Talia von Oelhoffen makes an offensive impact in USC win over Indiana

The USC women's basketball team defeated Indiana on Sunday in a very difficult road game for the Trojans. Many details of this win were noteworthy, specifically in terms of how different this USC performance was from many recent efforts. One key for the Trojans in Bloomington was Talia von Oelhoffen.

If you have followed USC women's basketball closely this season, you know that Talia von Oelhoffen has struggled at the offensive end of the court. She has not hit a high percentage of 3-point shots. With JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen as teammates, von Oelhoffen shouldn't be taking too many shots to begin with, but if she isn't hitting, it's more reason for her to be restrained at the offensive end of the floor. She has been judicious in not taking too many shots away from the more skilled scorers USC has. She is a smart player. Yet, over the course of a full season, USC was bound to have a game in which the stars weren't at their very best and the bench -- which was a central reason for recent USC wins -- didn't have a great game, either. TVO was going to need to chip in some points -- not a boatload, but some.

That game came to USC and TVO on Sunday.

Von Oelhoffen contributed 10 points in a game USC won by seven, 73-66. TVO's offense was needed because JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen were a combined 12 of 31 from the field, and because the USC bench shockingly scored zero points. No, USC doesn't need Talia von Oelhoffen to be an 18-point-per-game scoring machine, but a 10-point game instead of a 2-point game -- an 8-point game instead of a 3-point game -- really matters in a close contest. It mattered Sunday for USC.

If Talia von Oelhoffen can give USC 8 to 10 points in March Madness -- with reasonably efficient shooting (as was the case on Sunday versus Indiana; TVO was 3 of 7, a perfectly decent percentage) -- the Trojans become better. We saw why against Indiana.