USC Basketball: Only 1 Way Trojans Can Make March Madness

At 9-15, USC’s postseason hopes are fading fast.

Your 9-15 USC Trojans men’s basketball team hasn’t had anything close to the 2023-24 season most pundits may have expected.

Heading into the season, 11th-year USC head coach Andy Enfield’s club had been looking to build off a 22-11 (14-6 in the Pac-12) finish and a first round NCAA Tournament exit in 2023. With a highly-regarded recruiting class headlined by five-star recruit Isaiah Collier and four-star recruit Bronny James, it seemed quite possible. Alas, that’s hardly been the case so far.

Now, as Matt Zemek of Trojans Wire relays, there is only one route left open to USC if it wants to make a March Madness run this year: it has to win the Pac-12 Tournament outright.

The Trojans have just seven regular season contests remaining on their slate, all against members of their current conference. USC has gone 1-8 across its past nine contests, and will face off against seven teams with superior records down this home stretch. The Pac-12 has been unusually good in this season, while the Trojans have been, inversely, unusually bad. Only one other club in the dying conference, the 11-13 Oregon State Beavers, shares a sub-.500 record along with the mightily struggling Cardinal and Gold, and USC is done playing Oregon State for the rest of the regular season.