A Paso Robles native and former local high school and college coach — Bob Cantu — called his path “interesting” toward becoming USC’s interim head coach of the men’s basketball team.

Cantu, a 12-year assistant with the Trojans, was named to the position after Kevin O’Neill’s firing Monday. The team is 7-10 overall and 2-2 in the Pac-12 this season.

In a phone interview Monday with The Tribune, Cantu reminisced a bit about his local basketball roots.

A 1992 Paso Robles High graduate and former Bearcats player, Cantu began his coaching career the next season with the junior varsity program at Mission Prep. He spent three seasons on the Royals’ bench before working one year as an administrative assistant for the men’s program at Cal Poly.

Cantu went on to assist Cuesta College coach Rusty Blair for three seasons and spent a year and a half assisting at Sacramento State before landing at USC in 2002, working under Henry Bibby, Tim Floyd, and O’Neill over the past dozen years.

“It’s definitely exciting,” Cantu said about his new job. “I learned how to do a little bit of everything from all those places where I coached before.”

Cantu said his local influences included his coach at Paso Robles High, Scott Larson. And Blair, he recalled, gave him “a lot of freedom to recruit to get my feet wet.”

“At that time, I was just learning the business of coaching and learning everything about it,” Cantu said. “You have to start from the beginning and I was able to get that experience.”

This is the second time that he has filled in as an interim head coach at USC. He coached a game in 2011 when O’Neill was suspended after a verbal altercation with an Arizona fan at a team hotel during the Pac-10 tournament at Staples Center.

Upon arriving at USC in June 2009, O’Neill had to deal with the fallout from an ongoing NCAA investigation involving star O.J. Mayo, who played one season under Tim Floyd before leaving for the NBA.

O’Neill got the Trojans into the NCAA Tournament in his second year after self-imposed university sanctions kept them out in his first season. But the team went 6-26 last year, including a loss to Cal Poly, and got off to a slow start this year. His overall record at USC was 48-65.

“We just didn’t win enough last year and this year. That’s what this business is,” O’Neill told The Associated Press by phone. “We tried to do as well as we could, tried to get the program to the highest level. My goal every day going in there was to try to win a national title.”

Cantu said that by the end of the day Monday, he’d received 273 text messages and 85 voice mails from people wanting to congratulate him or talk to him about his new position.

“This is all so new and happening so quickly,” Cantu said. “At the same time, I have to work and prepare for our next game against Oregon (at home) on Thursday. I’m just trying to take it all in and stay focused.”

Cantu said he’ll consider a more up-tempo offense to get easier baskets and a zone defense to get USC’s two 7-footers into the game more at the same time, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The new Trojans coach said his meeting with athletic director Pat Haden was brief Monday morning when he was asked to take the position, according to the Los Angeles Times. Haden told him he “wants to see us competitive in the conference. He said he wants me to be energetic and get guys playing hard. He was very supportive.”

Cantu said that his competitiveness still invigorates him before each game. Basketball at the Division I collegiate level is a pressurized environment, but the game is the same, he said.

“Basketball is basketball,” Cantu said. “At the college level, players are more talented, the stakes are higher, there’s more pressure, but at the end of the day it’s still basketball. It’s still the same game I learned and taught locally.”

For those on the Central Coast who may want to get to know Cantu, he confirmed that his 17th annual local basketball camp for kids will take place again this summer. Cantu said that his advice to achieve a goal for anyone is to stay focused.

“I’ve always told people, if you’re focused you can do it,” Cantu said. “Regardless of where or how you grow up, focus on something and you never know when an opportunity will come.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.