On Tuesday night, the USC men’s basketball team played its season opener under first year head coach Kevin O’Neill, but unless your were an extremely devoted Trojan hoops fan or someone wandering Figueroa Street around 7:00 PM, than you most likely missed it.

The Trojans faced UC Riverside in a game that received little to no buzz locally – forget national attention. The matchup with the Highlanders did not appear on local television, and the announced crowd was no where near half capacity. But nevertheless, O’Neill’s bunch was still able to get off to a solid start with a 77-67 victory even though few noticed.

“We played solid enough basketball to win by ten points, which with the group we’re playing with right now numbers-wise, was something I didn’t know if we could do,” O’Neill told a group of reporters during the post-game press conference.

Simply based on those numbers, it’s incredibly surprising that the Trojans walked away with a “W.” Presently, the team is playing without their starting center Alex Stepheson (injury), starting small forward Leonard Washington (ineligibility), wingman Marcus Johnson (ineligibility), and backup point guard Mike Gerrity (ineligibility). As a result, they suited up just seven players for the game.

However, despite the obvious disadvantage, the Trojans were able to get big-time contributions from several players fitting into new roles. Dwight Lewis, who was always the secondary scoring option while playing alongside O.J. Mayo and DeMar DeRozan, emerged as the primary offensive threat for the Trojans by leading four players in double figures with 22 points on the night.

Yet, he certainly wasn’t the lone threat. Marcus Simmons, Nikola Vucevic, and Donte Smith, all coupled Lewis’s big night with strong efforts of their own. If it wasn’t for the scoring output from Lewis, Simmons could have very easily been the player of the game. In just twenty-seven minutes of action, he was a game changer on the defensive end as usual, but also showed off his offensive prowess with 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting and three assists. Vucevic also appeared to meet the high expectations most message board junkies have set for him, by also scoring 18 points and grabbing eight boards as well. Smith, who has been rather reckless in limited playing time in the past, proved to be a calming influence with 12 points and 2 assists in 40 minutes.

“For the most part, I thought our whole team played well. You’re talking about guys who haven’t been in any of the roles they’re in now, including Dwight [Lewis] who has never been a first option guy,” said O’Neill.

In the end, it was a really good start for this inexperienced bunch, as ‘SC was able to win the game with their tough, athletic defense and by hitting most of their open looks. While it’s quite likely that the Trojans will maintain that high-level defense over the course of the season considering O’Neill’s track record, it remains to be seen whether the Trojans will shoot as well. Historically, USC has been notoriously poor in regards to outside shooting so it is perfectly reasonable to question this bunch’s capability to consistently shoot 51.9% from the field.

However, if they can in fact keep the offensive output up, than there is certainly reasonable hope that the Trojans can finish in the upper half of a wide open Pac-10.

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