USC men’s basketball sent the Hawkeyes flying home with their third road loss on Tuesday at Galen Center. The Trojans scored the most points in any of the program’s non-overtime conference games since 2004, beating the Hawkeyes 99-89, while Iowa failed to grab its first road win of the season.
The Trojans tipped off with a returning starting lineup from Saturday’s monumental win against No.16 Illinois, the Trojans’ first road win against a ranked opponent since 2010. The most recent addition to the starting five was redshirt freshman guard Wesley Yates III, the only underclassman to start in more than two games this season.
Yates III, who redshirted last season at Washington due to injury, was named Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Week after averaging nearly 18 points in conference play as a consistent starter following a wrist injury to graduate forward Terrance Williams II in December.
The redshirt freshman put up the first points of Tuesday’s game, giving USC a lead it held onto for the next 40 minutes. Less than 10 minutes into the game, his seven early points pushed the Trojans to an 11-point lead.
“[Yates III has] changed things because he can make threes,” head coach Eric Musselman said. “He stretches the floor for us and gives us another ball handler. He’s super strong, he’s really aggressive and so is his mentality, his toughness, his physicality.”
Yates III claimed residency downtown, sinking an efficient 4-of-5 attempts from beyond the arc in the first half. Four of Iowa’s players combined to match Yates III’s four 3-pointers, as USC’s strict man-to-man defense left Iowa struggling to get open shots from distance.
Eliminating the Hawkeyes’ 3-point shooting was necessary for pulling off a Trojan win. Iowa entered Tuesday’s game as the No. 13 team in 3-pointers per game (10.8) with senior forward Payton Sandfort leading the category (2.8) among Big Ten players.
Pinning the Hawkeyes to just four first-half 3-pointers set an early tone of dominance and control, allowing for a comfortable 16-point lead at halftime.
Both junior guard Desmond Claude and graduate forward Saint Thomas had a consistent output in the first half, combining for 10 rebounds and nine assists, and their second-half scoring alone accounted for 35 of the team’s 51 points.
Claude, who either scored or assisted 48 of USC’s 99 points, surpassed 1,000 career points with his 25-point performance. Thomas had an efficient 24 points of his own (shooting 9-of-10 from the field) and follows closely behind Claude at 903 career points.
“To this day, I don’t know my role,” Thomas said after Tuesday’s game. “Every game it just changes for me. Last game at Illinois, I had to be the defensive guy and stop all their other big guards. And today, just my role was just go out there, and they were looking at Desmond, and whenever they would double team him, just find the opening and score the ball.”
Musselman has acknowledged the importance of transition defense throughout the season but especially against a quick offensive team like Iowa. The Hawkeyes only managed two fast-break points in the first half while USC picked up 14 defensive rebounds.
Fatigue eventually washed over Troy, with starters graduate guard Chibuzo Agbo, Claude, Thomas and Yates each playing over 37 minutes, but the Trojans continued to defend and minimize second-chance points and offensive rebounds for the Hawkeyes. The team finished with 28 defensive rebounds and each of those four Trojans also put up 18-plus points.
A 13-4 run from the Hawkeyes with five minutes left in the game cut Iowa’s deficit to just five points, the closest it had been since the start of the game. Graduate guard Drew Thelwell contributed eight points during that three-minute run, but Claude created distance with his free-throw shooting.
Claude shot from the line at least twice as many times as any other player on the court and cushioned USC’s game-long lead with 10 points from the stripe. The Xavier transfer’s knack for drawing fouls has been a consistent factor in closing games throughout the season.
As for offensive rebounding, it’s been a much-needed area of improvement for the Trojans, who currently average the fewest offensive rebounds per game (8.2) out of any Big Ten team. A strong 64.9% shooting from the field on Tuesday didn’t allow for too many opportunities to fill the stat sheet, but USC showed a slight improvement, picking up twice as many offensive boards as Iowa. Graduate forward Rashaun Agee grabbed three of the team’s nine and finished with 10 total rebounds and nine points.
“[Agee] just hasn’t been great just tonight, it’s been the past two weeks,” Thomas said. “[He’s] been just a great lift for us off the bench. [Graduate forward Josh Cohen] does a great job when he’s first in the game, he might have the first six points every game, and then ‘Shaun comes in and just gives us a different look.”
USC has gone 13-0 this season when scoring at least 75 points, and Tuesday’s 99 points set the season high. Musselman credits the team’s offensive progress to expanding the playbook and utilizing backup plays.
“We’ve really expanded our playbook a lot,” Musselman said. “I think early in the year, we would run a play, and [we] would get to the first option, and then we just kind of froze. And now I think we’re getting the third and fourth options… I think now they understand concepts instead of just play patterns. And I think that’s been the biggest difference for us offensively.”
The Trojans return to Galen Center on Saturday to face No. 24 Wisconsin at noon.