By Myke Williams
Sports Reporter
The USC men’s and women’s basketball teams are a combined 28-5 at press time. For any school that’s a great record but for USC it’s surprising.
The men are 14-3 and the women’s record is 14-2. Known as a football school, this year it looks like the Trojans can add basketball to that label.
In Pac-12 play the men are 3-1 which is good enough for second place and the women are 2-2 and in seventh place but only one game away from being in second place.
Both teams are coming off impressive wins last weekend. The men swept the Arizona schools and the women upset No. 14 UCLA last Sunday. The men beat Arizona State on Thursday January 7, and defeated No. 10 Arizona in four overtimes last Saturday.
“That was a tough college basketball game,” said USC head coach Andy Enfield after the win over Arizona. “We just kept playing every possession. We stayed focused and stayed calm. Nikola (Jovanovic) , Julian (Jacobs) and Elijah (Stewart) all play a lot of minutes and Nikola played tremendous offense and defense and our bench did their job.”
Enfield continued to say “We are a much better team than we were last year but we still have a long way to go. Every game matters is this league. We want to be a good defensive team and share the ball on offense.”
The Trojan men played UCLA last Wednesday and will travel to the state of Oregon to take on Oregon Thursday January 21, at 6 p.m. and Oregon State on Sunday January 24, at 12 p.m.
The USC women start their road trip on Friday night, January 15, when they play Washington State in Pullman at 8 p.m. and on Sunday the lady Trojans face Washington in Seattle at 2 p.m. After their upset win over cross town rival UCLA the Trojan’s head coach had nothing but praise for center Temi Fagbenle, who recorded an impressive double-double. She had 20 points and 15 rebounds.
“Temi is incredible,” said Trojan head coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke. “She is everything we need her to be when we need it. That’s the type of player she is and that’s the type of player we need to compete against teams like UCLA. There are five teams in the top 25 in the Pac-12 so you have to come ready to play every single night.”
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