Andy Enfield shares latest on Isaiah Collier's injury

We’re coming up on a month since Isaiah Collier, the Trojans’ star freshman, last appeared for USC due to an injury to his hand. While his absence looks like it will continue on into next week, though, Andy Enfield and the program are seeing progress that he needs to make.

Enfield shared an update on Collier last night in his postgame press conference after he was getting shots up pregame inside the Galen Center. He said that an official timeline would have to come from their doctors but did add that his hand is heading in the right direction.

“Well, that’s up to the doctors,” Enfield said in regards to an official return date.

“He is progressing. His hand has progressed significantly, said Enfield.

Enfield wants him back as bad as anyone considering the Trojans’ current record at 8-13. He reminded them that the team was 8-7 around the time that we last saw Collier after they’d won two straight in conference play. That kind of contrast is why he’d also want to see him return to the lineup as soon as possible.

“We’re very hopeful to get him back,” said Enfield. “The last two games we had our guys? We scored 93 and 84 points and had two wins. It is a big difference.”

Collier is averaging 15.4 points per game while shooting 50.6% from the field and 31.3% from three. That’s good for the second on the team in scoring behind only Boogie Ellis at 18 ppg.. He also leads them in assists at 4.1 and is third in steals at 1.3. However, the young guard is accounting for over a quarter of the team’s turnovers per game too at 3.6.

Collier, a Marietta, GA native, was a five-star prospect as the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle. That’s according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. That obviously made him the top point guard in the nation and the best player out of of Georgia. He was also the top prospect in a star-studded freshman class that came to Los Angeles this year.

Still, after the 78-69 loss to Oregon that was USC’s sixth straight defeat on Thursday, Enfield isn’t focused on all this yet, especially since Collier will not be making his return this weekend. He has his attention more on his players that’ll be available as they look to end their losing streak against Oregon State.

“In the meantime, Saturday? He won’t play Saturday. We know that,” Enfield said. “On Saturday, we need to come out with a focus and play as hard as we can.