"Dunk City" Maestro Andy Enfield Has USC Basketball On The Rebound

USC men's basketball coach Andy Enfield talks about his team in specifics. Just how deep into the numbers do you want to go?

The Trojans weren't just young last season: as Enfield will tell you, they were the youngest power conference team in college basketball and the fourth-youngest out of 351 Division I teams. Enfield won't just speak anecdotally about the difficulty of this year's Pac-12 slate; he'll go as far as to point out that 11 of its 12 member schools currently rank inside the top 70 in RPI.

And when Enfield addresses USC's comprehensive improvement—how the Trojans, a conference doormat during his first two seasons in charge, now enters Wednesday's game against UCLA at 14-3, ranked No. 17 in RPI, with three more wins than their storied crosstown rivals—well, the coach is aware of the myriad quantifiable reasons for that, too.

None of those metrics, however, provide a complete explanation for USC's ascension—or capture just how jarring it feels. The Trojans already have matched their Pac-12 win total from all of last season, morphing from toothless and limited into arguably the conference's most athletic team. Julian Jacobs, forecast as a bit player coming out of high school, has blossomed into USC's on-court leader and leads the Pac-12 in assists per game. Sophomores Jordan McLaughlin and Elijah Stewart, Jacobs' primary perimeter running mates, have spiked their field goal percentages by 12 and 8 percent, respectively, after erratic freshman seasons. USC's current freshmen, forwards Bennie Boatwright and Chimezie Metu, arrived on campus as rail-thin, high-ceiling projects, who were expected to contribute later rather than sooner. Instead, Boatwright has emerged as a lethal stretch four, while Metu is a defensive anchor and alley-oop target reminiscent of a young Tyson Chandler.

USC has learned how to leverage its athleticism. Once allergic to pulling out tight games, the Trojans head into Pauley Pavillion fresh from defeating then-No. 7 Arizona in quadruple overtime, the kind of performance that Enfield acknowledges his team could not have pulled off a season ago. "Last year, we would not have won that game," he says flatly. "We were competitive last year, but we just weren't good enough to win."

So, what changed?

Redshirt junior Darion Clark believes it's as simple as collecting battle scars, with a talented team congealing and hardening after suffering so many previous near-misses. "Knowing where we come from, we literally were at the bottom," he says. "Everybody was counting us out—probably still do. Just knowing the work we put in every day, the group of guys you have in the locker room with you, does a lot for you mentally."

USC, Stewart says, is sharper. The Trojans pay more attention to detail. They now succeed in late-game situations because they're more aware of what they need to do to win, and less likely to be overwhelmed by the moment. "Closing games is just sticking to the defensive strategy, knowing that if there are 12 minutes left that it's still a ballgame," he says. "We are able to stay focused and locked in throughout games, including four overtimes."

Tactically, Enfield deploys an unusual point guard tandem of Jacobs and McLaughlin, who play together and give USC the luxury of two premier distributors on the floor at the same time—the better to initiate Enfield's signature frenetic offense, the "Dunk City" attack that first put Enfield on the national map at Florida Gulf Coast. "We need both of them to be the way we want to play because they're so good at getting their teammates the ball in their spots and they're so good at creating off the dribble that we're hard to scout and hard to guard," he says. "When the play breaks down, what I've seen around the country is the teams that have guys who can break the defense down when your first and second option don't work are the teams that usually can score the ball at a higher level. Julian and Jordan are able to do that and make plays."

Enfield's own growth has been equally important. The roster he inherited from former coach Kevin O'Neill was so devoid of talent that Trojan fans weren't entirely sure how well Enfield would develop and integrate blue-chip athletes once he recruited them. Those worries intensified last season, when McLaughlin—USC's greatest recruiting coup over UCLA since DeMar DeRozan—struggled under the burden of being considered a program savior.

This season, those concerns have vanished. Enfield has pulled all the right levers with his players: Six average double-figure points, and co-leading scorers Jacobs and McLaughlin score within seven-tenths of a point of fifth-placed Katin Reinhardt. Enfield strategically deploys Metu in short bursts to maximize his explosiveness; when the team needs a pinch of toughness, he turns Clark loose for rumbling offensive rebounds. Enfield knows when to let Reinhardt, who boasts a NBA-caliber skillset on the wing, shot hunt; far more crucially, the coach knows when to rein him in.

Stewart says Enfield has allowed himself to become more animated this season, feeding into USC's youthful exuberance. "He's always confident," Clark says. "He always believes in his team and I think we took that [from him]. For example, the Arizona game—we knew we were going to win the whole game, if it took us six overtimes."

This is where Enfield's analytic specificity gets opaque. Ask him about his own improvement and he deflects to his coaching staff and players. Press him on how he has grown as a leader, and he lapses into vague coach-speak about how "you try to improve your knowledge of the game and how you handle certain situations on and off the court." Enfield mentions spending time learning from NBA coaches in the offseason; he won't volunteer which ones.

"We haven't done anything yet," Enfield says. He then points out-again-exactly how many top 70 RPI-ranked Pac-12 teams stand in the way of USC's first NCAA Tournament berth since 2011. Eleven. The coach knows the score.