Chad Baker-Mazara left the USC Trojan men’s basketball team on Sunday (March 1), but what led to his sudden departure?
In a brief statement shared on Sunday, USC Men’s Basketball announced that Baker-Mazara was no longer a member of the program.
“Baker-Mazara, a graduate student, appeared in 26 contests for the Trojans in 2025-26. USC has two regular-season games remaining, traveling to Washington on March 4 and hosting UCLA on March 7 before the start of the Big Ten Tournament next week,” read the brief statement.
The news came shortly after Baker-Mazara was forced to sit out USC’s Saturday (Feb. 28) game against Nebraska after he suffered a leg injury. He briefly went to the locker room, and when he returned, he didn’t sit on the bench with his teammates. After the game, head coach Eric Musselman was asked about Baker-Mazara’s injury. “He said he couldn’t go,” said Musselman. “I haven’t talked to the trainer. He said he couldn’t go.”
The reasoning for his shocking departure hasn’t been publicly disclosed, but the Los Angeles Times reported that an “accumulation of issues” led to his dismissal from the team. A person familiar with the situation said that his injury in the recent game wasn’t the reason for his departure, but a series of issues that resulted in the move. He is now out of eligibility for college basketball, leaving his future in basketball uncertain.
As reported by the New York Post, Gilbert Arenas shared a since-deleted tweet in which he suggested he wasn’t a fan of the news. “This is what we doing? Mr. I Get Buckets?” he said in the video accompanying the post. “Every night, he brings it every night—guaranteed 18, 20 [points] every night.” His son, Alijah Arenas, is also a player for the USC Trojans, and he clearly thinks the news impacts the team’s chances.
