The USC Trojans have been rebuilding their basketball program over the past few years, but things might have to start over again after some big changes at the top.
The school fired head basketball coach Kevin O'Neill Monday during an 8 a.m PT meeting with athletic director Pat Haden and associate athletic director Steve Lopes.
"They informed me they were going in a different direction," O'Neill told ESPN.com by phone as he was driving home from the meeting. "I thanked them for the opportunity. I have nothing but great things to say about the university. It's a great place."
The Trojans were just 7-10 this season under O'Neill and had trouble playing consistently in the Pac-12, going just 2-2. Last year the team greatly underachieved and dealt with injuries, going 6-26 while winning just one game in the conference.
"I would like to thank Kevin O'Neill for his four years of service to USC," Haden said in a statement. "He took over a program under difficult circumstances because of our NCAA issues and, despite that, he was able to do some good things.
According to ESPN.com, associate head coach Bob Cantu, a 12-year member of the staff, will take over on an interim basis for the rest of the season. O'Neill said he is due $1.5 million for the remainder of his contract.
"It's disappointing any time you don't win enough," O'Neill said Monday. "That's what it comes down to in this business, winning enough. I'm disappointed I couldn't do a better job for the players."
While the Trojans have played better than in 2011, the team has not been able to win games against lesser talented opponents despite having a number of experienced players on the roster. O'Neill brought in a number of recruits and transfers, including J.T. Terrell and Ari Stewart from Wake Forest, Omar Oraby from Rice and Eric Wise from UC Irvine. The roster did not gel during the early parts of the season and the players had trouble with chemistry.
"Having so many new guys all at once was obviously a challenge," O'Neill said. "In the last few weeks we've actually played really good basketball."
The Trojans have won three of the past five games against Dayton, Stanford and Utah, but suffered through a five game losing streak and at one point lost seven of eight games. The team also had a very tough nonconference schedule and lost to talented squads such as Illinois, Marquette, San Diego State, New Mexico and Minnesota, who defeated USC 71-57. The Trojans also lost nonleague road games against Nebraska and Georgia.
"I don't have any regrets. I just regret we didn't win enough. That always falls on the head coach," O'Neill said.
O'Neill originally took over the team in 2009 after previous coach Tim Floyd resigned while dealing with allegations of NCAA infractions. The Trojans were set back after losing an entire recruiting class and just like the football team with the Reggie Bush scandal, the basketball team was banned from postseason play.
"It was hard for me to evaluate him as a head coach until this year when he had enough players and veterans to compete," Haden said. As the season progressed, it became evident to me that we needed new leadership in our men's basketball program. Despite a nice road win in our last game, I felt it was best to make a change now, with most of the Pac-12 season still ahead of us, in order to re-energize our team."
The Trojans made it to the NCAA tournament in the 2010-11 season, but lost to Virginia Commonwealth in opening round 59-46. Last season the team dealt with injuries to guard Jio Fontan in the preseason as well as midseason injuries to Dedmon and Aaron Fuller. The team ended the year on a 1-17 streak
O'Neill was the head coach Tennessee, Marquette and Northwestern and was hired by coach Lute Olson as an assistant at Arizona before the 2007-08 season. He eventually took over the job as interim coach when Olson had to take a medical leave of absence and led the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament. O"Neill said he would like to coach again sometime in the future.
"Yeah, I think I do," he said. "I'm not sure. I love coaching. We'll see what happens. Good coaches get fired every day. That's the way it is. It's a hazard of the business."
Cantu has a great deal of experience at USC and worked under Jim Saia, the late Rick Majerus, Floyd and O'Neill. He also worked at Sacramento State, where he was an assistant and previously worked in junior college and at Cal Poly.
"I've just been really fortunate," Cantu told ESPN.com. "It just kind of worked out at this point. I've been real fortunate. I didn't know Tim or Kevin at all and [tried to] do the best I could in whatever area I could. I had opportunities and never had a chance to be an interim coach at this level. This never would have happened if Kevin didn't promote me to associate head coach," Cantu added. "I'm grateful to him."
Yahoo Sports wrote that one reason for O'Neill's firing could have to do with the fact that he said before the season that he would be living in San Diego and making a 90-mile commute to Los Angeles every day, leaving him out of the loop for some of the team's issues at times.
The Trojans are coming off of a 76-59 win over Utah, but the team has not been able to score or defend on a consistent basis this year. The team is ranked 199th in both assists per game and field goal percentage and are in the bottom of the Pac-12 with 63 points per game, ranked 259th in the nation.
Senior Eric Wise is leading the team in scoring with 11.9 points per game, but no one else on the roster is averaging double-digits in scoring. Dewayne Dedmon has been the most reliable rebounder, while Wide is second on the team with 4.8 per game.
The Pac-12 has improved in recent years and if the Trojans want to compete they will need to be more consistent on offense to play against teams like UCLA, Oregon and Arizona, who are all ranked in the top 25 this year. The Trojans play next against the No. 21 Ducks and still have key games against the Bruins, Wildcats as well as Arizona State, California and Oregon State.