Kansas basketball: Ranking the five most crucial non-conference games of 2020

5. Kansas vs. USC, December 19

The Jayhawks will have a great chance to pick up a solid non-conference win next season when the USC Trojans come to Allen Fieldhouse. USC was pretty good last year, finishing with a 22-9 overall record and fourth in the Pac-12.

Despite losing some seniors, the Trojans will be returning quite a few underclassmen that held prominent positions last season, so USC should be another decent Pac-12 team again and a likely tournament team in 2021. Joe Lunardi predicted the Trojans to be an 11-seed in his most recent bracketology.

By this point, Kansas should feel pretty comfortable on the court and in the offense, so we should be well past all the quirks and growing pains of the early season.

This game will be similar to playing a mid-tier Big 12 team for the Jayhawks. In that sense, this probably won’t be a season-defining game; however, USC does have an outside shot at winning their conference which would be huge if Kansas beats them.

All in all, this game should provide a nice warmup for the Jayhawks’ next game, which will be their first one on the road for the 2020-21 season.