How No. 16 USC men’s basketball can get back on track

Last week was a wake-up call for the USC men’s basketball team. After a 13-0 start to the season, the Trojans suffered their first two losses of the season, to Stanford and Oregon, dropping USC (14-2 overall, 4-2 in Pac-12) from No. 5 in the Associated Press poll to No. 16.

Two losses with a month-and-a-half left in the season is no reason to panic. But as the Trojans prepare for the daunting Mountain road trip, starting Thursday at Colorado (12-4, 4-2), USC must address problems on both offense and defense to get back on track.

Back to the fundamentals

Following a lengthy pause in between games due to the team’s COVID-19 outbreak and the rescheduling of games on short notice, USC has had little time to practice and it has shown in the four games since returning to action, especially on defense, which has been the Trojans’ greatest strength this year.

In the first 12 games of the season, USC did not allow an opponent to shoot over 40% from the floor. But the Trojans have allowed teams to surpass that mark in all four games since returning from the COVID-19 pause, capped by Oregon’s 50% shooting night that resulted in a season-high 79 points surrendered by USC.

Head coach Andy Enfield hopes that three days of practice this week before facing Colorado helps USC snap out of this funk.

“We have to get back to some of our basic defensive drills that we do and schemes,” Enfield said. “We need to have hard practices and get back to some of the basic concepts that we were pretty good at before.”

That means doing a better job of closing out on shooters, playing better help defense and covering for the helper so as not to allow open looks and, as guard Boogie Ellis pointed out after the Oregon loss, doing a better job of communicating with each other.

“I feel like there’s points in the game where it’s real quiet,” Ellis said. “All the guys that are veterans gotta do a better job of emphasizing us talking and communicating.”

Attack the paint

With seven players on the roster standing at 6-foot-9 or taller, USC has an inherit advantage when it comes to attacking the paint and getting easy points close to the basket.

But USC finished with single-digit points in the paint in each of its last two first halves, playing tentatively on offense rather than in attack mode. In the first half against the Ducks, USC had 13 attempts from 3-point range compared to four made baskets in the paint.

The Trojans need to be aggressive and use their height to their advantage inside rather than settling for long jumpers.

“We got to have offensive toughness,” forward Isaiah Mobley said. “We’ve shown that we can do that, it’s just a matter of sustaining it.”

USC at Colorado

When: Thursday, 4:30 p.m. PT

Where: CU Events Center (Boulder, Colo.)

TV/Radio: Pac-12 Network/AM 790