The Trojans may have slipped into the NCAA tournament as an 11 seed, but the dream stopped in Dayton, after USC suffered a loss at the hands of the VCU Rams, 59-46. It was the fewest points the Trojans scored all season.
“We just didn’t do our job. I haven’t seen us play like that for a long time,” said USC men’s basketball coach Kevin O’Neill. “As they say, win or go home. We’re going home.”
The Trojans were right in the game throughout the entire first half. Both teams appeared to be having stronger defensive performances than offensive ones, and VCU and USC entered halftime in a 22-22 tie.
“I think the first half defensively we did a good job,” said USC guard Jio Fontan.
The second half turned out to be a much different story. The Rams pulled out to a 25-22 lead and never looked back, eventually pulling out a 13 point victory in a game that was much more of a defensive grudge match than a shootout.
“They came out and they performed like they wanted it more. They got on a couple more loose balls than we did. The pace of the game was more in their favor than it was in ours,” according to Fontan.
O’Neill had repeatedly stressed the importance of the tempo of tonight’s match. USC prefers to play at a much slower pace than VCU, and when the Rams sped the game up in the second half, there was little the Trojans could do to adjust.
“We have a very small margin of error. And if we don’t play to the best of our abilities and we can’t establish [forward] Nik [Vucevic] on the inside, we have trouble winning,” said O’Neill.
“They took me out of the game. They had a guy on me the whole time. And they didn’t let me get in my comfort zone and try to make plays,” according to Vucevic.
The Trojans ended the night with a shooting percentage just below 40 percent. It was uglier from the free throw line. Out of 25 free throws attempted, the team only managed to known down 15 of them.
“We had free throws. Didn’t make them. A string of free throws that didn’t go,” claimed O’Neill. Looking back, it didn’t seem like anything we did went right offensively.”
Some critics opted to point to USC’s lack of depth as a potential justification for the loss. But Fontan was quick to reject that assumption.
“We had the same—been playing the same seven guys the whole year. Got here with seven guys. There’s no excuse,” he said.
Fontan led USC with 14 points. Vucevic ended up with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
“They did a great job on both ends of the court. You gotta give them credit for it,” Vucevic said.
“I don’t think we should take anything away from them and blame it on any negatives we had going on. They played great, and we came up short,” added O’Neill.
While O’Neill also praised the Rams for their impressive effort, he spent more time putting the attention back onto his own players.
“When it looked like our season was dead in the water, these guys came back and played hard and did their job. It’s unfortunate we didn’t play well tonight in the tournament. But we did get to the tournament, which says a lot about our team and a lot about our future,” said O’Neill, who also noted how rare it is for teams to make the tournament one year after enduring sanctions.
The majority of USC’s players had never played in an NCAA tournament game previously, a reality that can serve as a huge disadvantage.
“We don’t have a ton of guys who have ever played on this stage. [VCU] played in the NCAA tournament last year, and they reacted like they had and had experience and we didn’t,” claimed O’Neill.
Whether it was the lack of experience, the poor offensive effort, or the energetic performance of the Rams, the fact is that USC’s season is over, while VCU is headed to Chicago to face Georgetown on Friday. But despite the disappointment surrounding tonight’s performance, O’Neill is already looking ahead to future success.
“We garnished some great experience this year for our guards,” said O’Neill. “We’re hoping to make a huge jump as a team next year. That’s our goal. We want to be better by the end of the year next year than we are this year.”
