, to be truly elite for the first time. Breaking right would mean 1) Vince had to take a big step forward, 2) Collier had to emerge quickly, and 3) we needed to stay healthy. I think #2 took a little time but worked out about as well as could be expected. But 1 and 3 were both well below expectation, and i think the injuries had knock-on effects on others, The result was disaster -- probably in the bottom 1-5% of the expectation distribution given where things stood. But I would have felt pretty good in Oct that Enfield showed he could bring the program to elite status, and i don't think the one disastrous outcome provides much evidence against this. That said, fair or not, the right new hire can certainly juice recruitment, so there is that!

Agh, bumping up to 9 did us no favors. Like Nick said on the podcast, we wanted as many chances for AZ to lose before we had to meet them if we go on run. Now, they have exactly 0 chances to lose before we would meet. We will have to earn it!

On the seeding thing …. just thinking about how we’ve thought about good matchups and bad matchups over the years ….

I’ve kinda concluded at this point that stuff is often overstated for us. If we can get by Washington (still a big if), we’d probably have to beat Arizona anyway to win the P12 Tournament. If that was the case, might as well play them early when we’re less fatigued.

Maybe, but with fatigue isn't key the differential? I would guess the difference between played yesterday vs. coming off 4 days rest is bigger than, say, played last 3 days vs. played the last 2 days. I wonder if there are analytics on that. I agree though, the impact of these things is easy to overstate. And pretty much coin-toss that we even make it past Washington!

This is the crux of the matter. If you think SC basketball is the red headed step child, then AE is pretty acceptable. If you think SC should compete for Natties, like SC fans expect in every other sport, then AE has been at it for 11 years with one elite 8, and a rebuild ahead of him.

That's it in a nutshell. Well said.