USC<\/a> (12-3, 1-3 Big Ten) will try to bounce back from back-to-back losses to top-12 opponents when it tips off against Minnesota (10-5, 3-1) on Friday night in Minneapolis.<\/p>\nThe Golden Gophers are playing their best basketball of the season. They are on a five-game winning streak, including a 70-67 win at home over No. 19 Iowa on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Fans from Minnesota’s student section stormed the court after the win. It was the second win against a ranked opponent this season for the Golden Gophers, who are off to a surprisingly successful start in their first season under coach Niko Medved.<\/p>\n
“We’re far from perfect, we’ve got our limitations,” Medved said. “But they give you everything they’ve got.”<\/p>\n
Minnesota has won three of its first four Big Ten games despite missing a pair of key contributors. Chansey Willis Jr. and forward Robert Vaihola both have endured season-ending injuries.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes when there are no choices, you’re either going to embrace it or you’re going to give in,” Medved said. “We’re not going to give in. We’re going to fight.”<\/p>\n
The Golden Gophers will have to figure out a way to slow down USC’s Chad Baker-Mazara. He is averaging 19.3 points on 44.3% shooting this season. Teammate Ezra Ausar is contributing in the paint with 16.9 points per game on 60.4% shooting.<\/p>\n
Cade Tyson leads Minnesota with 21.7 points per game. Jaylen Crocker is next on the scoring list with 12.8 points per game to go along with 7.0 rebounds.<\/p>\n
-Field Level Media<\/p>\n
\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southern California coach Eric Musselman will return to a familiar building Friday night. Sure, Musselman never has coached…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,13649,231,772,1544,849],"class_list":{"0":"post-526204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-minnesota-golden-gophers","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab","14":"tag-usc-trojans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115862640353510859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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