Eric Musselman believes professional background will help with Big Ten travel schedule

New USC head basketball coach Eric Musselman will look to shepherd the Trojans program into a new era following 11 seasons under Andy Enfield as the team enters the Big Ten Conference next basketball season.

One of the new challenges with the realignment of the Big Ten involves travel for the newest members of the conference. With USC along with UCLA, Oregon, and Washington now having to travel across numerous timezones for a majority of their away games.

Musselman is heading into his 10th season as a college head coach, but he recently told Jon Rothstein that his extensive experience at the pro level could help with USC’s new travel adjustment.

“I’m hopeful that the pro background travel wise — I have some some thoughts on what happened when when the Warriors or the Kings went east on that first game and how we conducted shoot arounds and the timing of the shoot arounds,” Musselman said.

In the early 2000s, Musselman spent two seasons as the head coach for the Golden State Warriors and one for the Sacramento Kings. Recently meeting with a professional team in a different sport to collect more information regarding travel operations from the west to the east.

“Just the other day myself and another staff member went over to the Los Angeles Rams practice,” Musselman revealed. “And we met with the two people that kind of do their travel and how they had a philosophy on how many days it takes to adjust when you go from you know the Pacific Time Zone to East Coast … So we we got some really good ideas with some forward thinking pros so to speak in that area.”

Home court advantage is already prominent, particularly in the Big Ten. An advantage that can be even more significant with a mismanaged travel schedule, especially for the conference’s new West Coast teams.

“Because the way you travel is going to be much much different than in the SEC when you’re virtually anywhere from 45 minute flight to an hour and 20 minute flight almost everywhere you go. So the travel is drastically different, the time zone’s drastically different, Big Ten’s drastically different that they play seven days a week from a league wide schedule,” Musselman explained. “So there’s a lot of things that are going to go into how you prepare, even off the floor.”

Musselman was also asked if the construction of USC’s non-conference schedule would change at all given the new travel rigors of their conference slate. With more home games or local contests potentially being wiser moving forward.

“I think so as long as you can semi spread it out. I think that in year one playing in Palm Springs is a great spot for us as we try to navigate the challenges. But I do think that when you get an opportunity to play in some of the marquee, big non-conference events you want your program to be a part of that,” Musselman said. “And then maybe what it might do, Jon, is your practices might become shorter. Even in non-conference just as you try to manage to have fresh legs, and fresh bodies, and fresh minds once you get in the thick of conference play.”

The Trojans’ men’s and women’s teams will be playing in the Acrisure Series In Palm Springs during the week of Thanksgiving just a two-hour drive away from USC’s campus. And it will be fascinating to see how USC and many other teams in the country manage the new geography of their upcoming schedules following a massive overhaul of conference realignment.