USC Basketball: 5 reasons Trojans will win the 2018 NCAA Tournament

Coming off the best season in program history, USC is ready to make a Championship run.

USC Basketball has been officially reborn under Andy Enfield. In each of the past two seasons, the Trojans have logged over 20 wins and made the NCAA Tournament, something they hadn’t done since 2011.

Last season USC was surprisingly effective, yet struggled with consistency. They showed up in big games, beating the No. 8 ranked UCLA Bruins, nearly taking down Arizona, and later defeating Providence and Southern Methodist in close games during March Madness. But the Trojans struggled in particular against weaker Pac-12 opponents. They barely escaped Colorado with a win and fell to Arizona State on the road and Cal at home.

The Trojans will look to build on their recent success by becoming more competitive within the Pac-12. With some turnover in other programs, it looks as though they will have a great opportunity to do so.

Besides Arizona, each of the conference’s top teams will presumably see less success than they did a year ago. Oregon lost their star Dillon Brooks, Utah lost Kyle Kuzma and several others who elected to transfer, and UCLA will be without freshmen sensations Lonzo Ball and TJ Leaf. USC, on the other hand, will bring back almost everyone who played for them a year ago.

All eight of the Trojans’ regular season losses came from Pac-12 opponents, so improving their conference record will do wonders for their AP ranking and give them a great shot to secure a high seed in the national bracket. ESPN currently projects USC as a No. 6 seed in the Midwest pool, matching up with one of the winners of the First Four. But if USC can play themselves into the top 3 seeds of their bracket, by losing 4 or fewer conference games and making it to the Pac-12 Championship game, they’d be looking at a much easier road to the National Championship.

Let’s take a closer look at the components that will allow USC to cut down the nets in 2018.