Inside life on the Muss Buss: Eric Musselmans | College News

“Are you gonna wear those?”

Eric Musselman stares down at a pair of beat-up, brown boat footwear along with his eyebrows raised. His smirk suggests I’ve chosen the mistaken footwear for my first journey on the Muss Buss.

We’re standing in an auxiliary exercise room at Galen Center a couple of minutes after USC wrapped morning apply in late July. And Musselman, a few months short of 60, appears to be like ready to run a half-marathon.

His first three months as USC’s males’s basketball coach had been a full-on dash, with a new workers to rent, a roster to rebuild and a hoops program to reinvigorate — to not point out roots to set down in the South Bay. But for Musselman, stamina has by no means been a query. He’s a exercise fiend, identical to his father, Bill, was earlier than him. Every day, he walks or jogs or runs upwards of 10 miles, no matter the place the job takes him or how packed his day is. And he’s by no means simply strolling or jogging or operating. He’s all the time multitasking, sending reminder texts or listening to podcasts or highlighting passages from articles he’s compiled and printed.

The plan was for The Times to affix Musselman during his most popular beachside stroll alongside the Strand, a few blocks from the place he lives. But apply was moved to the morning, which meant shifting his required steps to a treadmill.

A treadmill appears like an ironic place to fulfill Musselman, somebody who all the time appears to be shifting in the direction of one thing. To Muss — which is how his household refers to him — standing nonetheless just isn’t acceptable. He is continually in search of solutions to new questions that stretch past the bounds of his day job. Working with Muss means consenting to more than the regular share of 5 a.m. textual content messages.

“If I wasn’t there to put a stop to it, he’d be texting people every night until he fell asleep,” his spouse, Danyelle, says. She laughs. “Most people are not wired to that level.”

But in case you’re a half of his program, you’re anticipated to keep tempo.

“We gotta keep the coffee running, for sure,” stated Anthony Ruta, a longtime assistant. “It’s six, seven, eight cups to keep up.”

Muss, in the meantime, has no use for caffeine. Managing each element of his hoops program retains him loads stimulated. And relaxation assured, he has ideas on each element. Marketing. Social media strategy. Student part morale. Michael Musselman, the head coach’s son and assistant, has discovered crude drawings of workforce T-shirt designs left on his desk more than as soon as.

One day, at Arkansas, Muss burst into his son’s workplace questioning if they may conceive and develop a video recreation for the workforce in his spare time.

“I can barely play video games, let alone develop one,” Michael says now. “It might sound crazy. But that — isn’t that what makes great coaches great?”

Since he got here to the school recreation a decade in the past, Muss has gained 236 video games — posting a 69.1% profession win proportion that nestles him proper between Tom Izzo (70.9%) and Mick Cronin (68.3%) amongst energetic Big Ten coaches. Four of his six journeys to the NCAA event have lasted till the second weekend. At the top of his success at Arkansas, he led a long-suffering Razorback hoops program on consecutive journeys to the Elite Eight.

He’s been simply as profitable in promoting applications to the public. At Nevada and Arkansas, attendance and season-ticket gross sales soared after his arrival.

USC males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman, middle, poses along with his household: mom Kris, son Michael, spouse Danyelle and daughter Mariah. They are joined for a photograph with USC mascot Traveler earlier than Eric Musselman’s introductory information convention on April 5.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“Every place he’s coached,” says Todd Lee, his longtime assistant, “they fill the arena. He always has ideas for making it happen.”

With that in thoughts, you possibly can see the case for bringing Muss to L.A., the place USC hoops struggled to translate some deep event runs into fan enthusiasm and championships underneath earlier coach Andy Enfield. In hiring Muss final April, USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen handed the program to a coach on the reverse finish of the spectrum from Enfield, who by no means appeared comfy commanding consideration in a crowded hoops scene.

Musselman is more the sort to tear his shirt off after a huge win. He’s shirtless more than most main school basketball coaches, a indisputable fact that he says he’d most likely change about himself if he may. But that depth has one other, uglier aspect. In 2022, in keeping with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Musselman bought into a confrontation after a win at the Maui Invitational during which he cursed at a group of opposing followers. He’s no stranger to being held back from confronting referees both.

That degree of ardour won’t be for everybody however for Muss, it’s rooted deep in his DNA. His father, Bill, who had a long, profitable profession teaching hoops, was identified for a comparable fervor. A ebook written about him was entitled “Obsession”, and he as soon as famously stated that defeat was worse than death “because you have to live with defeat.”

Cavaliers president Ted J. Stepien introduces new head coach Bill Musselman during a information convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 13, 1980. Musselman changed Stan Albeck, who was launched from his Cleveland contract to develop into head coach of the Spurs.

(Uncredited / Associated Press)

Ask anybody who has spent time in his orbit — gamers, workers, even rapid household — and they’re going to let you know that Muss, like his father earlier than him, calls for a great deal from these round him.

“The expectations are always super high with him,” says Gus Argenal, who labored with Musselman at Arkansas and now coaches at Cal State San Bernardino. “Everybody is operating in that world where every day is kind of the Super Bowl, right?”

To many who’ve performed with him or coached alongside him, that’s exactly what makes Musselman particular. Others really feel chillier and fuzzy about it. Whispers about Musselman being laborious to work with have adopted him since his NBA days.

“It’s not always easy to work for people who push you to do more, accomplish more, be more than you’ve ever done in the past,” Michael explains. “That’s not a comfortable feeling. But we don’t want it to be comfortable.”

That drive guided him back to the recreation after flaming out as a younger coach in the NBA. And at USC, it’s the Trojans’ best hope of jump-starting a program that has by no means fairly caught fire.

“Year 1 is always the hardest,” Muss says. “I don’t know when it will be. But my vision is that this building will be sold out.”

Back at Galen Center, months earlier than the season begins, his treadmill roars to life, and I understand I’ve no different alternative however to step onto the machine subsequent to Musselman.

During the subsequent hour, as he lays out how he made it to USC, Muss talks mid-jog, by no means as soon as slowing down to catch his breath. Meanwhile, strolling alongside him — and failing to keep up — I’ve sweat utterly via my polo shirt. The sole of my left boat shoe comes free.

This is a small pattern of life on the Muss Bus.

By late February, it appears like the wheels are falling off at USC.

Musselman sits behind a microphone, pissed off after a fourth straight defeat — this one doomed, the coach says, by “the worst defense I’ve ever had a team play in my college tenure.” He spent a lot of the loss to Ohio State screaming at the refs or throwing his fingers up in exasperation.

It has been that sort of season for USC and its coach. Injuries struck early. The Big Ten schedule wore them down late. There had been moments, sprinkled all through, when it appeared USC discovered one thing. But then main scorer Desmond Claude harm his knee. Two close losses, to Minnesota and Northwestern, let any remaining air out of the Trojans’ tires.

“I told you guys a long time ago about our team,” Musselman stated from the podium. “We have to play near-flawless to win basketball games.”

USC males’s basketball coach Eric Musselman shouts during a loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

It’s true — Musselman was sincere about his workforce’s shortcomings from the begin. And now most all the things he warned of in July had flared up by February. The unsure frontcourt. The lack of rim safety. The dearth of level guards. Tonight, he’ll lament their lack of lateral foot velocity.

What he didn’t anticipate was the toll that Big Ten highway journey would precise on his workforce. A pair days earlier, their flight from New Jersey didn’t arrive back in L.A. till 5 a.m. It felt, to Musselman, like an NBA schedule. Except, his gamers needed to be back at class by 9 that morning.

Two days later, they’re nonetheless exhausted. “I feel terrible today,” stated Wesley Yates, the Trojans’ breakout guard. The coach appears to be like simply as worn down. It’s been a long few weeks.

He hoped to be additional alongside than this by now.

“We’re building,” he assures from the podium. But on a evening like this, it’s laborious to really feel that approach.

“We’re not where we want to be right now,” Musselman stated. “We’re not where we’ve been in the past.”

Flying high above Mount Rushmore on a helicopter tour in 1988, Pat Hall was attempting his best to woo the 23-year previous he hoped would take the helm of his South Dakota semi-pro workforce, the Rapid City Thrillers.

Eric Musselman had hoped to affix his father’s workers with the Minnesota Timberwolves. But Bill Musselman wouldn’t rent his son earlier than he blazed his own path, and his mom steered he strive something however teaching. Which is how he ended up in the plains of South Dakota, laying out for Hall a step-by-step plan to take his Continental Basketball Assn. workforce to the prime.

Hall, who had labored earlier than with Musselman’s father, was blown away by the presentation, which included plans not solely to revamp the roster, but in addition to inject vitality into the entire operation, from advertising and marketing and media to in-game leisure.

“This kid was incredibly organized at 23,” Hall stated. “And his energy level was so high. It felt like he must stay up 24 hours a day. So I hired him.”

In Rapid City, Musselman discovered how to handle each side of a basketball operation. He turned a dropping roster immediately into one of the best in the CBA. Then, to avoid wasting the workforce money, he took on teaching duties, too. He was the youngest in league historical past when he was employed in 1989.

Just as shortly, Muss managed to show the Thrillers into a must-see spectacle. That’s what nonetheless sticks with Hall most 40 years later. He was nearly as good at capturing consideration as conceptualizing a roster. Maybe higher.

“He was just like a bolt of lightning,” stated Hall, who nonetheless works in real estate in South Dakota. “There was electricity wherever Eric Musselman went.”

So a lot of what Muss discovered about entertaining crowds got here from his father, who famously staged his own Harlem Globetrotter-style warm-ups. Following his lead, Muss flew in big-name acts to Rapid City, like the Laker women or Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, to carry out and got here up with outside-the-box promotions to get followers in the door. Before long, they had been coming en masse. Muss was all the time there to greet them.

“People were literally scalping for Thrillers tickets,” he says.

Sacramento Kings coach Eric Musselman talks to Ron Artest during a recreation in opposition to the Golden State Warriors in 2006.

(MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ / Associated Press)

A number of of his promotions made headlines. Once, Hall bought a call from NBA commissioner David Stern, whom, he says, was “hotter than a pistol.” Word of Michael Jordan’s playing habits had been circulating, so Musselman put collectively a “BE LIKE MIKE” promotion: The workforce would give away season tickets to followers who had been nonetheless playing at the native on line casino at 1:30 a.m.

The league wasn’t glad. Neither was Jordan’s agent. “He called and said the only thing that was going to be left of me when he was done was a pair of cowboy boots,” Hall recollects.

Hall ran to Musselman’s workplace. The coach began laughing.

“I guess we got the publicity we wanted,” Musselman advised him.

Musselman left the CBA with the second-highest profitable proportion in league historical past. But the purpose had all the time been to make it to the NBA. He coached briefly on his father’s workers in Minnesota, just for the Timberwolves to clean home quickly after. Bill Musselman spent the relaxation of his life longing to be an NBA head coach again, whereas his son chased the identical dream, bouncing between Rapid City and one other semi-pro league earlier than Chuck Daly employed him to affix his Orlando Magic workers in 1998.

Bill died from coronary heart and kidney failure in 2000, two years earlier than his son bought the likelihood each of them had been ready for.

Musselman was solely 37 when he was employed to educate the hapless Golden State Warriors. It wasn’t like turning round Rapid City. But he nonetheless managed to guide the Warriors to 39 wins in his first season, their best document in a decade. He even completed second in NBA Coach of the Year voting, behind Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich.

But the scenario went sideways in Year 2. Players clashed with him over taking part in time. Then, the scenario with higher management soured. “Chris Mullin was being groomed to take over [as general manager],” Musselman says now. And Mullin, the not too long ago retired franchise star, had a totally different imaginative and prescient.

“In the NBA, if you talk and act a certain way, you won’t last a season,” Musselman says. “You want to push and get the most out of your guys and their potential. But there’s a delivery and a way that has to be of a certain temperament.”

Kings coach Eric Musselman leans his head in opposition to his hand in the closing moments of the workforce’s season-ending loss to the Lakers on April 18, 2007.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

He figured that when he bought one other alternative as a head coach, the circumstances could be simpler to navigate.

Instead his one season in Sacramento, in 2006, proved to be the most disturbing of his teaching life. Several Kings gamers nonetheless wished to play for the earlier coach, Rick Adelman, whereas the basic supervisor, Geoff Petrie, didn’t agree with possession’s determination to rent Musselman. Then, in the preseason, Musselman was arrested for DUI. All the whereas, Musselman was navigating a divorce, driving back and forth in site visitors to see his children, who had been dwelling with their mom in the Bay Area.

For the first time in his profession, he felt worn down. All he ever wished was to be an NBA coach, however when the Kings fired him, after a 33-49 season, he was sure he needed to step away.

So at 42, for the first time in his life, he set basketball apart. He centered on spending time along with his two sons, Michael and Matthew, as an alternative. He married Danyelle, and collectively, that they had a daughter.

Still, he couldn’t keep away. He discovered his repair in the kind of his son’s AAU workforce. He advised Michael that he’d solely coach the workforce till they misplaced a recreation … not anticipating that they’d win 59 straight.

“By the end, he was working every night, trying to recruit the state’s best talent to his team,” Danyelle says.

He was so caught up in the competitors by that time that it took one other mother or father pointing it out to note his son was no longer cracking his own rotation. It was an eye-opening second; he by no means coached one other AAU recreation after that.

He was sitting in the carpool lane at Michael’s faculty, when he says it hit him like an epiphany. He got here home and advised Danyelle it was time to get back to teaching.

Musselman wasn’t sure then the place that intuition would lead him. At one level, he and Danyelle even discovered themselves considering a new life in Russia.

They flew to St. Petersburg in 2009 for an interview with BC Spartak, a skilled workforce in the Russian Super League. It had been nearly three years since he final coached. When they supplied him the job, he severely thought-about it.

Then, on their final day in Russia, they tried to exit to dinner. The evening was a catastrophe. They couldn’t talk their order at the restaurant. They may barely get round in a cab. Danyelle, who was pregnant at the time, fearful about what that may imply in a completely new world. We can’t do that, they determined.

He wasn’t sure the place to show subsequent. Was the NBA even a actual option? Recent historical past wasn’t precisely encouraging.

“I researched how many coaches got third opportunities,” Musselman stated. “It’s not many.”

He took the job in 2011 as head coach of the Reno Bighorns in the NBA’s D-League, hoping it is perhaps enough simply to be adjoining to the NBA. And when the Lakers referred to as the subsequent season, asking him to educate their affiliate, the D-Fenders, he puzzled if he was getting nearer. The D-Fenders set a league document for wins, Musselman was named coach of the yr and nonetheless no NBA groups got here calling.

College basketball had by no means actually been on his radar, whilst associates tried for years to persuade him he’d be a natural. He’d spent his life laser-focused on the NBA. But the universe was telling him to pivot. He listened.

He took an assistant job at Arizona State in 2012 and moved into a furnished place in Tempe, with solely his garments in tow. He anticipated to land a head job immediately.

“I’m thinking, I’m a two-time NBA head coach, let me get some experience recruiting, and some AD will hire me,” Musselman stated. “Never happened.”

Nevada coach Eric Musselman speaks along with his gamers during a recreation in opposition to Tulsa on Nov. 22, 2018 in Las Vegas.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

His resume wasn’t convincing any athletic administrators. He couldn’t perceive why. Neither may Hall, who tried pleading with the AD at South Dakota, a faculty with zero NCAA event appearances, to think about him.

“He carried this cloud with him,” Hall says. “People were looking for reasons not to hire him.”

One athletic director, Musselman recollects, fell asleep during his interview. But not less than that faculty gave him an interview. Minnesota as soon as canceled his airplane ticket the day of his flight. When San Jose State had a emptiness in 2013, he supplied to drive over and wait outdoors of the AD’s workplace. They advised him to not trouble. That identical spring, he was so determined that he wrote a letter to the athletic director at Campbell, inquiring about the Camels’ open job. He by no means bought a response.

It was, Musselman admits, “a super humbling time for me.”

“The lack of respect was just mind-boggling,” he stated.

After two seasons at Arizona State, he moved back to the Bay Area, uncertain of the place his profession was headed. Then, an previous buddy referred to as. Flip Saunders, who performed for his dad and labored for him in Rapid City, wished Musselman to affix him on the Timberwolves workers. Louisiana State , in the meantime, wished him as its prime assistant, working intently with future No. 1 decide Ben Simmons.

It was a troublesome determination. Here was a likelihood, possibly his final, to return to the NBA ranks. But Musselman selected the school route, hoping a head job would observe close behind. This time he was proper.

He returned to Reno a yr later as head coach at Nevada. He’d spent his total teaching profession bouncing round, by no means staying in a single place too long. But now the timing felt excellent. His youngest son, Matthew, was simply beginning high faculty in the Bay Area.

“Within a year and a half at Nevada, the building was being sold out,” Ruta stated.

The one school job he’d all the time wished, at his alma mater San Diego, got here open round that very same time. But he selected to remain in Reno. He’d finish up staying 4 years, longer than any of his earlier stops. His son joined the workers, and Nevada made the event in three straight seasons. Along the approach, he says, he turned down different larger applications to remain.

“I think about it all the time,” Musselman says now, “What would have happened if I stayed married to my career for those eight years?”

His remaining season in Reno, one of his star gamers, Cody Martin, mused about Musselman changing into an NBA coach again. He discovered himself questioning more and more about it. He nonetheless had a chip on his shoulder, from over a decade earlier.

“I didn’t prove what I wanted to prove in the NBA,” Musselman stated, “and I thought then if somebody gave me a chance, I’d be so humbled by it, so motivated.”

Arkansas coach Eric Musselman celebrates with followers after a second-round NCAA event recreation March 18, 2023.

(Charlie Neibergall / Associated Press)

But the call by no means got here. He left for Arkansas, the place the basketball program had languished for years since profitable a national championship in 1994, and in Year 2, Musselman took the Razorbacks to the Elite Eight. Once again, ticket gross sales soared. When his final season at Arkansas went awry, it felt like a signal. So he canvassed the out there jobs final spring.

“I talked to Louisville, talked to DePaul,” Musselman stated. “But the minute [USC] came open, if they had interest, we were taking it.”

It felt, to the total household, like a excellent match. His mom was already dwelling in Southern California. His daughter, Mariah, was about to begin high faculty. “We didn’t care about years, money,” he says. “We wanted that job.”

It was additionally one other program in determined need of a spark, struggling to maintain curiosity. The circumstances felt acquainted.

The course of moved shortly. Cohen, USC’s athletic director, even made a level to contain Danyelle in the course of.

“Within a week, they were at our house picking us up,” Danyelle says.

As far as she is anxious, it’s the final time that they’ll be shifting. Their daughter, Mariah, began her freshman yr at Mira Costa High in the fall. They have no intention of switching her colleges during the subsequent 4 years.

Though, Danyelle takes it one step additional: “I told [Muss], ‘This is it!’” she says. She purchased new furnishings for the home, simply to hammer the level home.

Eric Musselman and USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen maintain up his jersey during Musselman’s introductory information convention on April 5.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“The stuff she’s doing to the house, I’ll ask her, ‘Why’d you get that?’” Musselman stated. “And she’ll say, ‘Well, because we’re not going anywhere.’”

Musselman doesn’t appear to thoughts that concept. His assistants insist, too, that he suits nicely in L.A. He loves waking up to stroll the Strand. Loves the metropolis’s professional sports activities scene. Loves the USC model. Consider then that the space is overflowing with younger expertise. You can see how somebody may settle in. Michael, his son, calls it “a dream job.”

What a dream job means for Musselman has modified significantly since he began teaching, craving to make it to the NBA. But he’s not chasing the league anymore. His final NBA job in Sacramento was nearly 20 years in the past. And he has been on this treadmill long enough now to know how precious it’s to search out the proper job.

It’s a wet evening in Los Angeles, the final at Galen Center this season. The Trojans are limping into March, losers in seven of their final eight video games. A month in the past, they stood firmly on the NCAA event bubble. Now they had been tiptoeing alongside the cutline for the convention event.

This, evidently, just isn’t the place Musselman meant his workforce to be by the finish of his first season. All Wednesday evening, he appeared to put on that frustration. Even as USC rolled to a much-needed 31-point win over Washington, saving its season for not less than a few more nights, Musselman paced the sideline along with his arms crossed and his forehead furrowed, wanting unhappy. With 45 seconds left and USC up by 30, he shouted at a walk-on for taking an ill-advised, step-back three-pointer.

USC coach Eric Musselman reacts in the closing moments of the Trojans’ 68-60 loss to Oregon at the Galen Center on Dec. 4.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Asked about his temper later, Musselman stated: “I wear my emotions on my sleeve. Pretty evident.”

“The people I’ve worked for and worked around “you try to coach for perfection every possession.”

That notion has pushed Eric Musselman all his teaching life, simply because it drove his father earlier than him. Nothing has come simple at USC to this point. But it didn’t at different stops, both. He has constructed applications with far much less at his fingertips.

“I’ve been through it,” Musselman stated. “You can’t let the team see you flinch.”

But there’s no mistaking Musselman’s frustration at the hand he’s been dealt this season. He can’t help however surprise aloud what might need been totally different if Claude hadn’t gotten harm. Or Terrance Williams. Or Matt Knowling. What if their journey schedule was more environment friendly? He says he doesn’t wish to make excuses.

But as the season enters its remaining stretch, he laments not doing enough to energise USC followers. Fewer than 6,000 had been in the stands Wednesday evening.

“I don’t know if there was much progress,” Musselman stated. “There will be next year.”

USC coach Eric Musselman poses for a portrait at the Galen Center on July 31.

(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)

A top-10 recruit, Alijah Arenas, will be part of USC then, giving Musselman a star to construct round. Rising star Yates stated final week that he’s “locked in” with Musselman, whereas Claude may additionally return.

“There will be a lot of effort put in by all of us,” the coach guarantees. “We want to grow next year.”

Building a program, he is aware of, takes time. But in the coming months, Musselman will certainly dash out in entrance, setting the tempo like he all the time has, not a doubt in his thoughts that he’ll have USC buzzing quickly enough.

Standing nonetheless, for Eric Musselman, just isn’t an option. And at USC, there’s nonetheless a lot of ground to cowl.