USC men, fresh off a grueling road trip, return to Galen Center to host Maryland
USC men’s basketball coach Eric Musselman pumped his fists, then thrusted them down to his hips. A certified lip-reader wasn’t needed to decipher the words he was mouthing.
“Let’s go!” the coach shouted after the final buzzer of USC’s 70-69 overtime win against Minnesota.
The Trojans had survived their grueling, weeklong Big Ten Conference road trip that included away games at No. 2 Michigan, No. 12 Michigan State and Minnesota. They dropped the first two games before grinding out the overtime win in Minneapolis.
Next up is a return to Galen Center to host Maryland, which has yet to win a conference game, on Tuesday.
“Just to get four road games out of the way this early is going to benefit us down the road,” Musselman told reporters after beating Minnesota. “Last year, we learned the toughest game is the game back home after these long trips. So we gotta get some rest, we gotta regroup, we gotta get ready for Maryland.”
Freshman Alijah Arenas could make his highly anticipated college game debut at any time and has been practicing with the team for nearly three weeks now. The addition of Arenas would provide a major boost, but USC has found ways to win even in his absence.
“I thought there were huge adjustments that we made (at Minnesota),” Musselman said. “We’re kind of reinventing ourselves with all the injuries, and if Alijah Arenas is able to play in the next couple of games, we’ll be reinventing ourselves again.”
Kam Woods — a 6-foot-2 point guard who was added at the end of the fall semester — got his first start in the Minnesota game and is becoming a key part of the Trojans’ ability to maintain possession of the ball. He had four rebounds and three assists in that game.
But Chad Baker-Mazara continues to hold the team together throughout USC’s injury woes, which also have affected point guard Rodney Rice and guard Amarion Dickerson. The 6-foot-7 guard has scored 20 or more points in eight different games this season and had a career-high eight assists against Minnesota.
“Chad Baker’s assists were huge for us,” Musselman said, “because he had 29 points and then also a career-high eight assists. So a lot of good things.”
Six-foot-7 center Gabe Dynes played a season-high 37 minutes off the bench and has seen a general uptick in playing time since the Dec. 21 game against UC Santa Cruz.
Musselman said he chose a scheme that allowed Dynes to focus on the paint and deflect shots. He pulled down a season-high six rebounds against the Golden Gophers while contributing nine points.
Maryland is under the guidance of head coach Buzz Williams, who is in his first year with the program after coaching Texas A&M for the previous six seasons.
The Terrapins are third to last in the conference in offensive output with 73.4 points per game and are struggling in many statistical categories. The biggest battle in Tuesday’s game will be the turnover battle.
Both teams are turning the ball over a conference-high 13.3 times per game. USC committed 16 turnovers in Minnesota and Maryland had 13 in its most recent game at UCLA.
Six-foot-9 center Pharrel Payne leads the Terps in scoring at 17.5 points per game as well as rebounding with an average of 7.2 boards, but Williams has also been pleased with the ability of 6-foot-5 guard Darius Adams (12.6 ppg) and 6-foot-4 guard Andre Mills (8.6 ppg) to finish at the basket.
“Both of those guys are improving in their ability to get to the rim,” Williams told reporters on Wednesday. “We have to continue to find ways to help them improve at the rim.”
“We’re playing harder, we’re playing more together,” Williams added. “In some ways, I think we’ve stopped losing and we’ve had momentum within the process of this. We just haven’t had momentum in the results.”
No. 21 USC (10-5 overall, 2-2 Big Ten) at Minnesota (11-4, 2-2)
When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Galen Center
TV/Radio: Big Ten Network/USCTrojans.com/Listen