With five weeks left in the Pac-12 basketball season, here’s what USC fans need to know
USC’s path to the NCAA Tournament has taken lots of twists and turns. USC looked like an NIT team for the first two months of the season. In the past week, the Trojans have looked like an NCAA Tournament-worthy team which can do damage in March, especially if Vince Iwuchukwu continues to develop and evolve after missing two months due to his health limitations.
Not only have the Trojans boosted their bubble stock; Utah and Arizona State have eroded their resumes with crucial losses. USC is clearly the No. 3 team in the Pac-12, the team in the conference most likely to get an NCAA Tournament bid after league heavyweights UCLA and Arizona.
The losses by Utah and Arizona State also did something else of note: They left USC as one of only three teams in the conference with fewer than four Pac-12 losses. Only five teams have fewer than five conference losses, with Utah and Oregon joining that group. Arizona State is sixth in the league standings with a 6-5 league mark.
One of the big goals for every Pac-12 team each season is to finish in the top four. Doing that means getting a bye in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament, which means extra rest for every player and not having to win four games to win the tournament. Teams with a bye need to win only three games. USC is in much better position for that bye after the Utah and ASU losses over the weekend.
Is there anything else you need to know as a USC fan? Yes.
Very simply, there are five weeks left in the Pac-12 regular season. Those five weeks can be split into two sections.
The first section encompasses the next three weeks. USC has four games at home, all against the lower half of the Pac-12 (teams 7 through 12 in the standings). The Trojans also face 11th-place Oregon State on the road. Their only game in the next three weeks against a team from the top half of the Pac-12 is a road game at Oregon on Feb. 9.
In those same three weeks, the Oregon Ducks will face the Arizona schools and the Los Angeles schools. That’s four huge games for Oregon. Also in the coming three weeks, Utah will play the Arizona schools on the road, two huge moments for the Utes. Arizona State plays Oregon and Utah in those same three weeks.
So, Utah and ASU are going to be challenged in the next three weeks. They will beat each other up. Can USC take advantage of the softer portion of its schedule and create some distance between itself and its foremost bubble competitors? That’s the first part of the remainder of the season schedule.
Then comes part two, the fourth and fifth weeks left before the Pac-12 Tournament.
USC embarks on the dreaded Mountain road trip in late February, going to Colorado and Utah. Then, in the first week of March, USC closes the Pac-12 regular season by hosting the Arizona schools. Those four games will severely test the Trojans. If they get hammered and lose three out of those four games, their NCAA Tournament chances could be imperiled. If they can at least split those four games and then win at least one Pac-12 Tournament game, they should be fine.
That’s what you need to know as a USC fan entering the month of February.
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Mapping out USC's path to the NCAA Tournament: must-win games, overall targets, and more
