Prepare the ground for USC-UCLA while Trojan horses take momentum in the clash rivalry

Pre-season expectations were very different for USC and UCLA rivals.

Trojan horses were chosen 14th out of 18 teams in the Big Ten pre-season media survey, while the Bruins were elected third, even received some first place votes and were split n ° 22 In the pre-season prediction.

While the teams meet on Monday evening at the Galen Center, little separates the Bruins (14-6, 5-4 Big Ten) and the horses of Troy (12-7, 4-4) in the ranking.

And although the two have fought against inconsistency and the ups and downs so far, everyone enters this rivalry confrontation on a little role, USC having won three of its last four games and the Bruins rolled up A sequence of three consecutive victories.

The question for Trojan horses is whether they can continue their solid game at home, where they are only 1-3 at a conference.

“For any reason, we were really good on the road. We are 3-1 on the road and we were not very good at home, otherwise we would be in an incredible position for Mars if we had done what We were supposed to do at home.

He deplored the absence of a real advantage of the field with so many empty seats in Galen Center in each match, but that should not be a problem on Monday evening because the rivalry games with the UCLA generally pack the house.

And a victory for Trojan horses would certainly make its quest for a more interesting NCAA tournament offer before the last month of the season.

Let’s take a closer look at the two teams entering this match, which immerses you at 7 p.m. PT (on FS1) …

Trojan horses won victories at the time. 13 L’Illinois (82-72 on the road), Iowa (99-89 at home) and Nebraska (78-73 on the road) sandwiched a disappointing defeat at the time. 24 Wisconsin (84-69).

This team finds its identity, with the leader Desmond Claude playing an assertive role on the offensive, with an average of 19.5 points per game since the beginning of December, including a summit of 21 points and 6 assists in victory Against Huskers.

What really changed the USC season, however, is the emergence of the Redsirt Wesley Yates Redsirt, who took control of a starting role in early December when Terrance Williams II was put to the ‘gap. Yates is on average 16.8 points in the last six games – including 17 against the Nebraska with 4 interceptions while doing 9 out of 9 on the fault line – and gave the Trojans a secondary advance which can resume the offensive For key stretches.

This is what the team was missing the earliest in the season, and Yates Breakout changed the game for the team while Saint Thomas, Rashaun Agee, Chibuzo Agbo and Josh Cohen fill up important roles.

The offensive is not the problem for Trojan horses at this stage – Defense is another story as a 211st row on a national scale by abandoning 72.3 points per game. This number is in fact 80.8 points per game in the last six competitions.

The Bruins had lost four consecutive games and two weeks ago, coach Mick Cronin exploded his team to be too “soft” and said this: “It is really difficult to train delirious people. The hungry dog Gets the bone.

It was after a defeat of 94-75 at home against Michigan. The UCLA would then lose on the road to Maryland (79-61) and Rutgers (75-68) also to cap this skid of four games before depositing consecutive victories on Iowa (94-70 at home), Wisconsin ( 85-83 at home) and Washington (65-60 on the road).

The UCLA may or may not have its top scorer on Monday evening while the 6 -foot junior striker Tyler Bilodeau is questionable with an ankle injury suffered on Saturday in Washington, when it was limited to only 3 minutes. For the season, it has an average of 13.9 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.

The Bruins are quite balanced, however, with goalkeeper Eric Dailey Jr. (11.7 ppg, 4.2 RPG), Sebastian Mack (10.2 ppg), the former Trojan Kobe Johnson (8.0 ppg, 5, 9 RPG, 1.9 interceptions per match), Dylan Andrews (7.3 PPG) and Skyy Clark (7.3 ppg). The big man Aday Mara has entered a more important role in the last two games, playing in seasonal minutes in the last two games while scoring 22 points with 5 rebounds against Wisconsin and 12 points, 7 plates and 5 blocks against Washington.

The Bruins were solid in defense overall, ranking 25th at the national level by holding opponents on average 64.5 points per game.