LOS ANGELES — All it took, apparently, was a trip to the Pacific Northwest and a handful of faux-ugly Christmas sweaters.

There has been little interest at the Galen Center, for months, in Eric Musselman’s first USC team, a team pieced together by kids who’d known each other less than a year and a team that looked like it. They stooped to the level of worse teams. Musselman, pulling out any stop imaginable to generate some momentum, placed basketballs in his player’s hands before last week’s game at Washington and told them to physically visualize their shots falling.

Suddenly, and magically, they’ve started falling.

Suddenly, in front of a student section sporting “Muss Bus”-themed Christmas attire for a Sunday-night Galen promotion, a team that had struggled to separate blitzed Montana State in an end-to-end 89-63 win. Suddenly, a team that had played a sort of discombobulated your-turn, my-turn offense moved the ball like a lineup of four-year veterans. Suddenly, a team that had seemed a step late on defensive rotations at the rim — as wing Saint Thomas pointed out in mid-November — moved as part of a hivemind, swatting six Montana State shots and holding them to 33% shooting.

Not two weeks ago, after falling flat in a loss to Oregon, Musselman wondered aloud to reporters exactly how many Big Ten games his program would win. And not two weeks later, after that 85-61 drubbing of Washington and Sunday night’s encore, USC (7-4, 1-1 Big Ten) suddenly looks like the kind of team that could give a host of Big Ten schools fits.

It is a conference known, stylistically, for plodding physicality, for behemoth big-men and domineering defense. The best version of this USC program, and Musselman’s vision for this team, stands completely separate. The best version of this USC program attacks relentlessly in transition, and operates in frantic motion, and features five guys with long arms switching capably onto anyone and everyone they’re asked.

The best version of this USC program has come together, definitively, since flying to Washington. Sunday night’s game was over a few minutes in, Montana State struggling to even get a shot off on multiple possessions before red zeroes rang, USC building a 27-5 lead after 10 minutes.

And offensively, the first half was a coaches’ dream, Musselman putting a clear emphasis on getting ballhandlers going downhill with halfcourt sets — relying heavily on designated handoffs — as a group of transfers swung the ball as if they’d been buddies since childhood.