USC, Oregon rematch in Sweet 16 ‘a whole different ballgame’
LOS ANGELES (BVM) – Amid a myriad of storylines to come from this year’s edition of March Madness, perhaps the most intriguing is the resurgence of the Pac-12. Despite just five teams from the conference earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament, the Pac-12 is the first conference all-time to have four teams seeded fourth or worse to reach the Sweet 16.
No. 6 USC, No. 7 Oregon, No. 11 UCLA and No. 12 Oregon State each won by double digits in the Round of 32, and the nation has finally taken notice of the quality of basketball on the West Coast.
USC head coach Andy Enfield grew up in Pennsylvania and said he never watched Pac-12 basketball as a child despite being surrounded by the game. The biggest reason was the time difference, he said, but there’s no longer an excuse for the Pac-12 to be an afterthought.
“This tournament has been great for the nation just to be exposed to Pac-12 teams,” Enfield told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve been saying for years that the Pac-12 has great players. We put 10 players in the NBA Draft last season, we would’ve had six teams in the tournament last season and this year we have five. The level of competition, the level of talent, is tremendous.”
At least one Pac-12 team will make an Elite Eight appearance this season because USC and Oregon will face off on Sunday for the second time this season.
The first matchup (Feb. 22) was a lop-sided 72-58 win for USC in which the Trojans jumped out to a 17-1 lead. Tahj Eddy scored a game-high 24 points for USC while LJ Figueroa and Eric Williams Jr. paced the Ducks with 14 points apiece. The Trojans earned the convincing conference win without starter Isaiah Mobley and using just a seven-man rotation.
But since then, things have certainly changed. Mobley and his brother, Evan, have burst onto the national scene with a combined 59 points, 37 rebounds, 13 assists and 8 blocks through two NCAA Tournament games. The Trojans took care of No. 11-seeded Drake in the opening round before dominating No. 3-seeded Kansas 85-51 to earn a Sweet 16 berth.
Oregon has only lost once since its letdown versus USC over a month ago and knocked off No. 2-seeded Iowa in the Round of 32 behind 23 points from senior guard Chris Duarte.
“This will be a completely different game, it’s on a much bigger stage and I think both teams are playing good basketball right now,” Enfield said. “It’ll be a whole different ballgame; we really can’t take too much out of that first game we played them over a month ago.”
Evan, who scored 11 points and grabbed five boards against the Ducks last month, agrees that Sunday’s matchup will be much different than the last. It doesn’t mean, however, that he isn’t excited to play a familiar opponent.
“We’re both two different teams now,” Evan told reporters on Thursday. “A month is a pretty long time and we both probably play a little bit different.
“I feel like we can definitely play a great game against them because we’ve already played them before. That’s the great thing about playing them (Oregon) in March Madness; they’re in our conference so we know a lot about them. Compared to other teams we don’t know much about, which is different.”
A win over Oregon punches USC’s first ticket to the Elite Eight since 2001, which is a major accomplishment for a team with just three returners which lost 80 percent of its scoring and rebounding from last season.
Two of the hottest teams in the nation tip off on Sunday night, and one of them will represent the resurgent Pac-12 in the Elite Eight.
