Following a debacle of a loss on Wednesday, Arizona State (10-7, 4-2 Pac-12) has to pick up the pieces quickly. As UCLA showed the Sun Devils, a season record gets thrown out of the window when the ball is tipped. While their next opponent’s win-loss mark is uninspiring in its own right, Arizona State’s Saturday showdown with an ultra-talented yet underachieving USC (8-10, 2-5) group presents its own challenge on Saturday.
Like their LA rivals, USC hasn’t enjoyed the season it hoped to have thus far. Projected on the level of national contention with a preseason AP top 25 poll ranking, the Trojans have played below expectations to this point, in part due to injuries but also a strong non-conference schedule that combines with its Pac-12 slate to form the 12th-toughest strength of schedule in Division 1 per KenPom.
There’s no shame in dropping contests away from home to currently ranked squads in Oklahoma and Auburn, but USC has had a fair share of slip-ups against mid or low majors that are a big part of its concerning season mark entering Saturday. Suffering a double-digit home loss to lowly UC Irvine in November, as well as an overtime defeat on their floor to Long Beach State in December, served as precursors to a stutter-step start in conference play, which has seen the Trojans drop five of their first seven Pac-12 games, including their last three in a row.
USC’s shocking start has raised questions amongst the Trojan faithful of whether or not head coach Andy Enfield, who has been at the helm of Southern Cal basketball since 2013, has run his course as the right man for the job. Leading his teams to five NCAA Tournament appearances since his hiring, this team was expected to be the one that could carry a prestigious university to its fourth straight tournament berth and possibly even its first Final Four appearance since 1954. For now, Enfield will be on the sidelines opposite Bobby Hurley on Saturday, with USC desperate to get off the schnied against a Sun Devil team fresh off maybe its most demoralizing loss of the season, a contest that saw them called for four technical fouls in the second half and relinquishing a 15-point lead.
In previous seasons, with fewer weapons at his disposal, Andy Enfield and his team have been an Achilles’ heel to Bobby Hurley and the Sun Devils. Since the 2018-2019 season, the Trojans have won eight of their last ten meetings with ASU, including a streak of seven in a row that was just snapped in the two programs’ last meeting in the 2023 Pac-12 Tournament.
While much of those USC teams had a fair share of continuity, this Trojans team is a whole lot different than last year’s. Despite their subpar record, Enfield’s squad sports a three-headed monster of gifted guards, all capable of taking over a game and bringing a defense to their knees. The name Boogie Ellis is enough to make any Sun Devil fan skin crawl, but the additions of not one but two surefire first-round NBA draft picks in Isaiah Collier and Bronny James form one of the nation’s most gifted backcourts that will pose the biggest threat to defeat on ASU, if they are healthy, as neither Collier (out for four more weeks due to a hand injury) nor Ellis (hamstring) played in the Trojans 15-point loss in Tucson on Wednesday.
In contrast to the two-point dominant offenses they’ve had in recent seasons (USC has finished no lower than seventh nationally in two-point shooting percentage since 2020), the Trojans have shot threes much more often this year, six percent higher than last while maintaining a similar usage inside the arc made possible by a top-100 adjusted tempo metric per KenPom. Sporting just three double-digit per-game scorers in Boogie Ellis, Kobe Johnson, and, for that matter, Isaiah Collier too, USC’s scoring is centralized, but that’s not to say it isn’t versatile.
Starting with a familiar foe, senior guard Boogie Ellis returns as the engine of the Trojan offense as an exceptional ball-handler who can score with ease from all three levels. The Sun Devils, in particular, have had their fair share of difficulties trying to slow down Ellis in the past, as the six-foot-three point guard averaged 20 points in the three contests USC and ASU played a season ago. In this campaign, Ellis is still the premier scoring threat, as his 18.7 point-per-game mark is good for fourth in the Pac-12, alongside highly efficient shooting numbers, including a career-best 45 percent clip from beyond the arc. Ellis’s shiftiness with the ball and ability to create his own shot is special. Assuming he’s healthy enough to play his presumptive matchup with a defensive menace in Frankie Collins, he will be one to watch.
People love to talk about Bronny James as the team’s third star, and for good reason. Being the son of NBA royalty, LeBron James, tremendous hype has surrounded the six-foot-four freshman since he was in middle school, and he’s certainly contributed at the college level, but in his own way. James suffered a cardiac arrest on July 24 and has returned to action only in the first week of December. Therefore, rather than rack up points and grace the opening sequence of Sportscenter, James has come off the bench in eight of ten games he’s played in, starting in the last two, and has been a defensive disruptor with his elite athleticism and high IQ. Fellow wing Kobe Johnson profiles in that way as well, but the six-foot-six junior makes his presence known as an inside scorer with 11 a night while pacing the team in rebounds and steals. Vincent Iwuckwu and DJ Rodman form a formidable paint presence that excels in rebounding the basketball and blocking shots, rounding out this USC team as one of the more balanced in the Pac-12, whose yet to find its stride with injuries spreading like wildfire throughout the roster.
For Saturday, the availability of Ellis is still unknown, but whether or not he takes the floor, ASU will have to be up to the physical test that USC’s athletes will present while being able to make their threes against a Trojans defense that allows opponents to shoot a dangerous 36 percent from deep.
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