Arizona State aims to end a three-game losing streak as it continues a challenging Pac-12 Conference stretch on Thursday with a matchup against No. 19 Southern California in Tempe, Ariz.
USC (18-3, 8-3 Pac-12) enters with wins in four of its past five after pulling away from visiting Cal for a 79-72 victory on Saturday. The Trojans rallied from a double-digit deficit in the first half to avoid consecutive losses thanks to Isaiah Mobley and Boogie Ellis putting up season scoring highs of 24 and 21 points, respectively.
USC dropped its previous outing, 64-61 against visiting Stanford last Thursday.
“That was our fifth game in 10 days,” Trojans coach Andy Enfield said following the win over the Bears. “We’re very tired. Credit to our players, we’ve gone 4-1 in that stretch and we were 20 seconds away from being 5-0.”
USC’s busy stretch included a 78-56 rout of Arizona State on Jan. 24 in Los Angeles. That contest, which had been rescheduled from Dec. 30 due to COVID-19 issues in the USC program, saw the Trojans hold the Sun Devils to 34.4 percent shooting from the floor.
Drew Peterson led the Trojans with 16 points, and Mobley, Chevez Goodwin and Max Agbonkpolo contributed 12 points apiece.
For the Sun Devils (6-12, 2-6), the reshuffling of their schedule resulted in a stretch with five consecutive games against teams currently ranked in the Top 25.
That run opened with the loss at USC, which was followed by a 67-56 defeat Saturday at then-No. 3 Arizona.
Arizona State led the Wildcats for much of the first half and both teams were tied at halftime. DJ Horne, who hit three 3-pointers in a 14-point game at USC, knocked down 5 of 12 long-distance attempts against Arizona en route to 17 points.
After taking a one-point lead with 12:31 remaining, Arizona State was outscored 24-12 the rest of the game.
“I like the way we came out,” Horne said. “I feel we can look at this game and can take a lot away from it and learn from it. Losing definitely sucks, but when you play a team like that, the way we came out and played toe-to-toe with them in the first half, moral victory. I think you can use a term like that for this game.”
Arizona State, which has earned just one win since Dec. 14, will try to build on the positive showing against the Wildcats as the Sun Devils continue their difficult stretch.
In the past six games, Arizona State has failed to score at least 60 points four times. On the season, the Sun Devils are shooting 28.2 percent from 3-point range and 45.4 percent inside the arc, with both figures ranking among the worst in the nation.
USC, meanwhile, has one of the nation’s best 2-point field-goal percentage defenses, holding opponents to 40.6 percent shooting inside the arc. Overall, the Trojans are surrendering just 37.7 percent shooting, which also ranks on the Division I leaderboard.
Arizona State has performed well on defense with a 2-point field-goal yield of 45.3 percent and an impressive average of 4.3 blocked shots per contest.
–Field Level Media
