{"id":168364,"date":"2026-02-07T18:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168364\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T18:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T18:25:07","slug":"southern-california-looks-to-keep-rolling-at-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168364\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern California looks to keep rolling at Penn State"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southern California will chase its first three-game winning streak in its two seasons in the Big Ten Conference during a matchup with Penn State<\/a> on Sunday in the program’s first visit to State College, Pa.<\/p>\n

The Trojans (17-6, 6-6 Big Ten) saw highly regarded freshman Alijah Arenas deliver a breakout game with 29 points and six rebounds in an 81-75 home victory over Indiana on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Arenas, the son of former NBA player Gilbert Arenas, was playing in just his fifth game after starting the season with a knee injury.<\/p>\n

“My team kept me level-headed, kept me together,” Arenas said after the victory. “Without my team, I kind of started losing myself, which is why I’m grateful to have them. And then I keep the mental side of just continuing to play, no matter what happens.”<\/p>\n

Kam Woods scored 18 points for USC<\/a>, while Ezra Ausar had 12 points with seven rebounds. Leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara (18.3 points per game) was held to seven points on 3-of-10 shooting.<\/p>\n

A home victory over Rutgers preceded the win over Indiana and now the Trojans hit the road where they are 3-3 in Big Ten play. They have road victories at Oregon, Minnesota and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Penn State (10-13, 1-11) ended an eight-game losing streak with a home victory over Minnesota last weekend but was crushed 110-69 at No. 2 Michigan on Thursday. The Nittany Lions had just eight players available due to injury and illness and were without starters Eli Rice and Ivan Juric.<\/p>\n

Freddie Dilione V scored 19 points with seven rebounds, while Josh Reed and Melih Tunca had 15 points each.<\/p>\n

“We knew the situation we were in,” Penn State coach Mike Rhoades said. “I felt we had to make 10 to 12 (3-pointers) to give ourselves a chance today, and we didn’t, but we didn’t stop them.”<\/p>\n

Penn State’s defense was shredded by 60.6% shooting from Michigan, including 51.7% from 3-point range. It was outrebounded 44-21 and outscored from the bench 43-10.<\/p>\n

The Nittany Lions are next to last in the Big Ten by allowing 79.7 points per game and last in field-goal percentage allowed (50.1). They have the youngest team in the nation, with freshman Kayden Mingo scoring 13.7 points, with 4.5 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 2.2 steals.<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern California will chase its first three-game winning streak in its two seasons in the Big Ten Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,4213,13605,13670],"class_list":{"0":"post-168364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-college-basketball","12":"tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","13":"tag-usc-trojans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}