LOS ANGELES — Forty-six hours until they start dancing in Las Vegas, this is all business.
There is little emotion within a near-silent Galen Center on Monday afternoon, an hour after what could be the final home practice of the year. Team managers bustle, worker bees stacking luggage and equipment to be carried to the team bus to the airport. USC assistant coaches Chris Capko and Kurt Karis get in a quick final lift. A set of Jersey Mike’s subs are set out for players on a side table. Just one cry, of something to the extent of Vegas, baby! echoes down the hall.
Captain Boogie Ellis carries steel in the lines of his face as he grabs food from the door.
“It’s a lot more detail, a lot more things to lock in,” the fifth-year senior says of facing a win-or-go-home situation in the coming week. “And gotta play every game like it’s my last.”
It very well could be, USC’s season over in a quick snap if it loses a single game in this Pac-12 Tournament, starting Wednesday against Washington. This is an unfamiliar situation for Ellis, whose previous USC teams had locked up at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament before heading to the desert for the conference tourney; these Trojans have known, ever since a crippling February loss to Stanford, that the only path to March is winning the Pac-12 Tournament in its final season. And a hugely disappointing regular season – the third-worst by record in coach Andy Enfield’s 11-year USC tenure – means USC won’t have a first-round bye, finishing as the ninth seed in the conference.
No matter. All business. This is a team few should want to face in the desert.
“Honestly, I feel like – I know we’re a nine seed or whatever, but I don’t really feel like we’re a nine seed,” Ellis said Monday. “So, I mean, whoever has to play us – we’re definitely looking to prove that … we expected to be a lot better this year.”
“But,” Ellis finished, “we kinda clicked late.”
By midseason, USC’s fortunes seemed all but dead in the water, Enfield pointing to a six-game losing streak through January and early February that torpedoed already-slim chances of earning a bid to March. The first words out of the coach’s mouth, anytime he’s been asked to characterize the season across the past two months, have been directed at a string of poor injury luck; it seemed to carry little weight, back when a crippled USC (14-17, 8-12 Pac-12) program was finding an amazingly myriad number of ways to lose games and blow leads.
Suddenly, though, USC has won five of its past seven games after a triumphant win over a top-10 program in Arizona on Saturday. Suddenly, a team unable to put away teams has closed three wins in a row. Suddenly, the roster is healthy and visibly recharged, with a 10-4 record when it starts its opening-game five of Ellis, Isaiah Collier, Kobe Johnson, DJ Rodman and Joshua Morgan.
“We did lose six games in a row, when we had those injuries in January, and it’s hard to recover in the regular-season standings from losing six games in a row,” Enfield said Monday. “We understand that. Our seeding would have been significantly different if we didn’t have them, in our opinion.”
This run, however, goes far beyond simple health. “Everybody’s roles are figured out now,” Johnson said after Thursday’s win over Arizona State.
Clear individual growth has led to faster starts and USC adopting a more stable late-game identity.
Collier has made the biggest leap, rounding into the top-ranked recruit USC envisioned, one of the best freshman guards in the country honing his on-ball defense and IQ reading the floor. Ellis, despite a couple off nights, is shooting 47.5% from deep in his last six games. Rodman has become a hyper-efficient spot-up threat, cutter and irreplaceable rebounder. Johnson has settled into a complementary offensive role, shooting 40% from deep and averaging 3.3 steals per game since losing and regaining his starting spot in early February, a member of the All-Pac-12 Defensive Team as announced Tuesday.
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The Trojans haven’t strung together four consecutive wins all year, and it will be an ordeal to start in the desert. But the Pac-12, frankly, is wide open. USC plays Washington on Wednesday – a team it beat 82-75 on March 2. A win would mean a rematch with No. 6 Arizona – which it beat Saturday.
“I think the way our team has been playing lately,” Enfield said, “they’ll be ready.”
USC vs. Washington
When: Noon Wednesday
Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
TV/radio: Pac-12 Network/790 AM