Eric Musselman reacts to Mick Cronin referencing challenge of west-to-east travel

Four West Coast teams are experiencing Big Ten basketball life for the first time. UCLA is one of them and Mick Cronin recently was quite vocal about traveling. Going from West to East has proven to be quite difficult throughout multiple sports. During his rant, Cronin told reporters to ask Eric Musselman about the challenge as USC‘s head coach has experience in the NBA.

While Musselman did confirm Cronin’s statement about West-to-East travel statistically being more difficult, he is not making excuses. USC has made just one Big Ten road trip this season, splitting the pair of games. Musselman understands the challenge but is not making it a huge point of contention for the program.

“There’s no excuse,” Musselman said. “I’m a competitor, I want a locker room of competitors. I’m not telling them when we go to Indiana that ‘Hey guys, we had to travel. It’s okay.’ Like, I’m going into that locker room with a game plan and trying to win the game. Is it super challenging? Yes.”

UCLA is finding life in their new conference a little tougher. Cronin’s rant came after the Bruins dropped a third consecutive Big Ten road game to Rutgers. A lot longer flight than anything USC has had to do this season thus far.

One team in Los Angeles not having much trouble is USC’s women’s program. Musselman pointed out how much success they are having right now, currently 17-1 overall and undefeated in Big Ten play. Two of the three Big Ten road games have been single digits but there is a 50-point win against Rutgers in there.

Musselman does not expect to get to the level of blowouts every game but knows the Trojans must find a way to be competitive moving forward.

“It’s not tripping up our women’s team, right? They’re super talented, they’re well coached, and they’re going out and kicking butt when they have to travel… I watch Coach (Lindsay) Gottlieb’s team. They going in there and beat people by 30 on the road with the same travel. Eventually, we got to get to that point… We have to figure out how to go out on the road and compete.”

USC will face Nebraska on Wednesday before settling in for a few days. Next Monday sees a home game against UCLA, probably Cronin’s favorite road game of the season. Michigan State will then come to town on Feb. 1.

Just two more road trips remain for USC, with the coast-to-coast one occurring in late February. Musselman understands the challenge but wants to make sure his team has a mindset of winning while playing far away from home.