#752 ASA PLAY ON Purdue -9.5 over USC, Thursday at 9 PM ET - Tough spot for USC here after making the long travel to Indianapolis and then playing a double OT game in the late game last night. They topped Rutgers 97-89 and every USC starter played more than 40 minutes as they have a very short bench. Only 1 bench player topped 8 minutes last night. That’s going to be a tough turnaround vs a Purdue team that is one of the most efficient offenses in the country (8th nationally & 1st in the Big 10). The Trojan defense is already poor ranking 14th in the conference in efficiency, 13th in eFG% allowed, and giving up nearly 80 PPG in league play. They’ve been even worse defensively on the away from their home court giving up 90, 82, 95, 88, and 90 in their last 5 road games alone. Some of the Trojans losing margins away from home this season include -27 vs UCLA, -18 vs Purdue, -21 vs Oregon, -17 vs Maryland, and -13 vs Indiana. While this is not a true home game for Purdue, they are very used to this venue in Indy (played here already this year) and they should have a huge crowd edge. As we mentioned above, PU already beat USC by 18 this year and they actually led by 26 late in the game and dominated the offensive glass pulling down 47% of their misses. We’d expect a similar rebounding performance vs a tired USC team that ranks outside the top 200 nationally in both offensive and defensive rebounding. That should lead to extra opportunities for the Boilers who are a solid shot volume team (20th among Power 5 teams) while USC is not (bottom 15 among Power 5 teams). Let’s lay it with the Boilers