USC's otherwise surprisingly smooth basketball season seemed to nearly derail a couple weeks ago with three losses in four games, capped by a forgettable road trip through Colorado and Utah -- both double-digit losses.
So perhaps it's fitting that if the Trojans are going to make a run in the Pac-12 tournament this week in Las Vegas and give themselves real momentum heading into the NCAA tournament, they're likely going to have to do it against those same two teams.
No. 2-seeded USC opens Pac-12 tournament play Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PT (on Pac-12 Network) with a quarterfinals matchup against No. 7 Utah, which held on for a 98-95 win over No. 10 Washington on Wednesday night.
If USC (21-6) can get past the Utes (13-12), it would play the winner of No. 3 Colorado/No. 11 Cal in the semifinals Friday night.
"I think that roadtrip with Colorado and Utah, I think it's always a tough road situation with the altitude and being in those environments is definitely difficult. I think[it was just a matter of] watching film after those two games and just figuring out where we could be successful in terms of our pace, our defensive intensity, things like that. But I think just coming back to SoCal, it definitely lifted our spirits for sure," guard Tahj Eaddy said on the Trojans Live radio show this week.
"I think it really comes down to just our mental preparation and our mental toughness. I feel that we're the most talented team in this conference, one of the most talented teams in the country. So when we're locked in and we're all on the same page and we're locked in defensively I feel we have a great chance to beat anybody."
It would probably be wise not to read too much into USC's last game with Utah -- that 71-61 loss in Salt Lake City on Feb. 27. It was the Trojans' fourth game in eight days, the end of that high-altitude road trip, etc. Also, they beat the Utes convincingly, 64-46, back on Jan. 2 in the teams' first meeting.
Ultimately, that short skid helped cost the Trojans (15-5 in the conference) their first Pac-12 regular-season championship since 1985, as Oregon (14-4) was given the title based on a slight edge in winning percentage despite playing two less games due to earlier COVID cancellations.
USC coach Andy Enfield doesn't see it that way, though, and regardless, his team has plenty ahead of it at this point.
"I don't think it cost us the Pac-12. It's a 20-game season. We played 20 games and out of 20 games you're going to have some great games, some below-average games and a lot of in-between, and those in-between games really make the difference. We won 15 games this year and end the season with a buzzer-beater against a really good UCLA team -- we feel great about being 15-5 in the league whether that was good enough to win it or not," Enfield said during his appearance on Trojans Live. "That's who we are as a team, and the fact that Oregon has 14 league wins and we have more than them, that's a different discussion. But Oregon's a quality team as well. We feel great about where our team is."
The Trojans certainly should. As Enfield has noted several times, his team was picked sixth in the Pac-12's preseason media poll, and despite reconstructing a majority of the rotation on the fly with four transfers and 5-star freshman Evan Mobley, not having a typical summer to practice and build chemistry due to COVID protocols, etc., this has undoubtedly been Enfield's best season in eight years with the program.
He deservedly won Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors for the first time and regardless of what happens this week will have his team in the NCAA tournament for the third time in those eight years (though the Trojans were on track to make it last year as well before the tournament was cancelled.) They also have as good a shot as anybody to win their first Pac-12 tournament title since 2009.
USC beat top-seeded Oregon in the teams' lone regular-season meeting, 72-58 in late February, and would surely love a shot to exercise any frustrations toward the Ducks and the way the regular-season title was decided.
But again, one game at a time. It's March, it's tournament time -- anything can happen (as the Trojans already showed, winning at UCLA last weekend on Eaddy's 3-pointer in the final seconds despite trailing the whole game).
"No. 1 you have to be able to defend, and we can do that. You also have to be able to make shots in a timely basis. We've done that throughout the season -- that's why we're 21-6," Enfield said. "We haven't been a great shooting team a lot of games. In fact, I can remember 2 for 21, 3 for 18, 3 for 20 ... we were 0 for our first 10 at UCLA, I think we were 1 for 11 before the last few minutes from the 3-point line. So you have to make timely shots in any tournament, whether it's the Pac-12 or NCAA tournament, and you have to score the ball at the appropriate times. So I think we do have those characteristics of a team that can win games in both Vegas and Indianapolis, but at the same time we can't take anything for granted because we understand we're very streaky at times, and if we don't defend at a high level and we can't make shots we're not going to beat anybody."
This is most certainly a team built on defense and rebounding, led by Mobley -- the Pac-12 Player of the Year, Freshman of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year -- and its size advantage in general.
USC ranks 12th nationally in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to 39.13 percent shooting overall, and is tied for 8th in rebounding margin (+8 per game).
Conversely, the Trojans rank 143rd in 3-point shooting (34.35 percent) and 320th in free throw shooting (64.37 percent).
And their losses have followed some similar scripts. To go back to those back-to-back defeats at Colorado and Utah once more, USC shot just 38.3 percent overall, allowed Colorado to shoot 47.4 percent and was outrebounded 35-34 (a slim margin, but more notably a big difference from the season average). At Utah, the Trojans shot 37.3 percent overall and allowed the Utes to shoot 48.2 percent.
Since a potential Colorado rematch looms, it's also relevant to note that the Trojans were outrebounded 38-35 in the teams' first matchup, shot just 38.3 percent and despite holding the Buffaloes to 41.7-percent shooting overall they allowed them to hit 53.3 percent of their shots in the first half while building an 11-point lead that would be the difference in that game. Also worth noting, USC has lost six straight overall to Colorado, but that's a story for Friday if the Trojans are able to advance -- one game at a time.
The point being, the results show what USC's formula for success needs to be -- the defense needs to be on, the Trojans need to be able to leverage their usual rebounding advantage and they can't have the shooting go ice cold.
Take the first meeting with Utah, for instance. The Utes negated Mobley on the offensive end, double-teaming him to the point that he didn't even attempt a single shot from the field, yet USC won convincingly while shooting 53.2 percent as a team, holding the Utes to 27.9-percent shooting and hitting their average with a +8 advantage on the boards.
The formula is clear.
Getting back on track this last week with a 37-point win over Stanford and then the last-second win at UCLA has created fresh momentum for this USC team. Now it's about seeing how far they can carry it.
"It was a big confidence boost, I think we'll go into the Pac-12 tournament feeling good about ourselves and to know we won 15 league games this year against a lot of quality teams in the Pac-12," Enfield said.
Notes: Utah had six players score in double figures in its Pac-12 opener Wednesday night, led by all-conference first-teamer Timmy Allen's 24 points and 21 from Alfonso Plummer. Those were the two players who gave the Trojans the most trouble in Salt Lake City, as Plummer scored 19 (and hit 5 of 7 3-pointers) and Allen chipped in 15 in that game.
