After back-to-back losses #19 Washington St. and #6 UCLA, the USC Trojans have put together back-to-back impressive wins, and are now on target for a berth in the field of 65 in the NCAA Tournament. First, OJ Mayo rebounded from that awful performance against the Bruins with 32 points, including 18 in the final 8 1/2 minutes, as the Trojans rallied for an 81-75 win over Oregon. Then, 4 players hit double figures in an 81-53 shellacking of Oregon St. Saturday at Galen.
If the NCAA Tournament committee seeded the tournament today, Southern California would be a 9-seed. That's a rough slot because they would get an evenly-matched 8-seed, usually a big conference school, followed by the #1 seed in their region.
With 4 games left followed by the Pac 10 conference tournament, it will be tough for Tim Floyd's bunch to improve its position. They are at Arizona and Arizona St. this week and then, they're home to Cal and Stanford. If they split those games and win 2 games in the conference tourney, they would finish with a 21-12 record.
Here are the records for 8 and 9 seeds in last year's bracket.
#8 - Marquette - 24-9
#8 - BYU - 25-8
#8 - Kentucky - 21-11
#8 - Arizona - 20-10
#9 - Purdue - 21-11
#9 - Villanova - 22-10
#9 - Michigan St. - 21-11
#9 - Xavier - 24-8
If USC is 21-12, they probably wind up as either an 8 or 9, so they would need to do better. If they sweep the final 4 regular season games and win 2 games in the conference tournament, no small accomplishment, they finish 23-10. That would likely elevate them to a 7 seed giving them a first round game against a softer 10-seed and a likely matchup with a #2 in the 2nd round. It would probably require 3-1 down the stretch and winning the Pac 10 tournament to get higher than a 7. That's a tall order.
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