Eric Musselman shares impressions of Alijah Arenas after USC debut

Freshman guard Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, made his collegiate debut on Wednesday night against Northwestern. It probably didn’t quite go as he had hoped.

Arenas logged 29 minutes and dropped eight points, two rebounds and two assists. But he went 3-of-15 shooting from the floor, including 0-of-6 from 3-point range.

USC coach Eric Musselman wasn’t all that surprised, necessarily. He’s seen highly touted players struggle in their debut before.

“Yeah, I mean, I figured,” Musselman said of Alijah Arenas. “When you do this long enough and you inject a super talented player the results are not shocking to me. When you put someone in and he goes 3-for-15 from the field, that’s a lot of shots in his minutes. But he can create his own shot.”

USC lost the game 74-68, which was as much about shoddy defense as anything else. Still, the team could have used a little more from Arenas.

But there have been some challenging circumstances associated with his ramp-up to playing time. Alijah Arenas was injured in a serious car accident in April, then suffered a torn meniscus in July. He missed a lot of time.

“He should be a high school senior who reclassified, missed an entire summer,” Musselman said. “And then you’re throwing him in the middle of Big Ten play. He doesn’t have non-conference play and all that stuff just based on injury, and it’s a difficult thing for any super talented player to go through.”

It’ll be interesting to see how Musselman manages the uber-talented Alijah Arenas going forward. Clearly, there’s work to be done.

However, Arenas was the crown jewel of USC’s recruiting class, a Five-Star Plus+ recruit and the No. 12 overall player. The McDonald’s All-American was the all-time leading scorer in CIF LA City Section history, scoring 3,002 points in just three seasons, while he was the No. 14 all-time leading scorer in California high school history.

“Should I have started him? I don’t know, maybe not,” said Musselman, who seemed more concerned with the team’s defense than Alijah Arenas’ debut. “Should he have played less minutes? Maybe. But we’re struggling right now to find five guys with the way we’re shooting and blown coverages. I cannot remember a player blowing two coverages like I saw tonight at the end of the half and with 1.2 seconds on the clock. I literally can’t. I’m in shock about that for sure.”