LAS VEGAS — Boogie Ellis could barely speak a half hour after it was over, each word an ordeal in grief.
“Obviously,” he mumbled, his voice something below a whisper, “this is not how I wanted this to end.”
He sat in front of his locker after Thursday’s loss to Arizona, side-by-side with silent teammates, no words. No headphones. When he was approached quietly for a quick interview with the Southern California News Group, he frowned. Frustrated. Who would want to talk, after all, fresh with all the emotion of a college basketball career suddenly and unceremoniously finished?
Junior Kobe Johnson sat to his right, and freshman Isaiah Collier to his left, and Bronny James in the corner, unmoving. They carried a resignation on their shoulders; history will remember this USC season as a team that never quite rounded into what it could have been. What it should have. When the Trojans (15-18 overall, 8-12 Pac-12) finally hit their stride later in the season, carrying four straight wins through the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, they ran into a motivated Arizona program in Las Vegas and were shut down Thursday in a 70-49 loss, destroying their last hope at an NCAA Tournament bid. And the path forward is unclear, entering the Big Ten.
No more Ellis, eligibility exhausted. No more Joshua Morgan, a four-year USC center. No more Johnson, potentially, if he chooses to head for the NBA Draft. No more Collier, and no more James, if the freshmen decide to step to the next level. USC might have a virtual clean slate under head coach Andy Enfield heading into a new conference, and he has something to prove, earning a deserved reputation as an ace recruiter but now three years removed from an Elite Eight NCAA Tournament run and two years removed from a six-year contract extension.
“I’m not disappointed at all,” Enfield said after Thursday’s loss, when asked if he felt it was a disappointing season for USC.
Briefly, he rattled off a list of…
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