One more road game, one less offensive piece.
When the USC men’s basketball team takes the court against Washington in its second-to-last game of the Big Ten Conference regular season, it’ll do so without its leading scorer.
The Trojans announced Sunday afternoon that Chad Baker-Mazara is no longer with the team after an up-and-down season with the 6-foot-7 graduate student from the Dominican Republic.
There was no reason given for his departure, and the press release appeared carefully worded as if not meaning to place blame on either party.
“Chad Baker-Mazara is no longer a member of the USC Men’s Basketball program, the team announced Sunday,” was the only information given.
SCNG has sent requests for comments to Baker-Mazara and his management, but neither has responded as of Monday.
Baker-Mazara was scoring 18.5 points per game for USC and there were 11 games in which he had scored 20 or more points this season. He burst onto the scene this season with his nonstop energy and sharp shooting, though he missed multiple practices early in the season due to “neck pain.”
Musselman also told reporters on a Zoom call in late October that Baker-Mazara sometimes took freedom within game plans.
“He has his own defensive scheme in his mind,” Musselman said. “I don’t know if he necessarily always follows the game plan or the game scheme that I’ve put out, but he’s got this knack to create loose balls and steals and fly around and he confuses me and he also confuses the offense on the other team.”
Still, Baker-Mazara’s talent was enough to earn him his second straight Maui Invitational MVP honors in November, and there were some tender moments with the team as well.
Baker-Mazara brought his teammates water in between drills at practice, and USC held a confetti-filled, post-practice ring ceremony in September when he received his Final Four ring from a tournament run with Auburn last season.
“This is motivation. We’ve got to get ours now,” Baker-Mazara told his teammates while holding the ring.
@haleymsawyerThe USC men’s basketball team honored Chad Baker-Mazara’s Final Four run with Auburn last season with a ring ceremony at the end of practice on Tuesday. #usc #auburn #collegebasketball #teammates #finalfour
♬ original sound – Haley Sawyer
He seemed to be getting along well with head coach Eric Musselman, and said that the two shared a similar competitive spirit when he spoke with reporters in mid-September.
“I’m enjoying Coach Muss because me and him got that edge, that passionate edge,” he said. “That has brought me closer with him and that, to me – I’m enjoying it a little bit more.”
But by the time the Trojans had gotten into the pressures of February, the optimism was wavering. Baker-Mazara missed three games due to a knee injury and appeared to be dealing with pain against UCLA and Nebraska – USC’s two most recent games.
He played 19 minutes in the loss to the Cornhuskers before a hard fall kept him out of the rest of the game. He sat on the bench adjacent to the team bench – where he has sat on many occasions this season – next to injured point guard Rodney Rice and an unknown woman wearing a USC basketball jersey.
Baker-Mazara continued to walk to team huddles with a limp during timeouts but never re-entered the game. Musselman gave short answers when asked about him after the game.
“He said he couldn’t go,” he said.
USC’s reserves stepped up in his absence. Jaden Brownell came off the bench to score 10 points and added five rebounds and three blocks – both team-highs. Freshman Alijah Arenas scored 14 points in the first of his 10 games that he wasn’t in the starting rotation.
Arenas, who missed most of this season due to injury, also had zero turnovers after giving up the ball five times against UCLA.
“A player that reclassifies and gets thrown into the middle of Big Ten play – he’s got a lot of stuff on his plate that’s getting thrown at him in the middle of the year towards the tail end of the season.”
Arenas’ dad, former NBA All-Star and podcast host Gilbert Arenas, took to social media to share frustration and disappointment in USC for parting ways to Baker-Mazara.
“When you the best player on the team, whatever you say, you right,” Arenas said in a video posted to X. “Give him the ball, get the (heck) out the way. That’s the offense. Damn. We supposed to be playing in the tournament, man. Now we gotta watch this junior varsity … team.”
USC is on the outside looking in when it comes to the NCAA Tournament, and its chances will go down even more if they lose to a struggling Washington team on Wednesday that has dealt with injuries all year. At least eight Huskies have been injured at some point this season.
“We haven’t played very well at home,” Musselman said. “We’re a better road team, which is unique. We’ve got another road game coming up, so we’ll see how we play, but we haven’t played very good down the stretch here at all.
“We gotta get ready for Washington. I don’t know what else to say.”
USC (18-11 overall, 7-11 Big Ten) at WASHINGTON (14-15, 6-12)
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Alaska Airlines Arena, Seattle
TV/Radio: Big Ten Network/710 AM
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