LOS ANGELES — It was easier, certainly, to build a fence around Arkansas. There are millions of acres of nothing but wide-open farmland. There are a handful of small towns. And there are a couple gems of talented regional prep basketball players with minimized regional recruiting competition.

The world is different in the metropolis of Los Angeles. But Eric Musselman took the job at USC, all the same, to corner the market on Southern California.

On the second day Musselman arrived to Southern California from Fayetteville, Ark., dubbed the men’s basketball program’s next head coach in early April, he hosted St. John Bosco’s Elzie Harrington on an unofficial visit.

The two sat, and Musselman re-offered Harrington, a talented local guard in the class of 2025, a scholarship extended previously under Andy Enfield’s regime. He told Harrington he reminded him of Anthony Black, a former five-star talent who played for Musselman at Arkansas and became a NBA lottery pick.

“He made it clear,” Harrington told the Southern California News Group, “how he felt about me.”

Harrington committed to Harvard in June. But on Tuesday he publicly flipped his pledge to USC, a major development for the program’s recruiting momentum.

Harrington marks Musselman’s first Southern California high school commit in his eight-month USC tenure, aside from current freshman Isaiah Elohim, who originally committed to Musselman at Arkansas.

“I think it’s great for USC to get a local kid, who has the ability to bring a lot of other kids with him,” St. John Bosco coach Matt Dunn said.

Harrington has become a well-known name in the Southern California prep scene, a four-year standout for a local power in St. John Bosco. He’s a 6-foot-5 guard who averaged 14.1 points and 6.1 assists a game in 2023-24 as a junior. He fits snugly into Musselman’s track record of developing NBA-caliber big guards, and is a potential successor to USC’s current 6-6 point guard Desmond Claude.

The process, though, has been trying, for deeper reasons. Originally set on Harvard, Harrington stepped back to look more closely at West Coast schools amid family health issues, wanting to be closer to home. He’d been the one to reach back out to USC, he emphasized to the Southern California News Group, keeping any broad news of his de-commitment quiet.

“Honestly, it hasn’t been easy,” Harrington said Tuesday. “I just – like, I have a relationship with USC. I have a great relationship with the coaches and guys at Harvard, too. But, at the end of the day, I had to put my family first. That’s something I believe in, is, without my family, I can’t even really play basketball.”

He’ll have a chance to play a major role in 2025-26, as Claude’s likely to test out the NBA draft and Musselman’s current transfer-heavy roster is comprised of a heap of soon-to-be-graduated seniors.

“When they really have a chance to have a whole year to put together a roster and do what they do,” Dunn said, “I think ... on the ground floor, is pretty exciting.”