Matt Knowling, Terrance Williams injury updates: Eric Musselman updates ‘frustrating’ timeline

The USC basketball team dropped to 12-8 (4-5) on the season after falling to UCLA 82-76 Monday night. The fact that the Trojans are down two of their top players certainly isn’t helping things.

USC forward Matt Knowling missed his eighth game of the season against UCLA, while fellow forward Terrance Williams missed his 13th game of the year.

Trojans head coach Eric Musselman said after the game that he doesn’t have a timetable for when Matt Knowling or Terrance Williams will be able to return to action.

“Terrance is nothing foreseeable. It’s frustrating, you know,” Eric Musselman said. “Two guys that are – one guy’s your sixth-man out of the gate and the other guy’s your starter. And we’re already [thin]… so it’s frustrating, you know. But you know, they had one guy out, too, so I’m sure we’ll hear about that.”

Terrance Williams has appeared in seven games for USC this season, making six starts. He is averaging 10.6 points and 4.6 rebounds per game, while playing 32 minutes per night.

As for Matt Knowling, he has appeared in 12 games, making three starts. Knowling is averaging 3.8 points and 2.7 rebounds in 19 minutes per game on the year.

Musselman added that it’s tough playing teams that have eight or nine contributors while USC is down two of its top six players.

“We’ve got two guys out and they’ve been out for quite some time, and I think our guys are, I mean they’re battling,” Musselman said. “At some point you look down there and some teams just keep coming at you with seventh, eighth and ninth man.”

Eric Musselman is in his first season at USC after a successful stint at Arkansas. Even though this year has been frustrating, there is still time for the Trojans to turn things around. Getting healthy would certainly help USC.

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 the USC 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.

“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.”