LOS ANGELES — This week, Saint Thomas came to Eric Musselman with a request: he wanted to guard Wisconsin’s John Tonje.

It went deeper than the fact that Tonje was Wisconsin’s top scorer, entering Saturday’s matchup at 18.2 points a game. Thomas grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where bona-fide Power Five recruits weren’t quite as plentiful as the cornfields. He looked up to Tonje, a player a couple years his senior, a fellow Omaha native who’d played high school ball 10 miles down the road. Thomas was a competitor, and Musselman knew this, and so USC’s head coach gave him the Tonje assignment.

By the second half Saturday, Tonje had exactly zero points, and Thomas snaked off a pick-and-roll to stick a midrange jumper to cut Wisconsin’s lead to six. They needed a spark, and Thomas was an inferno, roaring after a timeout and physically pounding the scorer’s table, trying to slap life into a USC program that had sleepwalked through Saturday’s first half.

By the buzzer, though, an exhausted Thomas bent over near the baseline after going through a dejected handshake line, USC’s Big Ten momentum quashed in an 84-69 loss to a Wisconsin program that had simply brought more effort and better execution to USC’s own floor.

“I’m not gonna sit up here and call guys out,” Musselman said postgame, referring to his wider roster. “But it’s quite evident that Saint and Rashaun (Agee) played with great energy.”

“So,” Musselman said, pausing, a slight invitation to read between the lines. “I can credit those two guys.”

Indeed, after Wisconsin built a 19-point lead early in the second half, it was Thomas and big Agee who keyed a run that shook the Galen Center. Thomas finished with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting and held his matchup Tonje scoreless in 22 minutes, dropping in two threes and that midrange jumper to cap off a 13-0 early second-half run. Agee managed to hang in, meanwhile, with four fouls, effective from the offensive glass and the post in finishing with 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting.

But point guard Desmond Claude struggled heavily, finishing in single-digit scoring for the first time since November, scoring just nine points and committing five turnovers. And USC took punches early and late, a group of transfers slipping back into inconsistent early-season habits: porous perimeter defense, sluggish offense, a general lack of effort that simply couldn’t cut it in the Big Ten. Thomas was “trying to help those other guys” and “pick those guys up,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard noted postgame, a concerning assessment from an opposing coach.

“I think we just, we played stagnant today,” Thomas said of USC’s offense, postgame. “Didn’t look like how we did at the beginning of this week. And, we take all blame for that. All the guards.”

They’d found a flow state with a 27-assist performance in Tuesday’s win over Iowa, Musselman crediting USC’s offensive improvement to developing IQ, as his staff had rapidly expanded the Trojans’ playbook over the course of months.

“I think early in the year, we would run a play and they would get to the first option, and then we just kind of, froze,” Musselman said Tuesday. “And now, I think we’re getting to third and fourth options, and then we’re, our open offense, our flash game, when plays break down.”

They froze, again, in the first half Saturday. Dribble-handoff sets went nowhere, or were poked away by badgering Badgers. Isolations from Claude and Thomas largely came up empty. USC recorded a measly four first-half assists against nine turnovers, no semblance of offensive rhythm. And Badgers guard John Blackwell got hot early, dropping in 16 first-half points and leading Wisconsin to a 42-27 halftime lead.

“Our two guards,” Musselman said, “did not defend their two guards.”

Indeed, Wisconsin’s Blackwell and Max Klesmit too often blew past Claude and Wesley Yates III, finishing with 46 combined points on the night. After a triple from Klesmit gave Wisconsin an early 19-point lead, Thomas placed his finger squarely on Galen’s pulse, keying a run as USC cut Wisconsin’s lead to just 55-52 with 10:44 left.

But as USC’s bench waved their arms to the home-crowd for noise, Blackwell and Klesmit dropped in back-to-back layups to reassert Wisconsin’s cushion, the Trojans slowly bleeding out from knifing drives by Badger guards until the final buzzer.

A large Wisconsin contingent filled the Galen Center on Saturday, erupting in cheers as Wisconsin subbed its starters with less than a minute to play. And between Michigan and Wisconsin, USC’s home games have felt more like neutral-site matchups, as these Trojans sit at 1-2 at home in the Big Ten.

“You gotta win eight out of 10 games at home, or you can’t play in March,” Musselman said, postgame.

“That’s — again, that’s factual. Not an opinion.”