Iowa men will face USC Tuesday in Los Angeles despite ongoing wild fires
By Hawk Fanatic
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Barring any late developments, the Iowa men’s basketball team will play two games this week in Los Angeles, or in a nearby area, against USC on Tuesday and against UCLA on Friday.
There was some doubt about whether the games would be played due to the ongoing wild fires that have ravaged Los Angeles and parts of the surrounding areas.
The Iowa players and coaches traveled to Los Angeles on Sunday, and less than 24 hours after having defeated Indiana 85-60 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery also held zoom conference with the media on Monday.

McCaffery said he expects both games to be played this week, but the location for the UCLA game on Friday could be moved due to the UCLA campus being so close to the fire warning zones.
The top-ranked UCLA women’s basketball team has moved its Wednesday game against Penn State from its campus to Long Beach, which is approximately 35 miles from the UCLA campus.
The UCLA campus touches the Palisades’ fire evacuation warning zone, unlike the USC campus, which isn’t impacted by the current evacuation orders.
“We’ll likely play the game,” Fran McCaffery said of the UCLA game on Friday. “Maybe there, maybe somewhere else.”
McCaffery talked about the unique challenges facing his team after the win over Indiana.
“We’re in a league this year with teams on different coasts,” he said. “Your obviously have some different circumstances going on out there that are heartbreaking for so many.
“But if you think about it over the years; we dealt with the pandemic. We dealt with the January sixth riots. You deal with what you can control and you stay locked in and you stay together.”
Even under the best of circumstances this wasn’t going to be a pleasure trip for the Iowa players and coaches.
“It’s certainly not going to be a vacation,” Fran McCaffery said. “It never is. We’re going to LA, but we’re not going to see the water. We’re going to be locked in a hotel and we could be in Toledo.”
Iowa and USC are both coming off big wins this past Saturday as the Trojans and defeated Illinois 82-72 in Champaign, Illinois to improved to 2-3 in the Big ten and 10-6 overall under first-year head coach Eric Musselman.
USC guard Desmond Claude scored 31 points in the win over Illinois.
Claude leads a group of four Trojans in double figures (and six averaging at least 8.7 points). He averages a team-best 15.9 points and 3.9 assists. Claude has made 79-of-104 free throws (76.7 percent).
This is Iowa’s first trip to Los Angeles since beating Florida State and UNLV in the 1988 NCAA Tournament.
The Hawkeyes have scored 80-plus points in 10 consecutive games, the longest stretch since the 1988-89 season (13 straight games). Iowa has scored 80+ in all but two games this season.
Iowa is leading the Big Ten and is second nationally, averaging 89.6 points per game. The team’s 50.9 field goal
percentage is second-best in the league (sixth in country).
Iowa (12-4, 3-2) vs. USC (10-6, 2-3)
When: Tuesday, 9:40 p.m.
Where: Los Angeles, Galen Center (10,258)
TV: FS1
Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network
All-time series: Tuesday’s game will be the eighth meeting all-time between Iowa and USC in a series that began in 1953 in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes lead the all-time series, 5-2.
Iowa has won the last two meetings — winning 66-55 in Iowa City in 1982 and 62-61 in 1983 in Los Angeles.
Editor’s note: hawkeyesports.com contributed to this article.