Andy Enfield calls Harrison Hornery 'extremely smart'

Andy Enfield had nothing but praise for Harrison Hornery following USC‘s victory over Washington on Saturday.

The Trojans forward came up big for Enfield’s squad, both offensively and defensively, playing a pivotal role over his 18 minutes against the Huskies. Afterwards, Enfield made sure to point out Hornery’s impact.

“Harry is an extremely smart basketball player on both sides of the ball,” started Enfield. “He knows he’s not the best athlete. He plays position basketball. Huge two defensive plays down the last couple of minutes. The one when he stepped in, when he drove and made him shoot over him and he missed. Then he got that steal. Offensively, he has good touch around the basket. He can make shots, and he’s also a very good passer. He has a really good feel for the game. I thought he played very hard. Had five rebounds. Had that big steal.

“That’s the type of effort you need off the bench when you have some guys out.”

Alas, you need guys like Harrison Hornery if you’re going to be a successful team. The USC forward stepped up, and it’s evident Andy Enfield holds him in high regard.

Andy Enfield credits USC for pulling out win despite Washington’s strong second half

Moreover, USC (17-6) outlasted Washington (13-12) 80-74 in Pac-12 play Saturday and head coach Andy Enfield credited his team in a close one.

Washington had a great second half after the Huskies trailed the Trojans by seven at halftime. Despite some offensive woes for USC, the team did enough to scrape out a win at home.

Enfield detailed the keys to the win after USC won its fourth straight game.

“Well, we won the turnover battle and the offensive rebounding,” Enfield said. “And we shot 86% from the foul line. So you’re not going to play your best game, Boogie (Ellis)and Drew (Peterson) to go eight-for-28 and two-for-14 from the three point line between them. They’re To their credit they had 13 assists, and Drew had 10 rebounds, which is really good. 

“But for us to be able to win a league game with both those guys having off nights on the offensive end, we feel very happy about that. That means our other guys have stepped up and came to play, and they did a great job.”

Tre White and Kobe Johnson led the scoring for the Trojans with 22 and 21 points respectively. Safe to say, those guys stepped up according to Enfield.

Speaking of Enfield, the win for USC was not just another conference win. It was Enfield’s 200th career win as head coach.

“That’s a milestone that I didn’t even know about it until I was reminded yesterday about it, but personal milestones are nice, but you know we’re in this for the program,” Enfield said postgame. “That just means we’ve had stability here over the last 10 years, with our coaching staff. I’m very proud of our assistant coaches and everybody that works so hard to give us a chance to win on a daily and weekly basis. Our players, I’ve had a lot of good players here as a head coach and we’ve recruited players they’ve developed and they’ve been very successful moving on either in the NBA or on in life. 

“Some guys are overseas playing basketball, so to have 200 wins at one school, we’re very proud of that stability, but this is something that I share with our players and our staff. When I think of that, I just think of all the great people we’ve had here at USC and so I hope there’s many more, but certainly proud of what we’ve done.”

On3’s Nick Kosko contributed to this article.