USC Basketball's schedule only gets tougher after their brutal loss

USC Basketball really needed to sweep the weekend series against the Washington schools if they wanted to be taken seriously this year. They ended up taking the win against the better Washington program in UW on Friday, but blew a very winnable game to the now 6-9 Washington State Cougars on Sunday.

Look--SC is still now 7-8 in their last eight games. The issue, however, is that they didn't start the season well enough to be able to just afford an embarrassing loss to a bad Cougars team. This is the same USC group that lost by 13 points to Florida Gulf Coast in their first game of the year. It's the same group that lost two games in Atlantis on a neutral floor.

They can't afford to lose any games against 6-9 teams because the schedule is only going to get tougher in the near future. In just the next game for the Trojans; they take on the No. 11 UCLA Bruins in Westwood. And don't get fooled by the next two games being home tilts against Colorado and Utah. It gets tougher right after that.

After that, they have a road trip to both Arizona schools. U of A is ranked fifth in the country for a reason, and Arizona State is 11-3. After that, they come back home, but they play a good UCLA team again right as they get back to Galen Center. So in these next six games, USC is going to be favored in about two.

USC Basketball better hope the Wazzu loss was just a fluke.

If USC Basketball just had a bad game, and really is a 7-1 type team, then maybe they win the majority of this upcoming six-game gauntlet. If they're more like the 11-4 team that their overall record says they are, then maybe they lose the majority of this upcoming six-game gauntlet.

SC was already struggling on offense heading into the game against the Cougs (tied for 179th nationally with 71.8 points scored per game), and sure enough they scored just 71 points.

This team desperately needs a presence down low with size, and they are missing that with five-star (247Sports) seven footer Vince Iwuchukwu still out due to recovery from his cardiac arrest in the summer.