Louisiana State @ Southern California preview

USC will try to add to its potential NCAA Tournament resume when it takes a short bus trip down South Figueroa Street to the Staples Center on Saturday to face LSU in the Basketball Hall of Fame Classic. The Trojans have won three in a row heading into the contest, including an impressive road win at TCU.

The Trojans have also had some solid non-conference wins over Harvard on a neutral court and at Nevada, but a neutral-court victory over the defending regular-season SEC champion Tigers could carry a lot of weight come March. "SEC school, that will be a top-tier win for us," guard Jonah Mathews told the Orange County Register. "Beating them would help our resume down in March." LSU, perhaps rusty after a 10-day break for final exams, comes in off the worst homecourt loss in Will Wade's 2 1/2 seasons as head coach when they were upset by Southern Conference favorite East Tennessee State, 74-63, on Wednesday. "Obviously it was a tough night," Wade told theadvocate.com. "East Tennessee State played tremendously. Give them credit, they had a great game plan."

TV: 9 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1

ABOUT LSU (7-3): The Tigers struggled inside in the loss to East Tennessee State which finished with a 40-29 rebound edge, including 19-7 on the offensive boards, and scored 40 points in the paint. "Two of our Achilles' heels this year popped themselves back up," Wade said. "We turned it over 15 times and getting smashed on the glass like that. They got 15 more shots than we did, so that really hurt us." All five starters average in double figures for the Tigers, led by senior point guard Skylar Mayes (15.7 points per game) and sophomore forward Emmitt Williams (15.5), who also leads the team in rebounding (8.2).

ABOUT USC (9-2): Onyeka Okongwu, a back-to-back winner of California's Mr. Basketball award, has been one of the top freshman players in the nation so far and leads the Trojans in both scoring (18.4) and rebounding (9.0) and comes in off a 28-point, 12-rebound effort in a 87-76 victory over Long Beach State on Sunday. The long-armed 6-9, 245-pound Okongwu is joined up front by 6-11 senior all-Pac-12 forward Nick Rakocevic who is third on the team in scoring (11.8) and second in rebounding (8.2) and also leads the team in steals (2.0). Mathews is second in scoring (12.4) and has also connected on 26-of-67 3-pointers (38.8 percent).

TIP-INS

1. Okongwu is tied for first among all freshman nationally in total blocks (34).

2. LSU is averaging 15.1 turnovers per game which ranks them in a tie with La Salle for 276th nationally.

3. Trojan guard Ethan Anderson, the reigning L.A. City Section Player of the Year, had a season-best 12 assists in the win over Long Beach State, the most assists in one game by any freshman this season.

PREDICTION: USC 88, LSU 84