Michigan State basketball vs. USC NCAA tournament tipoff: Matchup analysis and a prediction

• When: 12:15 p.m. Friday

• What: No. 7-seed Michigan State vs. No. 10-seed Southern California, NCAA tournament East Region, first round

• Where: Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio

• TV/Radio: CBS/Spartan Sports Network radio, including WJIM 1240-AM and WMMQ 94.9-FM; Sirius/XM Ch. 201

• Records/Rankings: MSU is 19-12 overall and finished 11-8 in the Big Ten regular season. USC is 22-10 and finished 14-6 in the Pac-12.

• Betting line: MSU -2

• Kenpom projected score: MSU 70, USC 69

• Coaches: MSU — Tom Izzo is 685-279 in his 28th season as a head coach, all with the Spartans. USC — Andy Enfield is 246-156 in his 12th season as a head coach, including 205-128 in 10 seasons with the Trojans.

• Series: The series is tied 3-3 all-time. Their last meeting was in the second round of the 2009 NCAA tournament, with the No. 2-seed MSU beating 10-seed USC 74-69 on its way to the Final Four..

Lineups

MSU

C (22) Mady Sissoko (6-9) 5.0

PF (10) Joey Hauser (6-9) 14.2

G (3) Jaden Akins (6-4) 9.6

G (2) Tyson Walker (6-1) 14.6

PG (11) AJ Hoggard (6-4) 12.5

USC

C (24) Joshua Morgan (6-11) 6.7

F (22) Tre White (6-7) 9.1

F (0) Kobe Johnson (6-6) 9.0

G (5) Boogie Ellis (6-3) 18.0

G (13) Drew Peterson (6-9) 14.0

• MSU update: The Spartans are playing in their 25th straight NCAA tournament under Tom Izzo, who now holds the record for most consecutive NCAA tourneys by a head coach, passing former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. MSU hasn’t gotten out of the tournament’s first weekend the past two years, however. Hopes for this year’s team to make a run largely rest on how the Spartans were playing just prior to their Big Ten tournament loss to Ohio State, when they’d won three of four games and scored at least 80 points in all four games, after not reaching the 80-point mark once during their first 15 Big Ten games. MSU played the No. 6-ranked strength of schedule, according to analytics site Kenpom.com and the Spartans enter postseason play as the nation’s fourth-best 3-point shooting team at 39.5%.

MORE ON MSU FROM COLUMBUS: Couch: A lot for MSU is still riding on Mady Sissoko. He feels it. He's excited. 'But also nervous.'

• USC update: The Trojans traveled to Columbus on Tuesday to adjust to the time change. Their interviews and practice time Thursday began at 7:20 a.m. Pacific Time. It’ll be 9:15 a.m. for them back home when they tip off against the Spartans. This will be a regular occurrence for USC in two seasons — playing in Columbus at noon three times zones away — when they join the Big Ten. “I'm sure with two days here on the East Coast, our players will be energetic and ready to go,” USC coach Andy Enfield said Thursday. “We'll get them up early and go from there.”

The Trojans’ best wins of the season were against UCLA on Jan. 26 and Auburn on Dec. 18. Those were their only two wins against teams ranked in the top 50 by Kenpom. They do have two wins over Arizona State, which also made the NCAA tournament field. USC is the No. 2-ranked team in the country in 2-point field-goal defense, 10th in effective field-goal percentage defense and 12th in blocked-shot percentage, per Kenpom. Conversely, the Trojans are ranked 326th nationally in offensive rebound percentage and are a middle of the road 3-point shooting team (34.5%).

• Inside the matchup: The Spartans could have landed worse first-round matchups than this. The Trojans are not a team built to beat up MSU on the boards or in the low post. USC is a guard-oriented team, with good athletes and length, a dynamic lead guard in Boogie Ellis and a 6-foot-9 playmaking guard in Drew Peterson. But those are all attributes the Spartans would prefer to deal with over a mammoth center and a bevy of sharpshooting guards. The Trojans protect the rim well — hence their Kenpom 2-point-defense ranking — but MSU isn’t a team that attacks the rim regularly. The Spartans offensively live by the jump shot. They should get decent looks from outside against the Trojans.

• Prediction: At this point, we all know MSU could lose to any decent high-major team. USC is that — a good, not great, inconsistent squad, capable of beating the Spartans. But if these teams were to play 10 times on a neutral floor, I think MSU would win about seven of those games.

• Make it: MSU 72, USC 66

RELATED: Couch: Steven Izzo makes his mark on MSU basketball as he and his dad make up for lost time

— Graham Couch

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MSU basketball vs. USC in NCAA tournament: Prediction, preview, TV, betting