We’re not going to sit here and tell you that a 37-point victory means USC is on the right track, or that the flaws of recent weeks have been sufficiently addressed. Sure, a 97-60 win over California felt good, but it offers no true indication of where the Trojans stand.
Cal is just a woefully bad basketball team. The Golden Bears are 3-23 through 26 games. They are probably the single worst Power Five conference team in the entire United States. Notably awful teams such as Louisville in the ACC and Minnesota in the Big Ten are probably better than Cal. USC hasn’t turned any sort of corner by thumping the Golden Bears on Thursday in the Galen Center.
Yet, there was definitely good news to take from this matchup. Vince Iwuchukwu played only 18 minutes. He should be able to play closer to his 25-minute ceiling on Saturday against Stanford, when he will be needed for a strong performance in the paint.
Boogie Ellis played only 30 minutes instead of going for 35 to 37. Drew Peterson, who always plays the most minutes for USC, played “only” 33 — still a lot, but a lighter workload than usual. Moreover, it’s not as though he was playing high-stress minutes in the second half. Everyone should be fresh for the Stanford game, which will offer a much more legitimate test of where USC truly stands as a team in mid-February.
The blowout of Cal enabled Kijani Wright, Oziyah Sellers, and Harrison Hornery to play meaningful minutes. They all played at least 16 minutes and gained much-needed live action. Assuming USC is still without Joshua Morgan against Stanford (Reese Dixon-Waters might be able to play against the Cardinal; we’ll see), the Trojans will need at least one of those three players to produce something. Wright, Sellers and Hornery need to give Andy Enfield some small but real contributions over the next few weeks.
USC-Stanford is Saturday in the Galen Center at 7 p.m. Los Angeles time.
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