Two teams sliding in the wrong direction square off Thursday night when Utah visits Southern California in Pac-12 Conference play at Los Angeles.
The Utes have dropped four of their past five games. The Trojans are in a deeper slump with eight setbacks in their past nine games.
The good news for USC (9-15, 3-10 Pac-12) is that it’s won the past five meetings with the Utes (15-9, 6-7).
The Trojans will be looking to bounce back from an ugly 99-68 loss to host Stanford on Saturday in which the Cardinal set a program record with 19 3-pointers and outrebounded USC 41-25.
The Trojans have been outrebounded by a whopping 95-52 over their past two games.
“We made some defensive mistakes, but every time we made one, they made us pay,” Trojans coach Andy Enfield said after the loss to Stanford. ” … It is disappointing. And so that’s on us, on me as a head coach. We’re not going to start pointing fingers.”
Enfield taking responsibility for the beatdown was unwarranted in the eyes of guard Boogie Ellis.
“They’re doing their best. I mean, Coach Andy can draw up all the plays he wants, he can be the best coach,” Ellis said. “But if we don’t go out there and perform, that’s not on him.”
Freshman guard Isaiah Collier scored 18 points against Stanford. He is averaging 19 in two games since missing six with a hand injury.
Collier’s scoring average of 15.8 points ranks second on the Trojans behind Ellis (16.4).
The Utes are coming off an 85-77 home loss to Arizona State on Saturday.
Big man Branden Carlson recorded 25 points and 12 rebounds and also set a program record with 220 career blocked shots, passing David Foster (219 from 2006-07, 2010-11).
But Carlson’s stellar effort couldn’t propel Utah to a much-needed victory.
“We just needed to be better physically, defensively for us,” Carlson said. “I think we had way too many opportunities where they just drove right by us and we didn’t wall up.
“I think they had way too many shots at their end that we needed to contest more, but I think this was just a learning point for us and now we got to just grow from this.”
The Utes shot 56.7 percent in the first half but dropped to 37.8 in the second.
“We had a lot of clean looks that just didn’t fall in and sometimes that happens,” Utah coach Craig Smith said.
Carlson leads the Utes with averages of 17 points and seven rebounds. He also has a team-best 33 blocks.
–Field Level Media