LOS ANGELES — De’Anthony Melton is not forgotten. He’s not gone either.
The day USC announced Melton would be suspended for the whole season, he told Coach Andy Enfield he had an appointment but would be at practice as soon as he could get there. His absence would have been excused by Enfield, but Melton showed up nonetheless.
“And he dominated,” Enfield said. “Then he shot for 45 minutes by himself, just him and a couple of managers..”
At least the Trojans know that the cloud has passed, having already rained on the nonconference part of their schedule.
It isn’t a comfort, but it is no longer a distraction. On Sunday, they resumed the process of finishing what Melton didn’t get to start.
They let Utah score the first six points of the game and then ran the Utes back to the airport, throwing down 3-pointers with frightful consistency. In the first half they had nine 3-pointers, in 15 tries, and only six 2-pointers. They wound up shooting 14 for 29 from deep and, as often happens, their defensive hunger increased with each bucket. They won, 84-67, after they led by 28. They are back to 13-6 overall and 4-2 in the Pac-12.
“Usually there are some shots where I say, ‘No,’ and then ‘Great shot,”” Enfield said. “Today there weren’t many of those. There were some quick ones, but I liked the shots we took It’s the law of averages. We were leading the league in 3-point shooting before we had a couple of bad games.”
Jordan McLaughlin played 30 minutes at the point without a turnover, Jonah Mathews scored 17 off the bench in 24 minutes, and the Trojans hassled Utah into 17 turnovers and led by 22 at halftime.
The only lowlight was the fact that tipoff came at 5 p.m., which meant they had to take the Saints-Vikings game off the videoboard just before Case Keenum found Stefon Diggs.
But that Hail Minny might have jogged unwelcome memories of last Sunday, when Stanford freshman Daejon Davis swished a 55-footer to beat USC just after McLaughlin seemed to have won it with a twisting layup. That’s the only game the Trojans have lost since Dec. 29
“Things are settling down,” Bennie Boatwright said “Defensively we’re ramping it up. We have to make up for De’Anthony as a collective group. He steals, gets rebounds, does everything defensively. It helps somewhat that we know the situation, but it most definitely gives us a cause. It’s tough every day knowing that he’s healthy and he’s not able to play.”
On Jan. 11 USC ruled Melton ineligible for the year, thanks to the aftereffects of an FBI investigation that led to the indictment of ex-assistant coach Tony Bland. There had been moments, particularly in December, when the players were led to believe Melton would come back for specific games. The rug was pulled each time.
There were injuries here and there. There also was the novel burden of being expected to play Top 10 basketball every night because Boatwright, Chimezie Metu and others had passed up the NBA draft last spring.
Shaken and targeted, USC lost to Texas A&M, SMU, Oklahoma and Princeton. Granted, a 3-point loss to Trae Young and the Sooners probably won’t hurt USC with the selection committee, but their best nonleague wins are Middle Tennessee State and New Mexico State.
“That was a rough time,” Boatwright said. “But we all knew that once we got everything together we were going to be tough to beat. We can score on anybody. We can get a lot of shots up, and games like tonight are going to happen. Defensively, we just have to stay consistent for 40 minutes.”
For Enfield, Melton was a queen on the chessboard defensively, the type of 1-through-5 stopper that allowed the coach to rope-a-dope some weaknesses. He also thinks the injury implications were overlooked.
“It was very challenging because we didn’t have our roster,” Enfield said. “We were very hopeful every game De’Anthony would come back, but we were also missing Bennie, Jonah and Derryck Thornton. It hurt us early in the season not having him on defense. But now I think we’ve been playing great team defense.
“But knowing De’Anthony is out, that’s not the reason we’re playing well. The guys feel for him deeply.. In the last few days he’s been spectacular. He still has a smile on his face, still continues to amaze me.”
The seismic forces that sidelined Melton are a different, and much larger, issue in college basketball. For now, the Trojans are just trying to lengthen a season, for a teammate whose clock has stopped.