After Pac-12 tournament loss to UCLA, USC awaits NCAA tourney seeding
LAS VEGAS -- In his opening comments Friday night, after his UCLA team closed out a pretty convincing 69-59 win over USC in the Pac-12 tournament semifinals, Bruins coach Mick Cronin gave an unprompted plug for the Trojans as they now await their NCAA tournament seeding.
"They've had an unbelievable year. Their projected seed is ridiculous, but that's typical of West Coast bias. I wish them all the best next week. Hopefully we can all do what we did last year," Cronin said, referring to the Pac-12 sending three teams -- including USC and UCLA -- to the Elite Eight a year ago.
USC coach Andy Enfield was then given the platform to make his own case to the NCAA tournament selection committee as to where his Trojans should be slotted after going 26-7 but losing three of their final four games.
"I'm not sure what we're projected, I have no idea. ... I think they're all over the place. I don't really make predictions on that stuff," Enfield said. "But what are we, 26-7? And I think half our wins are away from home -- 13 wins away from home, which is a lot. You look at the teams around the country, winning half your games on the road, not a lot of teams have done that. ...
"I think overall we've had a really good season. To be 26-7 is impressive for our guys. Really proud of them, very proud of them. Obviously, we lost to Arizona and UCLA here the last two weeks, but we beat UCLA earlier in the season so we've had some good wins. We've had some tough losses here recently, but we're really proud of this team. They set the school record for wins in the regular season and won a game here in the tournament and now we're going to go to March Madness."
That much is clear -- USC had long ago locked in its spot in the NCAA tournament, marking the Trojans' first back-to-back March Madness appearances since the 2016 and 2017 tournaments. (USC would be making its third straight appearance if the 2020 postseason hadn't been cancelled due to the onset of the pandemic.)
While USC entered the week No. 21 in the AP poll, it sits 35th in the NET rankings with four Quadrant 1 wins.
In his latest bracket projections posted early Saturday morning, ESPN's Joe Lunardi had USC as a No. 7 seed -- same as before the loss Friday night -- playing San Francisco in Indianapolis, Ind. CBSSports' Jerry Palm, meanwhile, had the Trojans as a No. 5 seed still, opening against a No. 12 seed to be determined in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Like Enfield said, there's no consensus at this point with more games still to shake out around the country before the selection show Sunday (3 p.m. PT).
USC was a No. 6 seed last year before beating No. 11 Drake, No. 3 Kansas and No. 7 Oregon to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in 20 years, before losing to top-seeded Gonzaga.
"We lost in the [Pac-12] semifinals last year and then we regrouped and played really well for a couple weeks in Indianapolis in the bubble, so we're looking forward to this. It's an exciting time of year," Enfield said. "We're really proud of our guys. What seed we are, I have no idea. That's up to the selection committee. I do think we've earned the right to be in March Madness, so whoever we play, wherever we play, we'll be ready."
While the Trojans lost three of the last four games -- after not having back-to-back losses at any other point in the season -- those defeats came against No. 13-ranked UCLA (twice) and No. 2 Arizona, which play for the Pac-12 championship on Saturday.
Sure, those are the kind of opponents a team must beat to go on an extended NCAA tournament run, but they also aren't damning losses late in the regular season/conference tournament.
The bigger concern is that the Trojans have just looked really flat offensively for a most of the last couple weeks.
After managing to beat Washington in the Pac-12 quarterfinals despite a whopping 23 turnovers (17 in the second half), USC just couldn't get anything going Friday night against the Bruins.
Well, aside from Boogie Ellis' best game of the season -- an inspired 27 points, including hitting 5 of 9 3-pointers, to carry the Trojans and keep them at least within striking distance most of the night.
But USC managed just 6 assists as a team, which Enfield lamented afterward.
"We only had 6 assists as a team so we have some guys that had off nights tonight putting the ball in the basket. We need a higher assist total for us to reach our potential offensively, and we just need to be more efficient," he said. "... It's a lot of pressure on your defense if you can't score the ball when you need to."
The Trojans' lack of a true point guard is the obvious flaw of this team.
It also hasn't helped that after a terrific start to the season, veteran center Chevez Goodwin hasn't been the same player, averaging just 6.1 points and 4.4 rebounds over the past seven games while his season averages still sit at 11.0/6.5.
Veteran guard Drew Peterson, who is often the primary ball-handler for the team, is averaging 3 turnovers a game over the last seven and hasn't topped 13 points in the last four games after having three 20-point games in the span of five contests before that.
Forward Isaiah Mobley has been steady and remains the team's top rebounder and interior defender, but he's been held to single-digits scoring in three of the last four games now.
And Ellis was sensational Friday night, playing with an assertiveness and confidence that stood out from his teammates, but he's only managed double-figures scoring in half of the last 10 games.
So this is a limited offensive team without a dominant scorer that depends on its defense and at least minimizing mistakes on the offensive side. That hasn't been the case of late, and now the Trojans need a total reset as they move onto the season's biggest stage.
"Obviously, we know the stakes down the stretch. Three of those games were top 25 teams, they're really good opponents, but opponents we're going to see next week," Peterson said of the recent losses. "We're going to stay confident, we're going to be in the gym and we're going to be ready to go. These are the tests we need as we head into obviously the biggest weekend of the season so far."