San Jose State University (SJSU) founded in 1857 is the oldest public university on the west coast and the founding campus of the CSU system. Formerly Minn’s Evening Normal School 1857-62, Cal St Normal School 1862-1921, San Jose St Teachers College 1921-35, San Jose St College 1935-72, CSU San Jose 1972-74
SJSU has 154 acres in downtown San Jose, enrolls 36,062 (27,111 undergrad), $251 M endowment, USN&WR No. 4 in region, No. 1624 globally
Famous alumni include Stevie Nicks, Tom & Dick Smothers, Time’s 1984 Man of the Year Peter Ueberroth, authors Amy Tan - Joy Luck Club, James D Houston - Farewell to Manzanar, 1968 Olympic sprinters John Carlos & Tommie Smith (black power salutes on medal stand), first native American senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Dolby Laboratories founder Ray Dolby, Gorilla researcher Dian Fossey, coaches Bill Walsh & Dick Vermeil, golfers Julie Inkster, Patty Sheehan, Ken Venturi, QBs Jeff Garcia, Steve DeBerg
SJSU Athletics: NCAA Div I, Mountain West Conference (MWC) – former confs Cal Coast, Far West, Northern Cal Athletic, Cal Collegiate AA, Pacific Coast AA, Big West; 10 NCAA team and 50 individual titles. 22 Olympic medals: 8 gold, 7 Silver, 7 Bronze
Colors – Blue & Gold, Nickname – Spartans (since 1922, formerly Daniels, Teachers, Pedagogues, Normals, Normalites), fight song Spartan Fight Song, Mascot – Sammy Spartan
Basketball started 1909 (1193-1506, .442), 3 NCAA appearances (last 1996), 10 conf titles (last 1996), 12 NBA draft picks (4 1st rd: Darnell Hillman, Ricky Berry, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, Brandon Clarke)
Winningest coaches: Walt McPherson 262-207, .563, Hovey McDonald 143-80, .641, Bill Berry 143-144, .498. Former SC coach Stan Morrison was 62-172 in 9 yrs at SJSU
Current – Tim Miles (4th yr) 38-60, .388; Career 401-371; 2014 Big Ten COY (Neb), 2023 MWC COY (SJSU)
Currently: 1-4, (W: Life Pacific; L: W. Illinois, Pacific, Hawaii, UCSB). SJSU picked 8th in MW (1 Boise St, 2 New Mexico, 3 Nevada, 4 SDSU, 5 UNLV, 6 UT State, 7 Colo St, 8 SJSU, 9 Wyoming, 10 Fresno St, 11 Air Force
All-time: SC leads the series 3-1 (W 42-24 in 1935, last L 57-56 in1987)
SJSU NET n/a, KenPom 279, SC NET n/a, KenPom 76
SJSU Scores: 68.6 ppg (+0.8), 42.9% FG, 26.5% 3FG, 5.2 3’s/g, 79.8% FT. Rebounds 33.8 pg (+1.2), Assists 9.2 pg, TOs 7.6 pg (-2.0), Steals 5.4 pg, Blks 1.6 pg
SJSU Leaders:
Scoring: Josh Uduje 13.8 ppg (46.6% FG, 20.0% 3FG, 75.0% FT), Will McClendon 10.8 (34.7% FG, 16.7% 3FG, 89.5% FT), Donavan Yap 7.6 (34.4% FG, 42.1% 3FG, 88.9% FT)
Rebounding: Uduje 5.2, Robert Vaihola 5.0, Sadraque NgaNga 4.8; Assists Yap 2.2; Steals Yap 1.0; Blks – Chol Marial 0.8
SC scores: 78.0 ppg (+7.5), 48.3% FG, 29.0% 3FG, 6.3 3’s/g, 72.0% FT, Rebs 28.5 rpg (-4.5), Assists 18.3 apg, TOs 8.8 pg (+6.8), 15.3 ppg/TO, Steals 6.3, Blks 2.5
SC Leaders
Scoring: Claude 15.5 ppg (53.8% FG, 33.3% 3FG, 73.9% FT), T-Will 13.0 (62.5%
FG, 44.4% 3FG, 100% FT), Cohen 11.5 (66.7% FG, 0-3 3FG, 75% FT), Yates 10.5 ppg (50.0% FG, 20.0% 3FG, 100% FT), Saint 10.5 ppg (39.5% FG, 28.6% 3FG, 0%, 44.4% FT), Chibuzo Agbo 7.3, Knowling 6.0
Rebounds: Saint 5.5, T-Will 4; Assists – Saint 5.3, Claude 3.5; Steals - Yates 2.0, Saint 1.3; Blks – Cohen 0.8, Knowling 0.7
Pregame
Todd Lee makes second appearance as guest speaker to a largely empty Founder’s. I wore a yellow Muss Bus shirt last time he spoke, today I have a new red Muss Bus shirt (available at USCBasketball.com) – free plug haha
Coach praises Sunday’s Cal game crowd and a near full student section. Unfortunately, the team didn’t win. Cal was coming off a 16-pt loss to Vandy, SC was unbeaten. He says when 2 teams are evenly matched, the team that is the most desperate usually wins and SC needs to go into games as the more desperate team. It turned out Cal was more desperate and won the game aided by a stretch of poor SC execution at the end of the game. He mentioned the issue with the shot clock operator costing us 9 secs that could have made a differenc.
SJSU comes in 1-4 and look desperate to win. They like to slow game down and are a low assists, low TO team that gets to the FT line. SC will try to keep them off the FT line by playing tough D w/o fouling. Need to rebound better and knock down shots. He noted Buzo and T-Will as 2 guys who need to make shots (is he clairvoyant?) SC was close to gaining commitments from a couple of very good bigs but came up short. He is asked about Hornery and he says the coaches have gone back and forth on whether it’s Agee or Harry back up Josh and at this time they still feel Agee can help more. At some point Harry will get a look.
The starting lineup changes again with Buzo and T-Will coming off the bench. He feels they have been pressing and may benefit from watching a little. They will still play a lot. Muss likes to have good players off the bench to spark the team.
Entering the arena, I cursed to myself. Where are the fans? Students? Can’t they walk across the street and support their team? It’s an embarrassment! The attendance is announced as 3186, but is much less.
I spot Frostee Rucker, who attended Tustin HS and played for Pete Carroll, making All Pac-10 1st Team in 2005. He was a 3rd rd pick by the Bengals in 2006 NFL draft, played for 4 teams in 12-yr career. Very few media are here, are they expecting a blowout?
The Game
Surprise starter is Kevon Patton (USD), our most athletic player. Other starters are Saint, Cohen, Claude, Knowling. Patton jumps center and we control the tip to start the game! Saint turns it over on the first possession (his only TO vs. 9 assists), SC gets it back on a steal by Claude whose assist to Cohen gets SC on the board at 19:12. It is tied 2-2 when Patton bricks a 3 and Muss is not happy. He steals the ball from McClendon and goes in for a windmill dunk. It fires up the bench and small crowd. McClendon knows it’s rivalry week and the former bruin torches the net for 3 straight threes. Uduje’s jumper gives SJSU a 16-12 lead. McClendon and Uduje would score all night for SJSU- why they’re SJSU’s top 2 scorers. Muss would say that his teams ID the opponent stars and shut them down, this team has not been able to. They need to figure out a way to curtail the threes.
Muss started showing a man defense but slipped into a matchup zone which left the corners and the backdoor open for SJSU.
Off the bench T-Will had 13 in the 1H. Buzo would go off in the 2H. SC was up 33-28 at 4:01, went on a 9-2 run to go into half 42-35.
Second Half
Switched to man to man and mostly stuck with it. SC was more aggressive and SJSUs shooting cooled off. They shot 35.3% FG in the 2H, after 50% in the 1H.
After McClendon scored the first pts of the 2H to make it 42-37, SC reeled off 10 straight to lead 52-27 on a Knowling jumper at 15:59. McClendon would score just 1 more FG.
After scoring only 5 pts in the 1H, Agbo struck for 15 2H pts including three straight 3s to put SC up 13, 61-48. SC led by double digits for the duration to notch their 4th win.
Each team led 4 times w/ 4 ties. SC’s largest lead was 18 (70-52 at 6:51 on Buzo’s layup), SJSU’s largest was 4 pts in 1H. SC continued to score well in the paint w/ 38 pts to 26 for SJSU. With Cohen scoring 8 pts in only 9 min and Agee scoreless in 3 min, SC played small ball but finally outrebounded an opponent (35-26). SC had its best shooting performance, converting 57.1% FG, 45.5% 3 FG with 10 made threes.
The strategy of bringing T-Will and Buzo off the bench was successful. They both scored a team high 20 pts to give SC a 54-11 bench scoring advantage.
SC is still a work in progress and Muss continues to tinker with the lineup and may not have it solidified by the conference opener vs Oregon at Galen on Dec 4th. We all know we have holes with lack of rim protection and our ability to guard fast players. We are what we are at this point and will have to learn to make it work.
For the game:
SJSU shot 41.9% FG (26-62), 47.8% 3FG (11-23), 71.4% FT (5-7)
SC shot 57.1% FG (32-56), 45.5% 3FG (10-22), 88.9% FT (8-9)
SJSU
Scoring: Uduje 25 pts, 8-12 FG, 5-5 3FG, 4-4 FT, McClendon 18 pts, 7-15 FG, 4-8 3FG, Sadaidriene Hall 9 pts, 4-6 FG, 1-1 3FG, Latrell Davis 8 pts 3-8 FG, 1-3 3FG, 1-2 FT
Rebounds: Vaihola 9, Uduje 5; Assists Vaihola 5, McCendon 4; Stls J.Washington 3, Uduje 2; blks Hall 1
SC
Scoring: T-Will 20 pts, 8-12 FG, 3-6 3FG, 1-1 FT, Buzo 20, 7-11 FG, 4-7 3FG, 2-2 FT, Yates 14, 6-9 FG, 2-4 3FG, 2-2 FT, Yates 14, 6-9 FG, 2-3 3FG, Knowling 12, 5-6 FG, 2-2 FT, Cohen 8 pts, Saint 5
Rebounds: Knowling 8, Buzo 7, Thomas 6, T-Will 5; Assists Saint 9, Knowling 5; Stls Buzo 2; Blks Knowling 2
Post-game from Muss
So happy how Buzo and Will responded to coming off the bench. When they shoot like they did tonight we can win every game, when they don’t we can lose every game.
Yates continues to show that he is a future star. He is unafraid and our best creator and his instant offense and physique reminds Muss of former Detroit Piston Vinnie “the Microwave” Johnson. To be a more complete player he needs to be a more disciplined defender.
SC must improve on 50/50 balls and reaction to loose balls. Muss is not worried that Claude was held to 1 pt on 0-for-3 shooting nor that Saint had only 5 pts. He is great in the other categories leading the team in assists as a de facto lead guard and rebounding.
SC improves to 4-1, SJSU falls to 1-5.
Next up: Grambling State (1-2, play NM before SC) on Sunday 11/24 at 4 pm at Galen Center. Watch on B1G+
Fight On! Beat the Tigers!
SJSU has 154 acres in downtown San Jose, enrolls 36,062 (27,111 undergrad), $251 M endowment, USN&WR No. 4 in region, No. 1624 globally
Famous alumni include Stevie Nicks, Tom & Dick Smothers, Time’s 1984 Man of the Year Peter Ueberroth, authors Amy Tan - Joy Luck Club, James D Houston - Farewell to Manzanar, 1968 Olympic sprinters John Carlos & Tommie Smith (black power salutes on medal stand), first native American senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Dolby Laboratories founder Ray Dolby, Gorilla researcher Dian Fossey, coaches Bill Walsh & Dick Vermeil, golfers Julie Inkster, Patty Sheehan, Ken Venturi, QBs Jeff Garcia, Steve DeBerg
SJSU Athletics: NCAA Div I, Mountain West Conference (MWC) – former confs Cal Coast, Far West, Northern Cal Athletic, Cal Collegiate AA, Pacific Coast AA, Big West; 10 NCAA team and 50 individual titles. 22 Olympic medals: 8 gold, 7 Silver, 7 Bronze
Colors – Blue & Gold, Nickname – Spartans (since 1922, formerly Daniels, Teachers, Pedagogues, Normals, Normalites), fight song Spartan Fight Song, Mascot – Sammy Spartan
Basketball started 1909 (1193-1506, .442), 3 NCAA appearances (last 1996), 10 conf titles (last 1996), 12 NBA draft picks (4 1st rd: Darnell Hillman, Ricky Berry, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, Brandon Clarke)
Winningest coaches: Walt McPherson 262-207, .563, Hovey McDonald 143-80, .641, Bill Berry 143-144, .498. Former SC coach Stan Morrison was 62-172 in 9 yrs at SJSU
Current – Tim Miles (4th yr) 38-60, .388; Career 401-371; 2014 Big Ten COY (Neb), 2023 MWC COY (SJSU)
Currently: 1-4, (W: Life Pacific; L: W. Illinois, Pacific, Hawaii, UCSB). SJSU picked 8th in MW (1 Boise St, 2 New Mexico, 3 Nevada, 4 SDSU, 5 UNLV, 6 UT State, 7 Colo St, 8 SJSU, 9 Wyoming, 10 Fresno St, 11 Air Force
All-time: SC leads the series 3-1 (W 42-24 in 1935, last L 57-56 in1987)
SJSU NET n/a, KenPom 279, SC NET n/a, KenPom 76
SJSU Scores: 68.6 ppg (+0.8), 42.9% FG, 26.5% 3FG, 5.2 3’s/g, 79.8% FT. Rebounds 33.8 pg (+1.2), Assists 9.2 pg, TOs 7.6 pg (-2.0), Steals 5.4 pg, Blks 1.6 pg
SJSU Leaders:
Scoring: Josh Uduje 13.8 ppg (46.6% FG, 20.0% 3FG, 75.0% FT), Will McClendon 10.8 (34.7% FG, 16.7% 3FG, 89.5% FT), Donavan Yap 7.6 (34.4% FG, 42.1% 3FG, 88.9% FT)
Rebounding: Uduje 5.2, Robert Vaihola 5.0, Sadraque NgaNga 4.8; Assists Yap 2.2; Steals Yap 1.0; Blks – Chol Marial 0.8
SC scores: 78.0 ppg (+7.5), 48.3% FG, 29.0% 3FG, 6.3 3’s/g, 72.0% FT, Rebs 28.5 rpg (-4.5), Assists 18.3 apg, TOs 8.8 pg (+6.8), 15.3 ppg/TO, Steals 6.3, Blks 2.5
SC Leaders
Scoring: Claude 15.5 ppg (53.8% FG, 33.3% 3FG, 73.9% FT), T-Will 13.0 (62.5%
FG, 44.4% 3FG, 100% FT), Cohen 11.5 (66.7% FG, 0-3 3FG, 75% FT), Yates 10.5 ppg (50.0% FG, 20.0% 3FG, 100% FT), Saint 10.5 ppg (39.5% FG, 28.6% 3FG, 0%, 44.4% FT), Chibuzo Agbo 7.3, Knowling 6.0
Rebounds: Saint 5.5, T-Will 4; Assists – Saint 5.3, Claude 3.5; Steals - Yates 2.0, Saint 1.3; Blks – Cohen 0.8, Knowling 0.7
Pregame
Todd Lee makes second appearance as guest speaker to a largely empty Founder’s. I wore a yellow Muss Bus shirt last time he spoke, today I have a new red Muss Bus shirt (available at USCBasketball.com) – free plug haha
Coach praises Sunday’s Cal game crowd and a near full student section. Unfortunately, the team didn’t win. Cal was coming off a 16-pt loss to Vandy, SC was unbeaten. He says when 2 teams are evenly matched, the team that is the most desperate usually wins and SC needs to go into games as the more desperate team. It turned out Cal was more desperate and won the game aided by a stretch of poor SC execution at the end of the game. He mentioned the issue with the shot clock operator costing us 9 secs that could have made a differenc.
SJSU comes in 1-4 and look desperate to win. They like to slow game down and are a low assists, low TO team that gets to the FT line. SC will try to keep them off the FT line by playing tough D w/o fouling. Need to rebound better and knock down shots. He noted Buzo and T-Will as 2 guys who need to make shots (is he clairvoyant?) SC was close to gaining commitments from a couple of very good bigs but came up short. He is asked about Hornery and he says the coaches have gone back and forth on whether it’s Agee or Harry back up Josh and at this time they still feel Agee can help more. At some point Harry will get a look.
The starting lineup changes again with Buzo and T-Will coming off the bench. He feels they have been pressing and may benefit from watching a little. They will still play a lot. Muss likes to have good players off the bench to spark the team.
Entering the arena, I cursed to myself. Where are the fans? Students? Can’t they walk across the street and support their team? It’s an embarrassment! The attendance is announced as 3186, but is much less.
I spot Frostee Rucker, who attended Tustin HS and played for Pete Carroll, making All Pac-10 1st Team in 2005. He was a 3rd rd pick by the Bengals in 2006 NFL draft, played for 4 teams in 12-yr career. Very few media are here, are they expecting a blowout?
The Game
Surprise starter is Kevon Patton (USD), our most athletic player. Other starters are Saint, Cohen, Claude, Knowling. Patton jumps center and we control the tip to start the game! Saint turns it over on the first possession (his only TO vs. 9 assists), SC gets it back on a steal by Claude whose assist to Cohen gets SC on the board at 19:12. It is tied 2-2 when Patton bricks a 3 and Muss is not happy. He steals the ball from McClendon and goes in for a windmill dunk. It fires up the bench and small crowd. McClendon knows it’s rivalry week and the former bruin torches the net for 3 straight threes. Uduje’s jumper gives SJSU a 16-12 lead. McClendon and Uduje would score all night for SJSU- why they’re SJSU’s top 2 scorers. Muss would say that his teams ID the opponent stars and shut them down, this team has not been able to. They need to figure out a way to curtail the threes.
Muss started showing a man defense but slipped into a matchup zone which left the corners and the backdoor open for SJSU.
Off the bench T-Will had 13 in the 1H. Buzo would go off in the 2H. SC was up 33-28 at 4:01, went on a 9-2 run to go into half 42-35.
Second Half
Switched to man to man and mostly stuck with it. SC was more aggressive and SJSUs shooting cooled off. They shot 35.3% FG in the 2H, after 50% in the 1H.
After McClendon scored the first pts of the 2H to make it 42-37, SC reeled off 10 straight to lead 52-27 on a Knowling jumper at 15:59. McClendon would score just 1 more FG.
After scoring only 5 pts in the 1H, Agbo struck for 15 2H pts including three straight 3s to put SC up 13, 61-48. SC led by double digits for the duration to notch their 4th win.
Each team led 4 times w/ 4 ties. SC’s largest lead was 18 (70-52 at 6:51 on Buzo’s layup), SJSU’s largest was 4 pts in 1H. SC continued to score well in the paint w/ 38 pts to 26 for SJSU. With Cohen scoring 8 pts in only 9 min and Agee scoreless in 3 min, SC played small ball but finally outrebounded an opponent (35-26). SC had its best shooting performance, converting 57.1% FG, 45.5% 3 FG with 10 made threes.
The strategy of bringing T-Will and Buzo off the bench was successful. They both scored a team high 20 pts to give SC a 54-11 bench scoring advantage.
SC is still a work in progress and Muss continues to tinker with the lineup and may not have it solidified by the conference opener vs Oregon at Galen on Dec 4th. We all know we have holes with lack of rim protection and our ability to guard fast players. We are what we are at this point and will have to learn to make it work.
For the game:
SJSU shot 41.9% FG (26-62), 47.8% 3FG (11-23), 71.4% FT (5-7)
SC shot 57.1% FG (32-56), 45.5% 3FG (10-22), 88.9% FT (8-9)
SJSU
Scoring: Uduje 25 pts, 8-12 FG, 5-5 3FG, 4-4 FT, McClendon 18 pts, 7-15 FG, 4-8 3FG, Sadaidriene Hall 9 pts, 4-6 FG, 1-1 3FG, Latrell Davis 8 pts 3-8 FG, 1-3 3FG, 1-2 FT
Rebounds: Vaihola 9, Uduje 5; Assists Vaihola 5, McCendon 4; Stls J.Washington 3, Uduje 2; blks Hall 1
SC
Scoring: T-Will 20 pts, 8-12 FG, 3-6 3FG, 1-1 FT, Buzo 20, 7-11 FG, 4-7 3FG, 2-2 FT, Yates 14, 6-9 FG, 2-4 3FG, 2-2 FT, Yates 14, 6-9 FG, 2-3 3FG, Knowling 12, 5-6 FG, 2-2 FT, Cohen 8 pts, Saint 5
Rebounds: Knowling 8, Buzo 7, Thomas 6, T-Will 5; Assists Saint 9, Knowling 5; Stls Buzo 2; Blks Knowling 2
Post-game from Muss
So happy how Buzo and Will responded to coming off the bench. When they shoot like they did tonight we can win every game, when they don’t we can lose every game.
Yates continues to show that he is a future star. He is unafraid and our best creator and his instant offense and physique reminds Muss of former Detroit Piston Vinnie “the Microwave” Johnson. To be a more complete player he needs to be a more disciplined defender.
SC must improve on 50/50 balls and reaction to loose balls. Muss is not worried that Claude was held to 1 pt on 0-for-3 shooting nor that Saint had only 5 pts. He is great in the other categories leading the team in assists as a de facto lead guard and rebounding.
SC improves to 4-1, SJSU falls to 1-5.
Next up: Grambling State (1-2, play NM before SC) on Sunday 11/24 at 4 pm at Galen Center. Watch on B1G+
Fight On! Beat the Tigers!
