In a curious scheduling quirk, USC went from playing the late game Sunday night, wrapping up its Sweet 16 win over Oregon just before midnight ET in Indianapolis, Ind., to being scheduled for the first practice session of Monday.

Speaking to reporters over Zoom at 11:15 a.m. local time after arriving at the arena and before heading to that practice, Enfield indicated the Trojans had barely been able to start formulating a game plan for their Elite Eight showdown with unbeaten No. 1 Gonzaga on Tuesday (4:15 p.m. PT on TBS).

"It is challenging. We had the late game last night and the NCAA gave us the first practice this morning, so our players just got out of bed after a few hours sleep. So this practice is just going to be shooting and we'll have to worry about our game-planning later because we haven't had any time to prepare," Enfield said.

And if ever there was a game that required thorough preparation ...

No. 6-seeded USC (25-7), in the Elite Eight for just the second time in the modern era of the NCAA tournament, takes on a 29-0 Gonzaga team that is a fixture of March Madness and won its first three tournament games by 43 points (vs. Norfolk State), 16 points (vs. Oklahoma) and 18 points (vs. Creighton).

That said, maybe it's time to start looking at these Trojans in a new light, as they are also one of just three teams to have won each of their three games in this tournament by double figures in regulation (Baylor is the third).

"We're an extremely talented team at every position as well. We're extremely versatile, we can do a lot of things on the basketball court on the offensive or defensive end," Trojans guard Tahj Eaddy said Monday. "We know what we're capable of, we don't really listen to the outside noise too much, but we're excited to go and play."

Enfield said he got to bed around 4 a.m. Monday morning after that momentous 82-68 win over Oregon. Eaddy said it was around 2-3 a.m. for him.

"It's just circumstances. It's March Madness, there's always going to be a quick turnaround, but we had a long film session this morning, we'll continue to watch film throughout the day today and tomorrow morning and into the afternoon before the game," Eaddy said. "We feel we have ample time to do our due diligence and make sure we're disciplined in our scouting reports and knowing guys' strengths and weaknesses. So I think we'll be just fine."

As for the Monday practice, Enfield reiterated that the Trojans would just try to keep their shooting sharp as they know they're going to have to score points to beat Gonzaga.

The Bulldogs are far and away the No. 1 scoring team in the country at 91.8 points per game. USC only scored even 80 points four times (and over 90 once) during conference play, but the Trojans have put up 85 and 82 in their last two tournament games while playing their best offensive basketball of the season.

USC, which was not a good 3-point shooting team during the regular season, has hit 21 3s on 35 attempts (60 percent) the last two games while finding production from a variety of sources. On Sunday night, it was guard Isaiah White matching his season-high with 22 points (8 of 10 from the field, 4 of 5 from 3-point range) and Eaddy pouring in 20 (7 of 11 overall, 3 of 6 on 3s) while Pac-12 Player of the Year Evan Mobley had a quiet 10 points but a team-high 6 assists.

"I didn't watch 'SC earlier and I don't know what was said about them early. All I know is in this tournament they've been coming at people from a lot of different directions, they've been shooting the 3 ball incredibly well, the guards have really, really stepped up. But all the while, you have to pay a lot of attention to both Mobley brothers because they play so well together and they're so efficient when they do get their touches," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. "So I think that's probably the dilemma you face defensively is you've got to give them a lot of attention, but at this point now you've got to give equal attention just to how well those other players are playing, especially how well they've been shooting it from the 3-point line."

Ultimately, though, the matchup that will have everyone's focus is USC's defense vs. Gonzaga's all-cylinders-firing offense. Between senior forward and West Coast Conference Player of the Year Corey Kispert (19.0 points per game), 6-foot-10 sophomore forward Drew Timme (18.9), freshman guard Jalen Suggs (13.9), redshirt junior guard Joel Ayayi (11.9) and junior guard Andrew Nembhard (9.2), the Bulldogs have a wealth of scorers. Suggs and Kispert are both projected NBA draft lottery picks, along with USC's Evan Mobley.

The Bulldogs shoot at an unparalleled 63.9-percent clip on 2-point shots while the Trojans have the top 2-point-shooting field-goal-percentage defense in the country, holding opponents to 41.5 percent inside the arc.

Something has to give Tuesday night, and whatever that is could well be the pivotal factor in the game.

"We've played a lot of good teams this year. You see three of our [Pac-12] teams are in the Elite Eight, we just beat a fourth team in Oregon that's exceptional, so we played a lot of good players this year and a lot of good teams. Gonzaga is as good offensively as anyone in the country and we understand we have to defend at a high level to give us a chance to win," Enfield said.

Eaddy has experience going up against the Zags from his time in the West Coast Conference at Santa Clara, but he said aside from Kispert this is a team he's mostly unfamiliar with as well.

"This is just a good overall team at every position. Guys are capable of getting 20 points on any given night, so we just have to be extremely disciplined, make sure we take care of the ball and take good shots. But yeah, they're dynamite in transition so we have to make sure we're on top of our game with that," Eaddy said.

Meanwhile, Gonzaga is having to prepare for the new defensive wrinkle Enfield and his staff rolled out this postseason with their evolving zone defense, after playing primarily man-to-man 90 percent of the regular season (by Enfield's own estimate).

The impetus for USC going to zone the last three games has been matchup-oriented while facing smaller, guard-heavy teams and not wanting to go small in response while preferring to keep its size advantage with some combination of 7-foot Evan Mobley, 6-foot-10 Isaiah Mobley and 6-foot-9 Chevez Goodwin out there at all times. The results of the defensive adjustment have been highly encouraging as the Trojans held Drake to 29.4-percent shooting, Kansas to 29.0 and Oregon to 37.7.

"Well you need a basketball IQ and I think our players have developed a comfort level of switching defenses on the fly. I can call it mid possession, I can go man or zone mid possession, and they can adjust quickly, they get to their spots, they understand," Enfield said. "... I think this group has really grown into a cohesive defensive unit to where they can make the adjustments quickly, and then we switched last night how we play the zone in different ways, different bumps and different rotations, and they can do that now too. So it was a learning process for them. We haven't played a ton of zone all year. We were impressed, our staff were just talking about that yesterday how much they've improved in the last week by how much they've played zone in the NCAA tournament."

Said Few: "It's basically what I would call the Syracuse zone pressed up, and have had some really, really good success with it. The numbers in the NCAA tournament are really, really impressive. They're doing a great job with it and they seem to be playing it a lot for long stretches of the game. It just makes for a different rhythm on offense. We had the luxury, though, this week of getting some time to prepare for both them and Oregon before we started our prep with Creighton so it helped a little bit, but you wish you had more time because it is a little bit of a unique entity. It's not what you see every night out."

Enfield, meanwhile, was asked if there was any team USC has played this season that has similarities to this Gonzaga team. He started to talk about the pace and spacing that Oregon plays with before circling back to the main challenge at this point.

"I'm not sure, I really haven't seen enough video on Gonzaga to answer that question thoroughly," he said.

So the Trojans will try to maximize their time Monday and Tuesday leading into that afternoon showdown with the top team in the country. But whatever the outside perception, this team doesn't seem daunted by that matchup or by the increasing spotlight now playing on the biggest stage any of these USC players or coaches have experienced.

"We feel like this is not uncharted territory. We feel like we've been making history all year doing things that haven't been done in a long time. It started early on in the season. So we're just trying to continue this momentum," Eaddy said. "We know we're playing a good team on Tuesday, but we're excited and we'll be prepared."