Could a bad five-minute stretch of basketball played on the first day of December matter in March? After a 73-61 loss to No. 5 Nevada on Saturday afternoon at Galen Center, the USC Trojans are rightfully wary.
Last season, they were 12-6 in the Pac-12 Conference, finishing second in the regular season and in the conference tournament but were left out of the NCAA tournament because they didn’t have enough quality victories as determined by the selection committee’s metrics. In the spring, during a long, searching offseason, USC agreed to play Nevada, a Sweet 16 team with a ton of returning talent, to give itself another chance at one of those marquee victories that jump off the page months down the road.