The USC Trojans needed a low-stress basketball game on Friday against Arizona State. Facing the last-place team in the Pac-12, the Trojans were playing the one opponent any high-end team should be able to demolish without too much trouble.
It is a fact of life and sports that not every day will be met with the same intensity. Coaches can (and should) try to preach about consistency and good habits, but it’s still a simple reality that top-end games and lower-tier games won’t generate the same level of enthusiasm. Coaches do understand that there are times during a long season when athletes will conserve energy and need to be paced instead of being run into the ground. You did see USC’s Lindsay Gottlieb run a lot of players in and out of the lineup versus ASU on Friday, an acknowledgment that this team did need to step off the gas pedal. The Trojans were playing an opponent against which they could afford to breathe a little.
Let’s go inside the central details of this 81-63 win, as the Trojans moved to 17-4 on the season and stayed on track to reach the central goal of hosting NCAA Tournament games at the Galen Center: