There was no way to sugarcoat USC's 72-40 loss at Washington on Sunday, and to coach Andy Enfield's credit, he didn't try.
Speaking with reporters after practice Tuesday, Enfield was asked if there was any positive he could take from that performance in Seattle.
"A positive? Wow," he said, pausing briefly to think. "Not too much. It was 16-14 in the first half and we missed a wide open layup to tie the game, and after that there weren't many positives."
No, indeed not -- not on a night when USC shot 21.2 percent from the field, 2 of 15 from 3-point range, turned it over 21 times and had one scorer top 6 points.
The question is, how much of that ugly loss was the Trojans having their flaws exposed, and how much was simply the product of a bad night at the end of an extended road trip as the team was on its fifth day away from home by that point?
"We went into the game 12-2 feeling pretty good about ourselves, but we quickly learned that winning on the road is difficult, and to do that you have to do certain things offensively and defensively -- and we didn't do it offensively," Enfield said.
"... You have to learn from your mistakes. You can't just burn the game video. No, you got to learn from it because when you play that poorly there's some things we have to do to get better and you have to work on those things. Some it was skill, decision-making, some of it was a lack of awareness and also sometimes you've just got to be tough and go finish a shot in the lane or someone has to step up and make a big 3 or make a big drive and create for their teammates. So we had a pretty good video session today, and we need to learn from it and move on."
The concern, of course, is that some elements of that lopsided loss were prexisting and have shown themselves through this first part of the season.
USC is 12-3, but it has relied far too heavily on freshman forward Onyeka Okongwu (17.8 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game). He was the only scorer in double figures with 10 points Sunday night despite an off shooting performance (4 of 13). And it could be said that the Trojans might have lost their previous game as well, at Washington State, if not for a sublime performance from "Big O" as he made 12 of 14 from the field for 27 points and 12 rebounds on a night when the rest of the Trojans combined for just 11 made field goals.
Okongwu was asked about having to carry such a large offensive burden, though it wasn't really a fair question as it's not his place to address that.
"I don't really believe in pressure. I just believe in going out there, working hard. We're all great basketball players; I don't think anything's on my shoulders honestly," he said. "I rely on my teammates, they rely on me."
That's indeed the way it needs to work, but it really didn't happen either of these first two conference games.
"Everybody can chip in. ... The advantage we have is we have depth, but when that depth as a team doesn't help out when some of the leading scorers aren't playing as well or aren't shooting as well, then you have what happened Sunday night," Enfield said.
"We expect our upper classmen to lead us, but the freshmen aren't freshmen anymore. They've had ample opportunity to prove themselves and we are 12-3 so they've done a good job."
The other seeming Achilles heel for this team is its unreliable outside shooting. USC is now 3 of 22 from 3-point range the last two games and ranks 170th nationally in 3-point shooting percentage (33.5 percent) and tied for 243rd in made 3s (93).
"Shooters shoot. We were hot before this, we had a couple hot games before that, we're going to get back to it," senior guard Jonah Mathews said. "It's nothing, we have a lot of shooters on the team, a lot of people can make shots. Some games you just don't hit them."
The question is where are those shots going to come from -- especially when teams like Washington employ an effective zone to try to negate USC's strength down low?
Mathews is the go-to option from the outside, hitting 36 percent of his 3s (32 of 89), but he's proven to be a streaky shooter. Daniel Utomi (31.8 percent, 14 made 3s) and Quinton Adlesh (35.5 percent, 11 made 3s) were brought in as grad transfers to bolster the perimeter shooting, and neither has produced at the volume expected. Though, Utomi had some momentum building before these first two Pac-12 games, going 8 of 18 from long-range in the three prior games.
"Well, the 3-point shooting in the United States is down right now. It's the lowest it's been, I think, since the 3-point line has been in college basketball. There's a reason for that -- they moved it back to the international line this year -- and we're no different. Our percentages are down a few points, but the better shooters learn to adjust quickly and we need to do a better job," Enfield said.
"A lot of that stems from contested shots or rushed shots. ... If you're turning it over or taking rushed bad shots your percentage is always going to be low. So we have to do a better job as a team to create for our teammates. When we throw the ball in the post, our guards have to spot up, bigs have to kick it out once in a while and then we have to have good dribble penetration from our perimeter players to create for their teammates on the weakside."
It just stands to reason that USC is going to encounter more teams devising defensive plans to target Okongwu and contest anything in the paint while forcing the Trojans to make shots.
Mathews noted that Washington's brand of zone defense is especially tricky and that he's learned how to find openings in it over time, but that the Trojans' freshmen were more thrown off by it in their first go-round. Okongwu confirmed as much.
"I've never seen a zone like that. It was a very intense zone, I wasn't used to it, so shots I usually make I wasn't really making," he said. "I've got to get used to playing against that type of defense."
Enfield said the one good thing about Sunday was "It's only one game."
That's certainly the Trojans' hope, but they're going to have to prove that to be the case by addressing the aforementioned issues as they travel to UCLA on Saturday for a rivalry showdown.
"We've just got to move on. We're 1-1 in the Pac -- that's all we can ask for is to split, which we did -- so we've got to take the next game Saturday, come out ready and prepared, ready to get a win," Mathews said.