Eric Musselman just finished his second season running the men’s basketball program at USC, and it fell apart in slow motion. The Trojans opened 8-0 and won a tournament in Maui. Then they lost eight straight to close the year and finished 18-14.
He is the head coach of the USC Trojans, hired on April 5, 2024, after four seasons at Nevada and five at Arkansas. In 11 seasons as a college head coach, he has gone 256-125. He also spent three years as an NBA head coach, with Golden State and then Sacramento, going 108-138.
His head coaching record, season by season
Most profiles hand you a career total and stop. The full record, one line per year, is more useful.
| Season | School | Record | Postseason |
| 2015-16 | Nevada | 24-14 | CBI champions |
| 2016-17 | Nevada | 28-7 | NCAA first round |
| 2017-18 | Nevada | 29-8 | NCAA Sweet 16 |
| 2018-19 | Nevada | 29-5 | NCAA first round |
| 2019-20 | Arkansas | 20-12 | Postseason canceled |
| 2020-21 | Arkansas | 25-7 | NCAA Elite Eight |
| 2021-22 | Arkansas | 28-9 | NCAA Elite Eight |
| 2022-23 | Arkansas | 22-14 | NCAA Sweet 16 |
| 2023-24 | Arkansas | 16-17 | None |
| 2024-25 | USC | 17-18 | College Basketball Crown |
| 2025-26 | USC | 18-14 | None |
The table above lists every year he has run a program. It splits into two halves: nine seasons of steady winning, then two in Los Angeles that have not gone to plan.
Key takeaways
- He has been the USC head coach since April 5, 2024, and he is still in the job for 2026-27.
- College record: 256-125 across 11 seasons, a winning percentage of .672.
- USC went 18-14 and 7-13 in the Big Ten last season and missed the NCAA Tournament.
- The Trojans have missed the field in both of his seasons.
- NBA head coaching record: 108-138 with the Warriors and the Kings.
- USC is a private university, so his contract terms are not public record.
Where Eric Musselman coaches now
USC. He replaced Andy Enfield, now the head coach at SMU, and took over a program that had just moved from the Pac-12 into the Big Ten. The school announced him on April 5, 2024.
His staff carries unusual experience for a program this deep in a rebuild. Former NBA guard Earl Boykins works the bench alongside Will Conroy, and his son Michael Musselman is also an assistant. That group is still intact heading into 2026-27, which answers the question a lot of readers arrive with: no, he was not fired after last season.
The 2025-26 season: 8-0, then eight straight losses
That start was USC’s fastest since 2021-22. The Trojans won the Maui Invitational, beating Boise State 70-67, Seton Hall 83-81 and Arizona State 88-75. Big Ten play then opened with an 82-77 win at Oregon.
Everything after New Year’s went the other way. USC finished 7-13 in the conference and 12th in the standings. The arithmetic was brutal: 78.6 points scored per game against 77.9 allowed. Three-point shooting stuck at 31.4 percent. Five of the losses came by six points or fewer, or in overtime.
Chad Baker-Mazara led the team at 18.5 points a game and Ezra Ausar added 14.8. Rodney Rice averaged 20.3 in the games he was healthy enough to play. Jacob Cofie pulled 6.8 rebounds a night and blocked 56 shots, and Kam Woods handed out 4.1 assists.
The end came on March 11, 2026, an 83-79 overtime loss to Washington in the Big Ten tournament. That closed a losing streak of eight games. One number did go the right way: the team posted a 3.264 grade point average, the highest in program history. If you follow this stuff week to week, it sits with the rest of our wider sport coverage.
Two years at USC, side by side
The two seasons rhyme more than USC would like.
- 2024-25: 17-18, 7-13 in the Big Ten. Beat No. 7 Michigan State at home and won at No. 13 Illinois, then lost 62-61 to Villanova in the College Basketball Crown.
- 2025-26: 18-14, 7-13 in the Big Ten. Won the Maui Invitational, missed the NCAA Tournament, lost the last eight.
Combined, that is 35-32 and no NCAA Tournament bid. For a coach who took Nevada and Arkansas to six tournaments and two Elite Eights, two Marches on the outside is the number that follows him into next season.
Before USC: Nevada, Arkansas and a CBI trophy
Nevada, 2015 to 2019
This is the run that made his name. Nevada went 110-34 in four years. Year one ended with a CBI title, won 85-82 in overtime against Morehead State, and the next three ended in the NCAA Tournament.
The 2018 team was the good one: 29-8, with a 15-3 Mountain West record. Its Sweet 16 run came off an 87-83 overtime win over Texas and a 75-73 escape against Cincinnati. Loyola Chicago ended it 69-68. Voters made him Mountain West Coach of the Year that season. The 2019 group went 29-5, and the program held a spot in the AP top 10 for 16 consecutive weeks during his tenure.
Arkansas, 2019 to 2024
Five seasons in Fayetteville produced a 111-59 record and back-to-back Elite Eight trips in 2021 and 2022. Three straight Sweet 16s came with them, something Arkansas had not done since the mid-1990s. Moses Moody, Anthony Black and Nick Smith Jr. all left as first-round NBA draft picks.
The fifth year undid a lot of it. Arkansas went 16-17, missed the postseason entirely, and he left for Los Angeles that spring.
What Eric Musselman’s USC contract really says
Publicly, almost nothing. USC is a private university, so it files no coaching contract with the state and appears in no public salary database. Every figure you see quoted for his pay is a report or an estimate, not a document anyone can pull. Compare that with a state school, where the contract, the buyout schedule and the bonus triggers are all open records.
Some perspective on the money involved. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for coaches and scouts was $45,920 in May 2024, across 306,500 jobs. A power conference basketball head coach earns a multiple of that, which is exactly why the absence of a filing matters: there is no ceiling you can check.
We flag that gap rather than paper over it, which is how Gamerlume handles numbers we cannot source.
The NBA years, and what he brought back
Golden State handed him the job in 2002. He won 38 games in year one, the franchise’s high for more than a decade, and finished runner-up for NBA Coach of the Year. The second year went 37-45. Sacramento hired him for 2006-07, and he went 33-49. That is 108-138 in three seasons.
The rest of therésumée is deeper than the head coaching line suggests. He took over the Rapid City Thrillers in the CBA at 24, the youngest coach in that league’s history and the fastest to 100 wins. His Florida Sharks teams went 53-3 in the USBL. He was NBA D-League Coach of the Year in 2012, and he assisted in Minnesota, Orlando, Portland, Atlanta and Memphis.
The family on the bench
His father, Bill Musselman, coached in the NBA too. The two became the first father and son to each hold an NBA head coaching job.
His wife is Danyelle Sargent Musselman, a broadcaster who worked at ESPN, Fox Sports and NFL Network. They have three children: Michael, Matthew and Mariah. He grew up in Ashland, Ohio, played at the University of San Diego, and made the West Coast Conference all-academic team three times. If that mix of family and career interests you, we cover it in other athlete profiles.
What to watch in 2026-27
The roster came back, which is rare for him. Rodney Rice returns from the injury that cost him most of last season. Alijah Arenas is a sophomore. Jacob Cofie went to the NBA Combine and chose to stay. KJ Lewis and Eric Reibe are back, and freshman Christian Collins joins them.
The bar is simple, and everybody around the program knows it. Three seasons without an NCAA bid at a school that just paid to join the Big Ten is a hard thing to survive. Watch the December non-conference results, then watch what happens once January arrives, because that is where both of his USC teams have come apart.
The short version
A coach with a genuine tournament record is 35-32 through two seasons in Los Angeles with nothing to show for it in March. Year three, with a returning core and a settled staff, is the one that decides how this is remembered. Keep an eye on the Trojans in January.
Conclusion
Eric Musselman’s coachingrésuméé remains one of the strongest in college basketball, built on sustained success at Nevada and Arkansas before taking on the challenge of rebuilding USC. While his first two seasons with the Trojans have produced more setbacks than postseason success, his overall record shows a coach capable of turning programs into NCAA Tournament contenders. With a largely returning roster and higher expectations entering 2026-27, the coming season will be a pivotal test of whether USC can translate potential into results. Regardless of what happens next, Musselman’s proven track record ensures he remains one of the sport’s most closely watched coaches.
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Frequently asked questions
Eric Musselman is the head men’s basketball coach at USC. He has held the job since April 5, 2024, and he is on the staff listing for the 2026-27 season.
256-125 in 11 college seasons: 110-34 at Nevada, 111-59 at Arkansas, and 35-32 at USC. Add 108-138 in the NBA and the professional and college lines together read 364-263.
Yes. He led Golden State in 2002-03 and 2003-04, then Sacramento in 2006-07, and he was an assistant with five other franchises.
His fifth Arkansas team went 16-17 and missed the postseason. He left after that season, and USC announced him days later.
Danyelle Sargent Musselman, a former ESPN, Fox Sports and NFL Network broadcaster. They have three children.
Nobody outside the athletic department can say for certain. USC is private; its contracts are not public record, and the school has never released the terms.
