Arizona State heads to Los Angeles to play the Trojans of Southern California on Thursday. Sophomore Jahii Carson leads a thin Sun Devils team into this game, and if ASU wants to get above .500 in conference, they will have to come prepared.
These two squads split their games last year with each winning on their home court. USC’s win was a one point nail biter in early March, while Carson and company prevailed by five in overtime earlier on in the year.
USC is an interesting bunch because of how much they had to deal with in the offseason. Coaching changes as well as transfers have left this group coming together at the last minute, and they have struggled early while getting out to a 9-5 start in 2013.
The Trojans do bring some potential to this matchup. For starters, they have an athletic and defensive minded guard in Pe’Shon Howard who could be a nice match-up for the ultra-talented Carson. No one in this conference is physically capable of stopping the ASU point man, but Howard has the athleticism and frame to at least make his life more difficult.
Arizona State’s roster has a few really talented players in addition to Carson, but it doesn’t have much depth. Jordan Bachynski is a seven foot senior who averages over nine boards per outing. But USC counters with two seven footers of their own to go along with 6’10 Nikola Jovanovic. The freshman forward has come on as of late, and he has serious talent.
Jermaine Marshall, Jonathan Gilling and Shaquielle McKissic provide a trio of additional options for Herb Sendek and company, but make no mistake, this team’s ability to win is highly predicated on Carson. This offense is ranked 71st nationally in efficiency, but that is very much correlated to Carson’s ability to take over.
The five Sun Devils mentioned average a combined 60 PPG on their own, but no one else on the roster offers much additional support. The Trojans come in with extremely mediocre offensive numbers, but they do have athleticism and talent which could translate well here.
Two of ASU’s three losses came to teams which are built similarly to USC. Both Miami (FL) and Washingtonare offensively limited units with good athletes and serious size. They found ways to limit Carson’s effectiveness through different defensive tactics, and ultimately pulled out tough wins.
USC is in a good situational spot here as well. The Sun Devils have UCLA and Arizona on deck. While its unlikely they can afford to overlook any conference opponent, there is no question that UCLA is the more notable LA area program right now.
I had this spread as ASU-1 and it has opened with the Trojans catching a full 3.5 They might not have enough offense to win this late, and the Sun Devils, without question, have a sensational talent in Carson to hold serve down the stretch of any game.
But the Sun Devils are simply not good enough in total to warrant a spread of this size. USC is nothing special, but they have shown signs of potential this year in wins over Xavier and Dayton. ASU is a different type of group, but they are not as athletic or deep as their opponent in this one. Add to it the tightness of their match-ups a season ago, and I think this game goes down to the wire as well.
USC +3.5
