How To Watch, Game Preview and Game Thread: UCLA Bruins at Southern Cal Trojans
The Bruins close out the regular season against the Trojans at the Galen Center.
This evening, the UCLA men’s basketball team travels 12 miles across Los Angeles to play the crosstown rival Southern Cal Trojans. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 pm PT and the game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1.
Of course, the big news in Los Angeles men’s college basketball came earlier this week when it was announced on Sunday that star forward Chad Baker-Mazara is no longer on the Southern Cal basketball team. Baker-Mazara had been the Trojans’ top scorer after Rodney Rice went down with an injury back in November.
Southern Cal Trojans’ Starting Five
It’s only been eleven days since the Bruins defeated the Trojans, 81-62 at Pauley Pavilion. Normally, we might not expect to see a decidedly different lineup, but Baker-Mazara’s dismissal has certainly changed that.
Based on Eric Musselman’s starting lineup against Washington on Tuesday and the Baker-Mazara dismissal, UCLA will see a different lineup tonight. When the teams played at Pauley, Musselman started Kam Woods, Alijah Arenas, and Baker-Mazara as his three starting guards, and he started Jacob Cofie and Ezra Ausar at the forwards. Instead, expect to see either freshman guard Jerry Easter II, junior guard Jordan Marsh or grad forward Terrence Williams II get the start tonight.
Against Washington on Tuesday, Arenas led the Trojans with 19 points, picking up some of the slack from Baker-Mazara’s dismissal along with Cofie who scored 14, which was 4.2 points above his 9.8 ppg average. Junior guard Jordan Marsh also doubled his season average with 14 points off the bench. Marsh also played 29 minutes against the Huskies, which is a big jump from his season average of 17.6 minutes per game. That could earn him his first start tonight.
Analysis
The big question heading into tonight’s game is: Is this a case of addition by subtraction for the Trojans?
If Baker-Mazara had been a distraction all season, as some of the articles seem to be suggesting, it could be.
At the same time, Southern Cal is now in the midst of a six-game losing streak. It hasn’t mattered if they were playing at home or on the road, or if they were playing a ranked team or an unranked team. With the exception of the Oregon game, which saw the Trojans edge the 17th place Ducks by a point at the Galen Center, Southern Cal hasn’t come close to winning a game since they topped last place Penn State by two on the road.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it isn’t going to matter. This is UCLA vs. Southern Cal and I expect the Bruins to play hard and win tonight.
Watch and Listen to the Game With TMB
Tonight’s game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 and streamed on FoxSports.com with Trent Rush and Miles Simon on the call. Of course, you can opt to listen to Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray on the radio or streamed on uclabruins.com instead. To watch or listen online, just right-click on the links so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below.
This is your UCLA men’s basketball vs. Southern Cal Trojans game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream tonight’s game:
UCLA Men’s Basketball (20-10, 12-7)
Opponent: Southern Cal Trojans (18-12, 7-12)
Series Record: UCLA leads, 150-116
When: 6:00 pm PT, Saturday, March 7, 2026
Where: Galen Center, Los Angeles, CA
TV: FS1 with Trent Rush and Miles Simon
Live Stream: FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports app
Radio/Audio
Local Radio: KABC AM 790 with Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray
Satellite Radio: SiriusXM Ch. 84 (UCLA Call)
Online: uclabruins.com
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
Game Notes:
UCLA
Go Bruins!!! Beat $c!!!
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Wow, incredibly dirty play by USC at the end there (Seidler contributed but still).
UCLA's defense has improved to the point where Southern Cal is barely above 40% shooting, but the offense has been unreal this half - UCLA is shooting 63% from the field and has 20 points in the paint.