Southern California keeps on rolling, joins the Elite Eight’s Pac-12 party
The Trojans’ 82-68 romp showed the Ducks could not handle Southern California in two tries this season, that people are having a hell of a time handling the Trojans in general, and that the Trojans could present a dazzling counterpart to their next opponent, unbeaten No. 1 Gonzaga, come Tuesday in the West Regional final. That’s all as Southern California has blasted to its first Elite Eight in 20 years and its second in the last 67 years, one game after blasting Kansas, 85-51, which counted as worse than Kansas had ever been blasted in this 82-year-old event.
“I don’t know what everybody else is saying,” said Isaiah White, the 6-foot-7 redshirt senior who pretty much just got through transferring in from Utah Valley, and dropped 22 points on Oregon. “All I know is this team is special. We believe we can beat anybody.”
When White himself shoots as he has in the annihilations of Kansas and Oregon — a combined 13-for-17, 7-for-9 from outside the arc — and he complements the other Trojan threats such as 7-foot freshman Pac-12 player of the year Evan Mobley, Southern California (25-7) does bear a striking resemblance to pure hell. “When he scores,” Coach Andy Enfield said of White, “we’re a whole different team . . . When we can shoot the ball at this level, we’re tough to beat.”
They’ve shot the ball at 57.1 percent against Kansas and then 57.4 against Oregon, which might even be the second-most-important matter about them, behind the zone defense they’ve unleashed a lot more lately because of matchups. That thing has limited Drake to 29.4 percent, Kansas to 29.0 percent and Oregon to a harmless 37.7, after a start of 8-for-28, or 28.5, while the Trojans built leads such as the 41-26 at halftime.
Then again, they had toughened up themselves in a league that will post 37.5 percent of the Elite Eight, counting Oregon State and UCLA, even as that would have occurred had the Ducks beaten the Trojans. Anymore, the people from the left side of the country are just running around with so many spots in the brackets that they’re bound to run into each other.
That’s true even as that league played its regular season without much attention or respect from the rest of the country, either out of lack of interest, general ennui, regional snootiness or unhelpful bedtimes. Yet near midnight in downtown Indianapolis in this strangest of tournaments, the speakers in the Indiana Pacers’ home played Southern California’s treasured “Fight On,” and it had nothing to do with anybody getting a first down.
“We are S-C,” the scattered Southern California fans chanted.
Enfield, the eighth-year coach once noted for steering Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet 16, pumped his arms to the limited crowd.
“I want to mention one thing here,” he would point out later, just when it seemed his postgame remarks had ended. “You know, Evan Mobley was our fourth-leading scorer tonight (with 10 points), but he had six assists, and against Kansas he was our fifth-leading scorer (also with 10 points), but he had five assists. So that just goes to show you how unselfish Evan Mobley is and what a great player he is. He takes what the defense gives. He has confidence in his teammates, and that goes throughout the whole team. He leads us with that. When your most talented offensive player is your most unselfish and willing passer, you can win a lot of games like that.”
The Trojans won a lot of games in the Pac-12 standings that left them in second place at 15-5, just behind Oregon’s 14-4 in the eccentric year. They also won one on Feb. 20 against Oregon, when the Ducks barely had disembarked from the plane when the Trojans raided them for a 15-0 lead toward a 72-58 win. This all came from a team with only three returnees from last year and mingled-in transfers such as White and the compelling shooter of a guard, Tahj Eaddy, who raided the Ducks for 20 points Sunday night.
“Well, we’re 25-7,” Enfield said at one point, “so I guess we’ve been pretty consistent all season.” He also might have added they lost six of those games to teams from the fearsome Pac-12. In this tournament, that looks more forgivable by the day.
