Eric Musselman, USC take rare step by adding point guard at midseason
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With three key players out because of injury and USC in desperate need of depth, the Trojans are taking the rare step of adding reinforcements at the midseason mark.
Point guard Kam Woods, who last played at Robert Morris, was added to the Trojans’ roster and cleared to play on Thursday, despite the fact that USC is already a dozen games into the basketball season.
Woods could make an immediate impact for coach Eric Musselman, having averaged 14.9 points, 5.2 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game last year at Robert Morris, where he played alongside current Trojan, Amarion Dickerson. Woods is expected to step into the rotation right away with USC, after the Trojans lost starting point guard Rodney Rice for the season.
What’s not clear is why Woods was still in the transfer portal two months into the college basketball calendar. USC had shown some interest in Woods during the offseason, according to a person familiar with the program who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, but Woods never signed with a team, despite being a second-team All-Horizon League selection.
Since he was still in the transfer portal and because he has already graduated, Woods is the rare case, outside of an international player or junior college player, that qualifies to be a midseason addition.
Woods has played five years of college basketball, bouncing around between five schools in that span. He started at Troy in 2020-21, before taking the junior college route at Northwest Florida State Community College during the 2021-22 season. He then transferred to North Carolina State, where he played sparingly over 13 games.
Trojans defeat Texas San Antonio not long after learning point guard Rodney Rice would miss the rest of the season.
Woods landed with Robert Morris last season and emerged as the Colonials’ leading scorer as they won the Horizon League and earned a bid to the NCAA tournament.
So, with this being his sixth year, how is Woods eligible to join another team? Eligibility-wise, he actually falls under the same category as the Trojans’ leading scorer, Chad Baker-Mazara, who is playing his sixth season of college basketball in 2025-26.
Due to the recent ruling in the Diego Pavia case, the season that Woods spent playing junior college does not count against his five years of eligibility. Plus, since Woods was a freshman during the 2020-21 season, he has an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.
Had Woods played for another team during the first two months of the season, he would not be eligible to join the Trojans in December. But because he sat out that time without a team and because he played one season of junior college during a five-year stretch that also intersected with the pandemic, Woods fit an extraordinarily specific set of criteria.
For USC, that fit could be especially fortunate. Without Rice, USC has used a combination of Jerry Easter, Jordan Marsh and Ryan Cornish at point guard. Woods will be the most experienced of the group.
Five-star freshman Alijah Arenas is expected to enter that picture in the coming weeks, too. Arenas rejoined practice during the past week and will presumably be cleared to play some time in January.
