USC men’s tournament hopes are almost gone after loss to Ohio State
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There was no hiding the desperation any longer. Not with the clock ticking on USC’s narrow tournament hopes. Not with three straight losses in the rearview and only four games left in the regular season.
The chances to state their postseason case were dwindling fast in coach Eric Musselman’s first season at USC, slipping away amid a stiff Big Ten slate. The cut line for the conference tournament now loomed just below them in the standings.
Time was running out on the Trojans. Desmond Claude seemed to sense as much as the point guard careened into the lane late, with two minutes remaining Wednesday against Ohio State. USC had clawed its way back from a 17-point deficit — and a disastrous first-half defensive effort — to climb within striking distance, and now Claude let a desperation floater fly, knowing full well any hope of turning the tides before tournament time hung on every hoop from here.
For a brief moment, as Claude’s floater connected and cut Ohio State’s lead to two, there was a glimmer of hope that USC still had some life left in it this season.
But with 28 seconds left, Claude brought the ball up the court, only to have it poked away. A potential tying three-pointer, from freshman Wesley Yates, bricked. And just like that, any chance of the Trojans stemming the tide of their late-season slide was extinguished in an 87-82 loss to Ohio State.
“Knowing every game counts, every game matters, and we need wins, it’s tough,” Yates said. “Words can’t even explain it.”
Spring games, in recent years, have devolved into a product that was barely more than a televised practice.
Musselman’s frustration throughout Wednesday’s defeat would say plenty, as USC fell into a deep hole early, on account of a defensive effort that the coach called “probably the worst defense I’ve ever had a team play in my college tenure.”
Ohio State shot 73% in the first half, a rate Musselman figured was roughly equivalent to playing without a defense at all. At one point, the Buckeyes were 14 of 17 from the field before the half. They even hit eight straight three-pointers, threatening to bury USC before it could even punch back.
And yet still, the Trojans found themselves with a chance to tie it late, thanks in part to a renewed defensive effort that held the Buckeyes to just 33% shooting in the second half.
Yates had already scored 27 points, leading all scorers, when he lifted up for a three-pointer with six seconds remaining. The shot missed, but Saint Thomas pulled down the rebound. Then, he stepped out of bounds.
It was a fittingly frustrating conclusion, at the end of a game that could’ve gone very differently. In that way, it felt like a painful metaphor for USC’s season.
The loss — USC’s sixth in its last seven games — would leave the Trojans at 14-14 for the season. For Musselman, it’s just the second season in which a college team he coached fell to .500 or worse. The only other came last year at Arkansas.
“We’re not where we want to be right now,” Musselman said. “We’re not where we’ve been in the past.”
Any chance of its immediate future being any brighter now likely hinges on USC making a run in the Big Ten tournament. If it makes the Big Ten tournament at all.
Only the top 14 of the conference’s 18 teams will travel to Indianapolis next month. For Musselman, missing the tournament would mark a particularly disappointing conclusion to a season that has, at times, had some promise.
Yates would do his best to keep that faith alive, as he scored 27 points to lead the team, while Claude, USC’s leading scorer, was kept mostly in check. But no one seemed right from the start Wednesday. Even Yates later admitted that he felt “terrible.”
The week hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot. Traveling back from its furthest trip of the Big Ten slate, USC didn’t arrive back in Los Angeles until 5 a.m. on Monday. Players still went to class a few hours later, while Musselman wavered on whether to even hold practice ahead of Wednesday night’s matchup.
Musselman insisted his travel complaints were no excuse for losing to Ohio State. But he made his feelings clear about how much USC has had to overcome in its first season on the road in the Big Ten.
“We’re gonna have to figure out how to overcome some of that,” Musselman said.
For this season, however, hopes that USC could overcome any of the odds had dimmed considerably Wednesday, leaving the coach to wonder where to take his Trojans from here.
“The only thing I know is to just get back in the gym and get ready for Oregon,” Musselman said. “I’m not really sure what else we can do.”
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