As painful as last Saturday’s loss to UCLA might have been for USC men’s basketball fans — a five-game crosstown winning streak swept away with a chorus of “f— USC” chants from every corner of Pauley Pavilion — they can take solace in this fact:
It didn’t matter.
Relax, relax. Of course it mattered. Rivalries always matter, especially with that streak on the line, especially in a regular season finale. UCLA junior guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. said leading up to the game that a few UCLA fans at his sister’s high school game told him how badly they needed Jaquez and co. to get the job done that night. (Jaquez, apparently, took that to heart.) USC senior guard Drew Peterson responded by saying the game couldn’t mean more to UCLA than it did to USC. Once play began, both teams clearly cared a great deal — perhaps neither more than the other, unless you find turnover margin a worthy indicator of emotional investment.
It mattered. But in the grand scheme of things, there was little at stake. Both teams had already punched their ticket to March Madness. There was no Pac-12 title at stake, and each had already locked up a first-round bye in the conference tournament.
Most importantly, though, it didn’t matter because of this Friday. That’s when — if things go according to plan — these crosstown rivals will be in store for one hell of a rubber match in Sin City.
Unless third-seeded USC falls in an upset to No. 6 Washington or No. 11 Utah, OR second-seeded UCLA gets upended by No. 7 Washington State or No. 10 Cal, the Trojans and Bruins will match up once again in a neutral-site semifinal. That reality is rather promising, too: Each L.A. school is 3-0 this season against its potential quarterfinal opponents, and only one of those six wins came by single digits — an eight-point UCLA victory over Cal in January.
Should that USC-UCLA Round 3 matchup materialize, this season’s first two editions of the crosstown rivalry can be thrown out the window. Even if USC had extended the winning streak to six games, that feat would hold zero weight if UCLA snapped it by sending the Trojans home early in Vegas. And it’s certainly the case if UCLA winds up on the losing end. The idea of a victory lap lasting all of six days before USC turned the tide right back in its favor — a tide that would remain in its favor all the way until next season, barring a March Madness face-off — should have USC fans licking their chops.
We’ve arrived at an uncomfortable crossroads. To the tournament-longevity-exclusivist USC fan, for obvious reasons, UCLA is the last team they hope to see on Friday. And to the unwaveringly-hating rival, rooting for this particular matchup — therefore, rooting for UCLA to stick around in Vegas a minute longer than the minimum — is rather unappealing.
Those perspectives are respectable, of course. It’s hard to shame any USC fan who sheds a tear of joy about their rival’s exit.
But maybe it’s what we need.
Remember Feb. 12, when UCLA visited USC in a sold-out Galen Center, and USC did everything it could to give the game away in the last minute only for a potential game-tying three at the buzzer to fall short? Remember how fun that was, particularly for the students who didn’t wait in line for two hours only to make it a third of the way through before getting sent away by security when a record-breaking student section filled to capacity? (Happy for you all, by the way. Real happy.)
Remember Saturday, when a considerable swath of USC fans made the trip to Westwood, and their team fell down by 13 points with under six minutes to go, then somehow drew within two, only for the home team’s fans to storm the court and celebrate with the new temporary kings of L.A. for the second time in as many matchups this year?
Those nights are what college basketball is all about. And yet, as it stands, it feels somewhat unfulfilling, unfinished and devoid of closure. And that will remain even if one of these teams makes a deep Pac-12 Tournament or March Madness run, so long as they didn’t dispose of their rival along the way.
But closure can, instead, come at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, with a trip to the conference tournament championship game on the line.
We need that closure. We need a Round 3.