USC Men's Basketball Returns To Galen To Face Rutgers

Saturday, January 31

Los Angeles, Calif.

4 p.m.

USC

Rutgers

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USC Men's Basketball huddles against Iowa

USC Men's Basketball Returns To Galen To Face Rutgers

January 30, 2026 | Men's Basketball

Game Notes (PDF)

Saturday’s matchup marks the fifth meeting between the Trojans and the Scarlet Knights.

LOS ANGELES — USC Men's Basketball (15-6, 4-6 Big Ten) will host Rutgers (9-12, 2-8 Big Ten) at Galen Center on Saturday, Jan. 31. USC leads the all-time series 3-1, winning the last matchup in a double-overtime thriller during the first round of the Big Ten tournament.

WHEREABOUTS
Game #22 vs. Rutgers
Sunday, Jan. 31 at 4 p.m. PT
Galen Center | Los Angeles, Calif.
TV: Peacock

LAST TIME OUT
USC Men's Basketball fell in a tight road contest against Iowa. After a stagnant first half, the Hawkeyes went on a 16-2 run. They would lead 53-36 with 13 minutes to go, until Kam Woods handled a solo 12-0 run for the Trojans. He found openings down the lane, and he made his first three-pointer as a Trojan, which helped cut the deficit to just one with less than a minute left. Jacob Cofie had a huge putback to regain USC's lead, but a personal foul sent a Hawkeye to the line, and Iowa came on top with the 73-72 victory.

SCOUTING THE SCARLET KNIGHTS

Rutgers enters Galen Center on a four-game losing streak. The Scarlet Knights took No. 7 Michigan State to overtime, ultimately falling 88-79 on Jan. 27. In the loss, Tariq Francis logged a team-high 23 points, and four other Scarlet Knights contributed double-figure scoring.
The leading scorer for Rutgers, Francis averages 16.2 points per game.
Emmanuel Ogbole pulls down a team-high 6.6 rebounds per game.
Jamichael Davis has 57 assists on the season, leading the Scarlet Knights in facilitating.
Five players shoot above 43% from the floor.
Rutgers' point differential is -5.0. It is one of four teams in the Big Ten Conference to post a negative differential.
The Scarlet Knights' 1.01 assist-to-turnover ratio is the second-lowest in the conference.
The Scarlet Knights put up a conference-low 70.1 points per game. It's nearly a 21-point differential from Michigan's average of 90.8 points per game.
Head Coach Steve Pikiell is in his 10th year leading the program. He has 17 ranked wins, the most in school history. He guided Rutgers to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, the first consecutive postseason appearances since 1976.

OUT OF THE WOODS
Graduate transfer guard Kam Woods signed with USC on Dec. 18, 2025, giving the Trojans much-needed backcourt depth. The journeyman point guard comes to USC from Robert Morris, where he and Amarion Dickerson helped the Colonels reach the NCAA Tournament. Prior to that, he played for NC State, North Carolina A&T, Northwest Florida State College and Troy.

Woods had his finest game as a Trojan against Iowa, where he scored a career-high 33 points — including a stretch in the second half where he scored 19-straight points for USC — with three rebounds, three assists and a career-high-tying four steals. His 33 points are the second-most by a Trojan in a game this year, trailing Chad Baker-Mazara's 34-point effort against Troy.

SMARTIES
USC finished the fall semester with one of the best academic performances in program history. They broke the record for the highest cumulative GPA, earning a 3.319 as a team. Not only that, but all players on the roster finished with a GPA above 3.0.