Easily the most unsung unbeaten team remaining in the country (of which there are five), Washington State puts its 13-0 record on the line Thursday night in Los Angeles against O.J. Mayo-led Southern Cal (9-5) in a Pac-10 game; the Trojans are slight favorites at WagerWeb.com.
Coach Dick Bennett has the veteran Cougars - they start three seniors and two juniors - off to their best start since 1935 and their highest ranking ever at No. 4. Wazzu hasn't won a league title since 1941.
"They have that swagger that says, 'We know what we're doing and we're going to execute it.' If you watch, man, they're disciplined," USC guard Daniel Hackett said. "Wow, it looks like a pro team out there, a European pro team."
Washington State has been winning with its suffocating defense, allowing a mere 49.8 points per game – the fewest in the nation. There hasn't been a team to hold opponents under 50.0 points per game since the 1992 Princeton squad yielded an average of 48.2 points.
The Cougars also lead the Pac-10 in field goal defense (36.9 percent). WSU has no player among the Pac-10's top 18 scorers or top 10 rebounders.
"They don't control the tempo on offense, they do it on defense by getting back and making you make five, six, seven, eight passes that you don't normally want to make just because you're guarded," USC coach Tim Floyd said. "They feast on teams that aren't disciplined and that shoot it on one pass and take a bad one. Then, they go down and get a better one."
Senior Derrick Low leads the Cougars in scoring (12.9 ppg) and averaged 14.0 points in three games against the Trojans last season."I think we're playing against one of the best players in our league that doesn't get a lot of hype or talked about in Derrick Low," Mayo said. "It's a great opportunity for me to get a chance to play against a player like that who's very crafty, can make shots and really keep his players involved."
Floyd is more worried about WSU center Aron Baynes, who was 10 for 10 and scored a career-high 25 points against the Trojans last March.
"We were responsible for his coming-out party," Floyd said. "Now he's the focal point of what they are doing."
USC has opened conference play with back-to-back losses for the first time since dropping its first five Pac-10 games in 2004-05, and the Trojans fell out of the Top 25 this week.
Mayo is second in the Pac-10 in scoring (20.1 ppg) but struggled in the Trojans' last game against Stanford with 14 points on a season-low 5-of-19 shooting against the Cardinal. WSU's Kyle Weaver, one of the Pac-10's top defenders, likely will draw the defensive assignment against the freshman.
"O.J. is so athletic and physical," Bennett said. "His basketball IQ is beyond his years."
The Trojans have lost three straight games to Top 25 teams - including four-point losses to then-No. 4 Kansas and No. 2 Memphis - since beating then-No. 19 Southern Illinois 70-45 on Nov. 25. USC is 3-2 against ranked opponents at the Galen Center since it opened last season.
Washington State is 11-41 all-time at Southern Cal and next travels to No. 5 UCLA for a mega-matchup on Saturday.
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