It might have been late November, but USC guard Boogie Ellis said his squad had to make sure it was prepared for March.

It was plenty believable, then, with USC sitting at 5-2 and their senior flamethrower in the midst of a four-game stretch averaging nearly 24 a night. There was perimeter talent, here, that hadn’t existed within the program for years. Isaiah Collier was an offensive locomotive who simply needed to stay on the rails. And the notion they’d slide into the NCAA tournament seemed almost pre-assumed, a program that had made the Elite Eight once since 2002 looking to do some damage.

“We’re trying to make it to March, we’re trying to make it deep in March, so that’s the ultimate goal,” Vincent Iwuchukwu said in mid-November.

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A month later, they’re simply clinging to the first part of that sentence.

The sky is not falling. USC is 6-6, with 19 regular-season games and a Pac-12 tournament left to straighten things out. Four of the losses have come against NCAA tournament-caliber opponents at away or neutral-site venues. But these Trojans have lost four of their past five, with Collier’s in-game development stalling and little solidifying in head coach Andy Enfield’s rotation.

The lack of offensive development under Enfield from perimeter players (besides Ellis) – Collier, Kobe Johnson, DJ Rodman and more – is particularly concerning; outside of Bronny James’ development, which takes on narratives that seem to explode in a separate time and space from USC, national interest in this team has dwindled.

It’s left the Trojans in an ugly picture heading into conference play, in the thick of a middle-heavy Pac-12. The conference hasn’t sent more than five teams to the NCAA tournament since 2016; at the moment, Arizona (9-3 and ranked fourth in the AP Top 25), Oregon (9-3, just beat USC 82-74 in Eugene on Thursday), Colorado (9-2) and Utah (9-2) have decidedly better résumés. Washington State (9-2) and Washington (8-3), too, both rate higher in net ranking than the Trojans; it’s exceedingly unlikely all earn a March Madness bid, meaning USC has some work to do.

A major key: USC desperately needs some “Quad 1” wins, defined by bracketologists as wins against a top-30 team at home, a top-50 team at a neutral site or top-75 on the road. They’ve gone 0-4 in such games so far, with six remaining (subject to change in performance) in their current schedule.

“We’ve got a long season ahead,” Ellis said after the win over Eastern Washington. “I’ve been on a lot of teams that win 20 games, almost every year. And I feel like we can do that.”

They’ll take on Oregon State (8-4) on Saturday in Corvallis, the first of three straight favorable games before they’ll take on Washington State on Jan. 10 and then hit the road against Colorado. Beavers sophomore guard Jordan Pope averages about 90% of Ellis’ season profile, but the Beavers, who lost to UCLA on Thursday night, are light on shooting (just over 30% from three on the year) and playmaking in a game USC should look to run and gun.

USC at Oregon State

When: 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Gill Coliseum, Corvallis, Ore.

TV/radio: Pac-12 Network/790 AM