USC bests the Beavers

The USC men’s basketball team continued conference play Thursday, taking on Oregon State in an eerily empty Galen Center. The Beavers proved to be a difficult matchup for the Trojans earlier this season — USC lost the first head-to-head in a 58-56 nailbiter Jan. 19.

This afternoon, however, USC was the better team.

The Beavers went into the matchup rolling, having won three straight games. Despite being positioned in the bottom half of the conference standings, Oregon State stepped on the court with the confidence of a team with double digits in the win column — and that swagger showed early, particularly on the defensive side of the floor.

“Credit to the Oregon State team,” sophomore guard Ethan Anderson said. “They’re a really good team this year. They’re not easy to score on.”

As is the case almost every time USC steps on the floor, the opposition’s game plan was to clog the paint and slow down the bigs, particularly probable future top-10 pick freshman forward Evan Mobley. Because of this, it is imperative that the Trojans are able to space the floor out by forcing teams to respect their wings and guards as perimeter threats.

In other words, they need to be able to shoot the ball.

Throughout the first half, however, the Trojans struggled to get their collective jumper to fall, shooting a mere 33% from the field and an abysmal 3-of-14 from beyond the arc. Their only saving grace was sharpshooter redshirt junior guard Noah Baumann, who nailed two 3-pointers and one floater en route to a strong first half performance. Crashing the glass was also vital to the Trojans’ staying afloat, as the length, athleticism and effort of the Mobley brothers and redshirt senior forward Chevez Goodwin led to 14 first half offensive boards.

What really kept USC ahead throughout the first 20 minutes, however, were its efforts on defense. Head coach Andy Enfield threw a cornucopia of looks at the Beavers, from man sets to a few zones to even a full court press.

“Overall, our defense was solid and very good at times,” Enfield said after the game. “We did a lot of switching with our guards. We went small. We went big ... We did mix our defenses up and how we were playing them throughout the game, and I thought our players did a good job of responding.”

Ultimately, the team would go into the locker room at halftime holding onto a 30-27 lead. In spite of the fact that they were winning the game, however, it was evident that the Trojans had more in the tank offensively — and they brought it in the second half.

Redshirt senior guard Isaiah White knocked down a 3-pointer right out of the gate, followed by a redshirt senior guard Tahj Eaddy layup and a midrange jumper by sophomore forward Isaiah Mobley.

Three possessions, three straight buckets.

This trend proved consistent, as throughout the second half, the Trojans hit on half of their 3-pointers and shot over 61% from the field.

After a complete offensive 180-degree turn from the first half, USC slowly began to build its lead. A couple of late runs by Oregon State were quickly stifled by thunderous dunks from Evan Mobley and Goodwin. Indeed as the jumpers began to fall, the paint became increasingly open for the Trojan bigs to operate — a recipe for disaster for any team that enters Galen Center.

It is difficult to pinpoint any singular player as the star of this game. Rather, the USC bench, which put together a combined 31 points, was ultimately the Trojans’ backbone. Baumann understands the importance of the minutes that he and the rest of the bench unit contribute.

“I think that on the bench we all just try to help any way we can, whether that’s defense or offense,” Baumann explained. “As a bench we’ve been telling ourselves, ‘We’ve got to give these guys a lift somehow, someway.’”

The Trojans were scheduled to play the always-formidable Oregon Ducks Saturday, however, issues regarding the coronavirus in the Ducks’ program forced the game’s postponement. In this season full of uncertainty, Enfield admits that the constant adjustment is dispiriting.

“It’ll be nice to have a weekend off, but I think we’d prefer to play Oregon on Saturday,” Enfield said. “I think it’s disappointing because we’ve had a couple of games postponed already this season — quite a few, actually.”

USC will (hopefully) be in action again on Feb. 2 at 6 p.m. in Palo Alto, facing senior forward Oscar da Silva and the Stanford Cardinal.