USC men seek solutions to their Galen Center woes
LOS ANGELES — Nine states and roughly 18,540 flight miles. A 10-day road trip through Michigan, Michigan State and Minnesota.
The USC men’s basketball team is the only team in a Power Four conference to take a three-game road trip this season. But even with all of the challenges of travel, it’s the Trojans’ performance at home is a source of frustration for Trojans head coach Eric Musselman.
“We’ve got to get back to what we’ve been doing on the road, which is playing good basketball,” Musselman told reporters after losing to No. 10 Illinois. “We haven’t played very good here, and we’ve got to figure out how we can play better basketball at home than what we’ve done.”
Three out of USC’s five remaining games on its Big Ten regular-season slate are at the Galen Center, starting with Oregon (9-17 overall, 2-13 Big Ten) on Saturday afternoon. That’s three more chances to earn critical wins after multiple recent letdowns on the Trojans’ home court.
Illinois handed USC (18-8, 7-8) its worst loss of the season when it pulled off a 101-65 win on Tuesday. Northwestern walked away from Galen Center with its first Big Ten win of the season on Jan. 21.
The Trojans also battled with No. 7 Purdue before falling by five points four days prior to that.
Major road wins include three games at the Maui Invitational, an overtime win over Minnesota and a two-point win over No. 24 Wisconsin.
Musselman, after the Illinois debacle, didn’t have any possible theories about the disparity between home and away efforts.
“No, not really,” he said. “We’ve been super focused on the road. We haven’t played good basketball at home and and we’ve got to figure out how we can play better basketball than what we have at home.”
USC has beaten Oregon once already this season, 82-77 in Eugene in early December. The Ducks were without injured 7-foot veteran center Nate Bittle at the time.
Bittle, who is averaging 16.8 points a game, was limited due to injury in January as well and missed roughly a month due to a re-aggravated ankle injury. He returned Feb. 7 and a week later scored 22 points to help Oregon beat Penn State and snap a 10-game losing streak.
“He’s not playing the way Nate’s capable of, but he’s pushing through a couple of ankles that are tender,” Oregon coach Dana Altman told reporters after the Penn State game.
“He fought his tail off to get back. This was supposed to be his first game back, but he played last weekend because he was in the training room all the time. That’s a five-year guy.”
USC is also still going through a recurring trend of injuries.
Leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara (18.3 ppg) has missed the past three games due to a knee strain and remains day-to-day. Alijah Arenas (14.5 ppg) was dealing with illness against Illinois, and Musselman said the freshman did not practice Monday but did not provide any further update on his status.
OREGON (9-17 overall, 2-13 Big Ten) at USC (18-8, 7-8)
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Galen Center
TV/Radio: FS1/710 AM