USC Basketball: Coaches Pac-10 teleconference highlights

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Surprise, surprise, USC Coach Kevin O’Neill was peppered with a million questions today on the weekly Pacific 10 Conference coaches teleconference, and guess what all of those million questions were about?

*Ding, ding*

Sanctions!! And, specifically, the postseason ban the university self-imposed Sunday.

(OK, there weren’t really a million questions, but you try listening to the same question asked a thousand different ways.)

O’Neill didn’t say anything new or anything worth calling home about, really, though he did give an interesting answer to a question about whether he knew the sanctions his team got were going to be this severe when he took the job.

‘Obviously, when you have a over-two year investigation into possible NCAA rules violations, something is going to come out,’ he said.

‘It’s kind of like my mother passed away,’ he continued. ‘I knew she was going to die for about a year, but it didn’t make it any easier when it happened.’

California Coach Mike Montgomery, whose team plays USC on Saturday, was asked whether the Trojans will be lagging because of the sanctions.

‘I think ‘SC is going to be fine,’ he said. ‘I think it’s very disappointing, obviously, because they’re playing very well. They look like a postseason team. They’ve won eight straight. They got people back from injury.

‘But it’s out of their control, and knowing Kevin O’Neill like I know him and knowing their team, I think they’ll play with a real chip on their shoulders and I think they’ll be real tough to beat.’

Stanford Coach Johnny Dawkins said he also doesn’t think USC will be affected.

‘Knowing Coach O’Neill, they’re going to come out, compete and play to win,’ Dawkins said.

-- Baxter Holmes