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USC men pushing through competitive Big Ten

January 30, 2026

If anything can demonstrate the competitiveness of the Big Ten Conference right now, it may be the fact that the unranked USC men’s basketball team’s last four games have been decided by six points or less.

The Trojans went 1-3 in that stretch, and on Saturday night, they’ll go up against a Rutgers team (9-12 overall, 2-8 Big Ten) that has also been on the verge of a breakthrough. The Scarlet Knights have endured three overtime games in the last three weeks.

“It’s the toughest league in the country,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell told reporters earlier this month. “(We’ve got) the most ranked teams and the only teams that aren’t ranked are the teams that get beat by the ranked teams. We’re a league that probably should have 10 teams ranked, but we beat each other up.”

USC (15-6, 4-6) is coming off a 73-72 loss to Iowa after beating Wisconsin 73-71 in a two-game stretch on the road. Alijah Arenas played in both of them, making it three starts in three games for him since coming back from a meniscus injury.

“We’re definitely a resilient basketball team,” assistant coach Earl Boykins said in a postgame press release. “We have a bunch of mentally tough guys there in that locker room – guys that you want to go to battle with night in and night out. They have the toughness, but now it becomes IQ. That’s the next step of being an NCAA Tournament team, which we hope to be.”

While Arenas, a freshman, is getting fully adjusted to the college game, Chad Baker-Mazara, Jacob Cofie and Kam Woods are thriving.

Baker-Mazara, a 6-foot-7 guard, scored 29 points on 45.5% shooting against Wisconsin, which was the first time since the Jan. 9 game against Minnesota that the senior surpassed 20 points. He was also tasked with guarding Nick Boyd, who’s tied as the third-leading scorer in the Big Ten.

“Chad looked like an All-American tonight, he was so good offensively,” USC head coach Eric Musselman said after the game. “We came out of the second half and Boyd was really hurting us and then we put Chad on him. Chad wanted the challenge defensively tonight, stayed out of foul trouble against a great offensive player.”

Woods scored a career-high 33 points three nights later against the Hawkeyes, and the 6-foot-2 point guard also had a season-high four steals and three assists. Cofie is quickly rising up the Big Ten ranks and is the seventh-best rebounder throughout conference play with 7.6 boards a game.

Rutgers has struggled to rebound and has had the lowest scoring output out of all conference teams, putting up just 70.1 points per game. Injuries and illness to two key players have also gotten in the way of winning.

Center Baye Fall, who brings a 6-foot-11 presence, had hand surgery on Jan. 23 and is expected to miss significant time. Dylan Grant, who’s second on the team in scoring, is recovering from the flu and lost eight pounds while dealing with the illness, Pikiell said.

The Scarlet Knights still have their main scoring threat in 6-foot-1 guard Tariq Francis, who has scored 30 or more points on three occasions this season to average 16.2 points per game. He’s also a high-percentage free-throw shooter, making 88.5% of his attempts from the line.

RUTGERS (9-12 overall, 2-8 Big Ten) at USC (15-6, 4-6)

When: 4 p.m. Saturday

Where: Galen Center

TV/Radio: Peacock/710 AM

Orange County Register

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USC men pushing through competitive Big Ten

RUTGERS (9-12 overall, 2-8 Big Ten) at USC (15-6, 4-6)

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