Trojans Near a Majerus Deal

That giant bright light climbing into the sky over UCLA on Tuesday night? That large, round object threatening to eclipse Bruin basketball normalcy?

Full Majerus rising.

Fifty calendar years after its only Final Four appearance, USC will today announce its first serious effort to return.

Fifty long years after yielding the floor to the Bruins, the Trojans will stalk back in today wearing high-top Chucks and old-fashioned smarts.

His name is Rick Majerus. He's more of a circle than a pyramid. He's anything but wooden.

But, my, how he can coach basketball.

And, goodness, it's been a long time coming.

By announcing Majerus as their new coach, the Trojans are making two other statements that for 50 years have been lost beneath the rattling of helmets and crunching of pads.

They are serious about the Final Four.

They are serious about the guys next door.

With their new arena scheduled to open in 2006, they now have an imposing doorman with serious bling-bling.

Even with his reduced size, if anybody is big enough to alter a petrified local college basketball landscape, it's Majerus.

He instantly becomes the only college coach in town to have reached the national championship game.

He instantly becomes the only college coach in town to have won eight consecutive first-round NCAA tournament games.

At Utah.

With some players who wouldn't make the cut at Venice Beach.

Majerus thus becomes the most dangerous college coach in town, because think about it.

If he could take a 10-point halftime lead against Kentucky in the 1998 national championship game with Utah guys, how far can he go with USC guys?

If he can win by recruiting in Salt Lake City, how much more can he win by recruiting in the Southland?

Majerus is taking this job because he thinks he knows the answer, because he's pondered it for years, always privately telling friends that USC was the best sleeper job in the country.

And this was before the new arena was being built.

Majerus always figured that USC could contend in basketball without ever recruiting farther than one could see from the corner of Figueroa and Exposition.

All the Trojans needed was a salesman. They finally have one, a guy known to leave tickets for strangers in restaurants and buy sodas for the house at high school games.