{"id":193026,"date":"2026-02-25T13:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193026\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T13:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T13:02:12","slug":"usc-mens-basketball-wonders-what-could-have-been-after-loss-at-ucla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/193026\/","title":{"rendered":"USC men’s basketball wonders what could have been after loss at UCLA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As his USC<\/a> team slid further off the NCAA tournament bubble, falling flat against its fiercest rival, frustrated coach Eric Musselman<\/a> couldn\u2019t help but lament what might have been.<\/p>\n

If the Trojans had Rodney Rice, maybe things would have gone differently in his second season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t really talked about it in a long time,\u201d Musselman said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got three games left, so I\u2019m gonna bring it up now. To run our offense and stuff without a guy like him is problematic for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, after losing 81-62 to crosstown rival UCLA,<\/a>, there wasn\u2019t much else for USC to find solace in Tuesday night. Maybe Rice, who has been out since late November, would have elevated the Trojans\u2019 ailing offense. Maybe freshman Alijah Arenas<\/a>, who didn\u2019t debut until late January, could have found his stride faster with a full offseason.<\/p>\n

No amount of what-ifs, however, will fix what ails USC during its final three games. The loss to UCLA was its fourth straight. As of Tuesday night, the Trojans were firmly out of the tournament field, a fact that Musselman was well aware of.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not set in stone yet. But the question now is whether the Trojans even have the capacity to climb back into the March mix.<\/p>\n

That path back for USC would certainly be smoother with a more potent offense. Sixth-year senior Chad Baker-Mazara<\/a> led the team with 25 points against UCLA in spite of playing through a sore knee.<\/p>\n

But the rest of the Trojans offense shot under 30% \u2014 another issue that Musselman traced back to Rice\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of shooting is really hurting us,\u201d Musselman said. \u201cI haven\u2019t really talked about it in a long time. But not having Rodney Rice\u2019s shooting is killing us. It kills our spacing. It kills our help to the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrival of Arenas, the Trojans highly touted freshman, was supposed to solve that. Instead, 10 games into his college career, Arenas is struggling mightily with his offensive efficiency.<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC coach Eric Musselman reacts to the Trojans\u2019 loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Arenas had four first-half turnovers in nine minutes and didn\u2019t hit a shot from the field until midway through the second half. The freshman has shot just 8 of 29 over his last three games. He finished Tuesday with 10 points, four rebounds and five turnovers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a learning curve for him,\u201d Musselman said. \u201cHe\u2019s an incredible talent who has an awesome ceiling, and he\u2019s got an incredible future. But in a game like tonight \u2014 he\u2019s learning. You can see it out there. He\u2019s learning on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s not much time left to learn. The Trojans will face No. 12 Nebraska on Saturday, before traveling to Washington, which beat them earlier in the season, a few days later. A rematch with UCLA awaits at Galen Center the following Saturday.<\/p>\n

USC won\u2019t stand much of a chance against that slate if it can\u2019t find some consistency on either end, but the Trojans had their moments Tuesday. They fired out to an early lead thanks to Baker-Mazara, who followed up a 13-point outburst Saturday by knocking down three consecutive 3\u2019s in a three-minute stretch.<\/p>\n

Later, near the midway mark of the second half, Baker-Mazara hit another 3 to cut the UCLA lead to just five points. And for a brief moment, it seemed USC might find a way.<\/p>\n

But then, in the waning seconds of the shot clock, UCLA star guard Donovan Dent let a deep three pointer fly with 10 minutes remaining. It swished. A sold-out crowd at Pauley Pavilion roared.<\/p>\n

Dent finished with 30 points, while the Trojans never recovered. Musselman, meanwhile, was left thinking of something his wife, Danyelle, had said to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake a 20-pointer scorer off of any team and see what they do,\u201d Musselman recalled his wife saying. \u201cTake Dent off of them and let\u2019s see what they do. That\u2019s a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the facts, for USC, are pretty grim at this point. And with just three games remaining, time is running out for the Trojans to change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As his USC team slid further off the NCAA tournament bubble, falling flat against its fiercest rival, frustrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[77398,9614,423,48,52,51,28236,47,50,49,3289,48965,1417,90381,595,777,90383,23138,1092,45679,90382],"class_list":["post-193026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-arenas","tag-fact","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-long-time","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-loss","tag-musselman","tag-point","tag-rodney-rice","tag-saturday","tag-second-half","tag-tournament-field","tag-trojans","tag-ucla","tag-usc-man","tag-usc-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193026","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=193026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}