USC basketball: Maurice Jones and Jio Fontan spark turnaround

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Mo and Jio– or Jio and Mo, if you want to be alphabetical about it – comprise the newbie backcourt at USC:

Maurice “Mo” Jones is a freshman from Michigan.

And Jio – well, “Jio” – Fontan, is a junior transfer from Fordham in New York.

If you want to pinpoint USC’s turnaround from a team that had lost six of nine following a 64-50 drubbing at UCLA on Jan. 9 and stood at 12-11 overall with 4-6 mark in Pacific 10 Conference play...

...to becoming a team that has won six of eight and is 18-13 overall with a 10-8 conference mark before Thursday’s quarterfinals game against California (17-13) in the Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament ... well, there’s a lot to look at.

But one thing that’s easy to miss is, simply, the maturation of the two guards, Jones and Fontan.

“I wouldn’t trade those two guys for anybody in this league,” USC Coach Kevin O’Neill said this week.

Strong words about a pair who combine to average a solid-but-not-spectacular 20.4 points.

But O’Neill didn’t stop there.

If you’ve spent any time with O’Neill, you know one of his favorite phrases is “big time.”

When he referred to the maturity of USC’s two primary ball-handlers this week, twice he said they’ve been “huge time.”

The two have taken care of the ball, keeping USC to 11 turnovers or fewer in its last six games.

“We don’t turn the ball over so you don’t give up fast-break points,” O’Neill said. “It leads to so many things offensively and defensively, just taking care of the ball.”

On defense, the 5-foot-7 Jones, who is the smallest player in the Pac-10 this season, has been huge, recording 66 steals, eighth on the Pac-10 all-time freshman single-season list.

Fontan doesn’t have as many swipes as Jones, but he has helped improve USC’s perimeter defense that has allowed only 26 total assists in its last four games.

Oh, and lest we forget, USC’s defense leads the Pac-10 in points allowed (62.9) and in field-goal percentage defense (41%).

As all those numbers have improved, and as USC has won more, the improved guard play has been key.

But the maturation of Jones and Fontan has been a season-long process rife with wrong turns and flat tires.

“We’ve been having to go through things we never really had to go through,” Fontan said.

For Fontan, that meant not playing in USC’s first 10 games as he sat out in accordance with NCAA transfer rules after arriving at USC in January 2010.

His first game back was at Kansas, in Allen Fieldhouse, which gets loud.

(He wasn’t too shabby, though).

After that, he spent time at the shooting guard position while Jones conducted the team from the point guard spot.

But that hindered Fontan, who’s more of a natural point guard than a shooting guard.

O’Neill eventually made the switch, putting Fontan at the point and sending Jones to the bench while putting senior guard Donte Smith into the starting lineup.

The move was made to help give USC a better offensive start to games, since Jones has struggled to balance being a scorer and a floor leader.

“Jio is more comfortable running the plays and running the team and telling people what to do,” junior forward Nikola Vucevic said.

The switch was a dramatic one for Jones, who had started every game he had played in since third grade.

Jones is quiet, providing one-word or two-word answers to every question, but he did admit that he’s more comfortable, which he proved pretty quickly.

“Especially as the year goes on and you learn the different things you can do and you can’t do,” he said.

Such as?

“Nothing specifically.”

Classic Jones.

But because of the switch, and their growth, USC is doing now what couldn’t be done about two months ago.

“Since Jio and mo have started playing at a high level,” Vucevic said, “we’ve started winning.”

-- Baxter Holmes