Transfers a fact of basketball life

The wave of transfers that has hit USC’s basketball team hard over the last two years is partly the result of Coach Tim Floyd’s late start in recruiting after his hiring in January 2005.

Other schools had already signed nearly all the top-level prospects in the Class of 2005, leaving Floyd to sift through the remnants to assemble his first recruiting class.

Of that six-man class, only juniors Keith Wilkinson and RouSean Cromwell remain. Collin Robinson, Sead Odzic and Jeremy Barr transferred, and Ryan Francis was fatally shot in May 2006.

There was one common theme among the transfers: lack of playing time.

“Some of our [departures] was our first year getting in here and taking what was left late, and then as you have an opportunity to recruit over time, those guys can see the quality of player that you’re signing and they get impatient,” Floyd said Thursday.

This week sophomore Kyle Austin became the second member of Floyd’s second recruiting class to transfer, joining Kevin Galloway, who left USC last January. Austin also cited a lack of playing time.

“We’re not any different than anybody in the country,” Floyd said, noting that Washington and UCLA had recently lost players over the same issue. “At this level they’d all like an opportunity to play more. Players, for some reason, aren’t as patient as they were years ago.”

Would Floyd change his recruiting habits in the wake of the five transfers?

“You’re always trying to get as good a player as you can get,” he said. “You always want to try to get a player who replaces a player in your program that is better than the guy who left. If you can do that, you’re always going to upgrade and you’ll always have a chance to play for league titles.”

Floyd said he doesn’t so much try to mix and match stars and role players as to fill needs.

“Certainly, you find guys who can drive if you’ve got shooters, you find rebounders if you have low-post scorers,” he said. “You try to find a mix that gives you a winning combination. It’s an imperfect science.

“We would have loved for all of these kids to have stayed, but at the same time you understand and respect players that want to play, you just wish they would wait their turn and get their time.”

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Kasey Cunningham expressed optimism that his second recovery from a torn knee ligament would go more smoothly than one in high school that kept him out for 22 months.

“Having gone through surgery and rehab the first time makes it a lot easier now,” said the freshman forward, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus in his left knee last week when a teammate stepped on his foot and he tried to jump. “I know what to do and what not to do.”

Cunningham said he was walking immediately after his most recent injury, a big improvement over the week he spent on crutches when he tore the same ligament as a high school senior.

He also said he would stick with one doctor and one trainer this time after vacillating between several different ones during his previous recovery. He expects to have surgery early next month and be ready for the start of practice next season.

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ben.bolch@latimes.com