New USC basketball coach O'Neill is a tough guy in a tough job

Midway through Kevin O'Neill's first public appearance as USC's basketball coach Monday, a cellphone rang.

"That's a $500 fine," he said immediately.

Moments later, another cellphone rang.

"We're $1,000 richer now," he said.

Goodness, if he's this tough on the media, what about the players?

The answer to that question, obviously, is what players?

At this point, USC doesn't really have any basketball players, and barely a basketball program.

Tim Floyd may have built a dream operation that earned a school-record three consecutive NCAA tournament bids, but when he skipped town a couple of weeks ago, he left something else entirely.

He left a nightmare. He left a program on the verge of NCAA sanctions for rules violations involving the alleged payment of O.J. Mayo.

He left a burning building, and the Trojans needed someone bold and desperate enough to run in the other direction, into the heat, the flames, and all those ashes.

For this, Kevin O'Neill is not only the best hire, he's the perfect hire.

Facing at least a year's basketball probation, the Trojans have nothing else to lose here, and neither does O'Neill, 52, who was out of work and out of luck.

"I didn't care what had happened," he said. "I was taking the job no matter what."

Facing new and increased scrutiny, the Trojans have to remain squeaky clean, and in a dozen college seasons spent retooling junkers, O'Neill is still without stain.

"We're going to deal with whatever comes out of this and be positive and move forward," O'Neill said.

Finally, facing the rebuilding of a program that has lost its four best players and seemingly all of its best recruits in the wake of the NCAA probe, the Trojans needed a tough guy who can hold things together.

That is O'Neill, who showed up Monday red-faced and rumpled, as if he had just finished airing out some 19-year-old slacker in the Heritage Hall lobby.

"I'm not Darth Vader," he protested.

That's not entirely true.

In his last visit to Pauley Pavilion, as the interim Arizona coach two seasons ago, he broke a blackboard in the locker room.

In his last permanent college head coaching appearance, at Northwestern, he cursed so loud and so often that season-ticket holders could recite every rip by heart.

He's tough and unforgiving, Ben Howland with a sharper edge, Bob Knight without the chair.