USC basketball defeats Mount St. Mary’s, prepares for Battle 4 Atlantis crucible

Now things get serious for USC basketball. The Trojans are done with their preliminaries, four games at Galen Center before leaving Los Angeles to test themselves against major competition. These four games were not a complete success. The Trojans stumbled badly in their season opener against Florida Gulf Coast before bouncing back and winning three straight games. The win over Vermont earlier this week could contain real value later this season, assuming the Catamounts make the NCAA Tournament, but the loss to FGCU could be costly.

The Trojans did manage to beat Mount St. Mary’s on Friday night in an unremarkable 83-74 game. USC did what it absolutely had to do, and not much more than that. Allowing 74 points to the Mountaineers can’t make Andy Enfield too happy about where his team is in terms of its overall evolution, but he scheduled this game because he didn’t want an overly challenging opponent.

USC will face challenging opponents this upcoming week at the Battle 4 Atlantis in The Bahamas.

USC faces BYU in the opener on Wednesday and will then meet a power-conference opponent in its second and third games. We will see if the Trojans are ready to meet the challenge and collect the quality wins they need to offset the Florida Gulf Coast debacle. We’ll have much more on the Battle 4 Atlantis next week.

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Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire