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IU basketball rides a three-game winning streak into Tuesday’s game against USC at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. It will be IU’s first-ever trip to the Galen Center, which opened in 2006. The Trojans are 16-6 and 5-6 in Big Ten play. The Hoosiers lead the all-time series 3-2.
Tuesday’s game is set for a 10 p.m. ET tip on Peacock and NBC Sports Network.
IU basketball has responded to a four-game losing streak with three straight wins against Rutgers, Purdue and UCLA. The Hoosiers have a chance to build serious momentum by finishing off their two-game West Coast road trip with a win against USC.
The next three games – at USC, vs. Wisconsin and Oregon in Bloomington – come in a span of seven days before IU is off for five days ahead of games at Illinois and Purdue.
MEET THE TROJANS
The Trojans, who started the season with eight straight wins, including a Maui Invitational title, have fallen from No. 26 in KenPom in early December to No. 50 as of Monday morning.
Injuries have been a problem for Eric Musselman’s team. USC lost Rodney Rice for the season after six games due to a right shoulder injury and recently added five-star freshman guard Alijah Arenas to the starting lineup. The 6-foot-6 Arenas missed the first 18 games.
The Trojans also added fifth-year guard Kam Woods on Dec. 18, who has helped shore up a rotation that lacks depth. In USC’s last two games, only six players have logged double-figure minutes. The Trojans have also been without guard Jordan Marsh, who averages 7.3 points per game, for the last three games due to a foot injury.
The three Trojans who have appeared in every game this season are their three leading scorers on the active roster: guard Chad Baker-Mazara, forward Ezra Ausar and forward Jacob Cofie.
Baker-Mazara, who turned 26 last month, transferred from Auburn for his final season of eligibility. The 6-foot-7 wing averages 18.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and three assists in 30.6 minutes per game while shooting 44.2 percent from the field, 37 percent on 3s and 90.5 percent from the free-throw line.
USC is the fourth school for Baker-Mazara, who played at San Diego State and Duquesne before Auburn. He’s scored in double figures in all but one game this season and that was a home win against Maryland when he was limited to eight minutes due to a neck injury.
(Shot charts via UMHoops)
He’s joined in the starting backcourt by Woods and Arenas, the son of former NBA standout Gilbert Arenas.
The 6-foot-2 Woods is at his fifth school – Troy, North Carolina A&T, N.C State, and Robert Morris were his previous stops – and he’s been a low-efficiency scorer throughout his career. Last season, he played at Robert Morris, an NCAA tournament team, and averaged 14.9 points on 37 percent shooting from the field.
Through nine games at USC, Woods has scored in double figures once, a 33-point outburst in a loss at Iowa on January 28. He’s 2-for-17 on 3s.
Arenas, the No. 7 player nationally in the final 247Sports Composite rankings for 2025, was involved in a serious car accident last April and then suffered a torn meniscus in July, forcing him to miss the first 18 games this season while he recovered and rehabbed. Through his first four games with the Trojans, Arenas is shooting 35.7 percent on 2s, 14.3 percent on 3s and is averaging 7.5 points in 23.3 minutes per game.
USC will also play 6-foot-5 freshman Jerry Easter, who averages five points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 19.2 minutes off the bench. Easter is shooting 43.1 percent on 2s and 16.7 percent on 3s.
The duo of Ausar and Cofie – both transfers – anchors the front court for the Trojans. The 6-foot-9, 253-pound Ausar, who played previously at East Carolina and Utah, draws eight fouls per 40 minutes, the 7th highest number in the country. That’s a big concern for an IU frontcourt that doesn’t have a ton of size with Sam Alexis and Reed Bailey. Ausar averages 16.1 points per game on 61 percent shooting from the field and he’s a 67.2 percent free-throw shooter.
Cofie, a 6-foot-10 sophomore transfer from Virginia, averages 9.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocked shots in 29.9 minutes per game. Cofie is shooting 54.6 percent from the field but is a poor free-throw shooter at 52.9 percent.
TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW
(All stats are for conference games only and are updated through Sunday’s games.)
IU and USC are complete opposites in how they operate offensively. The Hoosiers are a high-volume 3-point group currently making 36.4 percent of their triples in Big Ten play. The Trojans are the lowest-volume 3-point shooting team in the league and are connecting at a 27.1 percent clip in conference games, the worst in the league.
USC’s offense is being fueled inside the paint and from the free-throw line. The Trojans are second in free-throw rate (FTA/FGA) in Big Ten play at 41.5 percent and 23.1 percent of their points are coming from the line, the highest in the conference.
The Trojans play an up-tempo pace – second fastest in the league – and are turning the ball over on 18.1 percent of their possessions, third worst in the league.USC is also the second-worst free-throw shooting team in the Big Ten at 69.7 percent.
Defensively, USC ranks in the top half of the Big Ten in points per possession allowed and is fifth in the Big Ten 2-point field goal percentage defense (51.8).
WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO
Indiana is coming off a 50-minute game at UCLA after traveling to the West Coast, so it’ll be interesting to see how fresh the Hoosiers look at the Galen Center.
Speaking of the venue, the Trojans have been drawing sparse crowds. The 10,258-seat venue has drawn the following attendance through five Big Ten games – Washington (5,338), Maryland (4,586), Purdue (8,629), Northwestern (4,853) and Rutgers (5,322). The Purdue and Washington games were on weekends.
The KenPom projection is Indiana by one with a 51 percent chance of a Hoosier victory. Bart Torvik’s projection favors Indiana by two with a 58 percent chance of a win.
Indiana added a pivotal win at UCLA and a 2-0 West Coast trip would significantly boost Indiana’s NCAA tournament resume. Limiting fouls, taking care of the ball, making open 3s, and forcing Baker-Mazara to take difficult shots to score will be crucial if the Hoosiers are to prevail.
(Photo credit: USC Athletics)
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