LOS ANGELES — The first thing Eric Musselman did, after his first call with USC athletic director Jen Cohen this spring, was look up the upcoming recruiting classes in Southern California. It was the first thing he’d done, too, just with a different geography, after Arkansas came calling to poach him away from Nevada six years ago. Under Musselman, the Wolf Pack had become an elite transfer-portal destination; he wanted to do things differently with the Razorbacks. So, not a day after accepting the Arkansas job, he hopped on a puddle-jumper of a flight from Fayetteville to Little Rock to meet with local five-star Moses Moody’s father Kareem. You gotta figure out a way to make this place cool, Musselman recalled Kareem Moody telling him then, on this initial pitch to stay home at Arkansas. If you do, we’ll consider it. And if you don’t, we’re not considering it.  He got Moody, eventually, and Jaylin Williams, and Nick Smith, a haul of future in-state NBA stars. For years, he and staff built a near-impenetrable fence around Arkansas prep talent. But even as the Razorbacks became a national power before faltering in 2023-24, local recruiting classes churned out just a handful of players with legitimate Division I talent. Southern California – where Musselman played college ball at San Diego – was a whole different ecosystem, he knew. “Places go through ups and downs,” Musselman told the Southern California News Group in December, speaking on local recruiting. “LA is really not going to go through too many ups and downs.” “But right now,” he continued, “it’s at an all-time high.” Indeed, Musselman stepped into the USC job in the spring amid a particularly “unique time” for a talent boom in Southern California, as St. John Bosco High coach Matt Dunn said. Chatsworth High’s Alijah Arenas and Eastvale Roosevelt’s Brayden Burries, both five-star guards, remain uncommitted in the class of 2025. Five of the top eight recruits in the country in the class of 2026, as currently ranked by 247Sports, hail from Southern California: Notre Dame’s Tyran Stokes, Bosco’s Brandon McCoy and Christian Collins, Westchester’s Tajh Ariza, and Inglewood’s Jason Crowe Jr. “I don’t remember when it’s been this strong,” Inglewood coach and Crowe Jr.’s father Jason Crowe Sr. said, of the regional talent. “But yeah, obviously, if you’re Musselman or you’re any coach in Southern California, you want to get on top of this right here. It can be the difference in you taking off.” And as Musselman and USC (12-7, 4-4 Big Ten) attempt to assert LA upstart-status in Monday night’s crosstown matchup with rival UCLA (14-6, 5-4), they’re also attempting to assert themselves on the local recruiting trail, where the Bruins and Mick Cronin have made themselves plenty visible for years. A variety of local coaches of top 2025 and 2026 recruits told the Southern California News Group that Musselman and staff have been constantly present at practices or games, when permissible; Arenas’ head coach Sam Harris said there’s been a USC coach at “pretty close to every local game that we’ve had,” and Ariza’s head coach DeWitt Cotton said they’d seen the new staff “maybe eight or nine times” since Musselman arrived at USC. “To be successful here,” Musselman said after USC’s win over CSUN in December, “we have to recruit LA. And not recruit them a little bit. We have to recruit them relentlessly.” In fact, as both crosstown programs are pushing for the recently-reclassified Arenas, Cotton emphasized USC has been plenty more visible than UCLA. Musselman was there, in fact, to watch Ariza at Westchester’s Friday game against Hamilton. It was unique, Cotton reflected, for a college coach to show up to a high school game simply to see one kid. “Muss, he’s been there from day one – from day one, he’s been on the job recruiting kids,” Cotton said. “So I think that’s the one advantage that they have, right now, in the recruiting thing with Tajh.” It is a perfect storm, in some respects, Musselman’s track record clicking snugly with the exact type of talent currently present in Southern California. Ariza, Burries and McCoy are all bigger guards, an archetype Musselman and staff have developed for years at Arkansas, from Moody to Smith to Anthony Black. And Musselman, too, brings a deep-seated respect for the pedigree of prep programs in Southern California, a coach who made clear he only recruited players in his first transfer-portal cycle at USC from schools he respected. One of Musselman’s first recruits at Nevada was Lindsey Drew, who he called the “smartest player I’ve ever coached” and who developed at Fairfax High under current Rolling Hills Prep coach Harvey Kitani. On stops along the local trail, Musselman told the Southern California News Group, he’s taken drills from high school coaches and implemented them into USC’s practices. “So many of ‘em could be college coaches, they’re that good,” Musselman said, of local high schools in Los Angeles. “And so, when you get a player from LA, pretty much guaranteed that he’s been well-coached.” The problem, at the moment, is that born-salesman Musselman has little to sell at USC. About three-quarters of his first-year roster, assembled through the transfer portal, will be gone in 2025-26, either from exhausted eligibility or the NBA Draft. USC has hosted Crowe Jr. and Crowe Sr. at a game, and a couple practices; still, it’s hard to accurately evaluate the program’s future, Crowe Sr. said. “This team is a one-off, so you can’t project or predict what’s actually going on,” Crowe Sr. said. “Like, I don’t know what’s going on over there, because of that. It’s going to take ‘em some time. He needs time to organize (their) roster, turn it around.” The solution, at the moment, appears to be simply showing up. It’s not just Musselman: a variety of local coaches said USC has sent a rotating array of staffers to games, between assistants Will Conroy, Anthony Ruta and more. It’s helped, already, land 2025 St. John Bosco standout Elzie Harrington, as USC has attempted to build a consistent presence on Bosco’s campus and others across the region. “SC’s been there – I mean, they’ve been there,” Cotton said. USC vs. UCLA When: Monday, 7:00 p.m. Where: Galen Center TV/radio: FS1/USCTrojans.com