Bad hand, but finger is starting to point

For USC coach Eric Musselman, this men's basketball season has been a particularly cruel rung on the climb back to relevance.

- BY RYAN KARTJE

ERIC THAYER Los Angeles Times ERIC MUSSELMAN can get a pass for only so long in a Trojans season doomed by injuries to key players.

It all culminated Saturday night, with a seventh straight loss, as USC once again folded in the second half. The loss locks in the longest losing streak at USC in over a decade, as well as the longest losing streak of Musselman's tenure as a college coach. The fact that it came in the final days of the regular season, on the heels of USC dismissing leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara, made the moment feel especially bleak.

"It's not easy," Musselman said, resigned, Saturday night, "but I've done this a long time." And as someone who has done this a long time, Musselman understands that the responsibility for the team's disastrous stretch run ultimately falls squarely on his shoulders. He's the one who constructed the Trojans' roster. It's up to him as the coach to ensure his team develops over the course of a season and to keep that team from quitting when adversity strikes.

Musselman has blamed injuries for derailing his team's best hopes this season, and in many respects, he's not wrong. It's really tough for any team to stay afloat without three of its best and highest-paidplayers (Baker-Mazara, Rodney Rice and Alijah Arenas) for large swaths of the season. When those top players command several million per year in NIL and revenue-sharing dollars, there's only so much to go around for the rest of the roster.

"It's not an excuse," Musselman said Saturday.