This is the USC team Andy Enfield hoped to see, or at least, it’s a lot closer to the team he had hoped to see this season. No, it wasn’t a perfect and polished product, but there was an understanding of how to play the right way.
In previous games, Boogie Ellis and/or Drew Peterson would catch fire and it was all too easy for the Trojans. When the best players are landing haymakers, everyone’s task is made easier. We see the presence of coaching and the toughness of players when games are hard and a team has to find a Plan B or Plan C to win.
That’s how USC won these last two games in Boulder and Salt Lake City.
Boogie and Peterson did play well, and on Saturday against Utah, Ellis did come out firing, making a few early 3-pointers to set the right tone. He did finish 4 of 8 on triples. Yet, he finished with only 16 points against the Utes. Peterson had 14. This was not a day when USC’s two best players ran wild and left nothing to the imagination.
The Trojans need reinforcements when they don’t get a flamethrower display from Ellis and Peterson. They got them against Utah. Joshua Morgan and Vince Iwuchukwu combined for six blocked shots (officially), possibly more which went uncounted in the live stats. Kobe Johnson scored 12 big points and hit another clutch late-game 3-pointer. Reese Dixon-Waters scored at key junctures of the second half. Iwuchukwu scored five points in the second half.
The key insight to make is that no individual needs to go off and have an amazing game in which he scores 20. It’s much more about three or four guys contributing everywhere — scoring, blocked shots, rebounding, halfcourt defense. That’s what we saw in these games.
Dixon-Waters looks like a better player after his return from injury. Morgan is providing solid interior defense. His length is disruptive. Even though USC gave up way too many offensive rebounds to Utah (17), the Utes got just six second-chance points because the Trojans had long, tall bodies near the rim to prevent Utah players from getting layups and dunks.
USC certainly needed Boogie and Peterson to make significant contributions — and they did — but this was not a week in which it was just two guys carrying the load and taking the supporting cast along for the ride. The role players chipped in on both Thursday and Saturday.
That’s a sustainable model for the road ahead, and for this decisive month of March, when reputations and memories are made in college basketball.
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