Thank You, USC

Jonah Mathews

3/26/2020

I remember getting to USC on June 25, 2016.

So on Senior Day, people were expecting me to be happy because we were playing UCLA, but to be honest, I was super sad. It was all coming to an end.

Once warmups started though, I was ready to play.

I knew coming into the game that I was close to the USC three-point record. When I hit the first three, I was for sure counting. I was like, ‘OK, that’s one, I need two more to tie it.’

But when I hit the shot to break the record, I didn’t know that was the one. I was in the zone.

Having already hit a couple threes, I was in a pretty good scoring rhythm and was super confident when the game came down to the final play.

"I had been waiting for that moment for four years. For the coaches to say, ‘It’s in your hands, we’re going to win or lose with you,’ that’s something I’ve always wanted as a player. Bennie Boatwright got to do that last year, Jordan McLaughlin the year before that, Chimezie Metu. It felt like a coming of age, like this is my turn. I waited for it. I was super confident that I was going to make a play. I was going to make something happen."

The play went exactly how Coach Enfield drew it up. The scenario couldn’t have been any more perfect.

The timing gave me 9 seconds to get down-court. Him making that free throw actually gave me time, whereas him missing would have been too fast. It gave me time to think about what I wanted to do.

To be honest, the shot was like a workout shot. I remember doing that shot with Coach [Chris] Capko a thousand times this summer and during the season. When I shot it, it felt so natural. Going left and stepping back, it felt so natural. I was like ‘OK, this is for sure going in.’

And when it did, I wasn’t even excited.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling. I feel like it was just destined to happen. That’s what Daniel Utomi told me. He wasn’t even surprised. He just said ‘Something was destined to happen today, so when you hit it, I wasn’t surprised that you made it.’

It was so surreal, though. Everybody was going crazy. Nick Young came on the court. Nick Rakocevic was falling down and jumping on my back. All those people and all those emotions all at once were crazy. Even when I went to dinner and the game had been over for five hours, it felt like it wasn’t real. I was eating at Yard House with my family and people were coming up to me like, ‘You hit that shot!’ They played it on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays as I was sitting at dinner.

The next day, I had a whole vision.

I had a whole vision of what the season was going to be like after I hit that shot. I was thinking we’d have a bye in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament. We’d play, we’d get a win, we’d have a path to the Pac-12 Championship. We’d go up against Oregon on a neutral court without Chris Duarte. If we win the Pac-12 Tournament, we’d get a six seed. We’d play a team that was OK, but not better than us, in the first two rounds. And then the Sweet 16.

That’s what was going through my head the next day. I wasn’t even thinking about the shot anymore, I was just thinking about what the season had in store for us. Now that we’re on this roll, winning three games in a row and all locked in.

And then all the craziness happened.

I was aware of the coronavirus, but I didn’t know how serious it was until they canceled Coachella. They hadn’t said anything about our tournament yet, though. We went out to Vegas on Tuesday and watched the Arizona/Washington game on Wednesday, thinking we were going to play one of those teams. We were still in game prep mode.

On Thursday morning, Nick woke me up and pointed it out to me on Twitter. They canceled the Pac-12 Tournament. After that, I was still thinking they canceled ours but they weren’t going to cancel March Madness. No way. There’s no way. And then later that day they canceled the whole thing, and I was just like, ‘Wow.’

Me and Nick were sad, but we weren’t devastated. We honestly did everything we ever wanted to do in that last game. I hit the game winner, we became the winningest players in USC history, I got the three-point record.

Obviously, we wanted to play in March Madness again. But we were more like, ‘Dang, I’ll never get to play with these guys in a USC jersey ever again.’

Quinton Adlesh and Daniel Utomi were super sad, because they’d never been. They were so excited to go, because they knew that once we beat UCLA, we were in. We’re in, regardless of what we do now, we’re in. They wanted to see March Madness.

I’ve been trying to stay positive, but the more and more I think about it, I feel like … What could have been?

That’s the worst feeling.

My whole senior year, my dad said, ‘You don’t want to look back on your senior year and think, what could have been? What more could I have done?’

That’s what really pushed me in the second half of the Pac-12 season to make a statement and make a mark.

But I know I did everything I could.

Now, I’m just bored in my apartment at USC. I’ve been FaceTiming Nick a tremendous amount, finishing up my Yoga class online, playing XBOX and watching movies (Aquaman was dope. Top-five superhero movie for sure.)

I’m going to sign with an agent soon, and from there they’ll tell me what I have to do and where I have to move. I was supposed to go to NBA Camp on April 17, but they canceled that.

So I’m left to sit back and reflect on my four years at USC.

"I’m extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to be coached by Coach [Andy] Enfield and Coach [Jason] Hart and all the coaches that believed in me for four years. They could have seen me my freshman year and thought ‘This kid’s not going to be anything.’ But they all believed in me from Day 1. As I got better and better, they stuck with me. I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have that support."

To the fans, you guys believed in us so much. My junior year, I know we weren’t that good. We were losing, but you guys still showed up to every game and stuck around for a great season this year.

Thank you. For everything.