Where to Watch USC vs. Rutgers: 2025 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament
The Trojans and Scarlet Knights tip off in Peacock’s first-round trio of exclusive Big Ten Tournament games.
The 2025 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament is officially underway, and Peacock is the exclusive place to catch all the first-day action. A stacked trio of tournament games is set to stream live as they happen today, Wednesday, March 12, including a contest between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and the University of Southern California (USC) Trojans — the evening’s third and final matchup on Peacock.
In the runup to the "March Madness" of the wider NCAA Tournament, the fast-paced Big Ten Men's Tournament vibe is already in full effect. Each day, the games in the Big Ten Tournament gauntlet will come one right after the other, and they’ll all be played at the same venue: Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Keep on scrolling for everything you need to know so you don’t miss a minute of Rutgers vs. USC.
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Where can you watch the 2025 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament first-round game between the USC Trojans and Rutgers Scarlet Knights?
Like the other two games in the tournament’s first round (Northwestern vs. Minnesota and Iowa vs. Ohio State), the Rutgers vs. USC matchup is a Peacock live-streaming exclusive. Game time is tentatively set for 8:30 p.m. ET — but as the day’s third and final contest, the actual tipoff time will depend on the ending time of the preceding two games.
Northwestern vs. Minnesota arrives as the day’s first tipoff at 3:30 p.m. ET, and the start time for each of the next two games will fall approximately 25 minutes after the previous one has ended. But if you dial up Peacock at 3:30 p.m. ET and keep it locked in all throughout the evening, your chances of catching every second of every game are pretty much guaranteed!
What to expect from the Rutgers Scarlet Knights vs. USC Trojans Big Ten Tournament game?
Day one of the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament is all about tight matchups. Rutgers (15-16, 8-12 in conference) enters as the No. 11 seed, while USC (15-16, 7-13 in conference) arrives seeded No. 14.
The Trojans lost a 10-point contest in the two teams’ regular-season matchup on February 23, relinquishing an early lead after a back-and-forth first half, only to watch the Scarlet Knights pull comfortably away in the final 20 minutes. Rutgers guard Dylan Harper led the Scarlet Knights in scoring with a 25-point performance, while USC guard Desmond Claude dropped an impressive 30 points in the Trojans’ losing effort.
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When USC has won this season, they’ve often put on an offensive show, routinely hanging 80 and 90-point totals on their opponents. Rutgers, meanwhile, owns three wins that’ve eclipsed the 90-point barrier during the regular season. That’s two fewer than the Trojans… though it’s probably worth noting that one of those Scarlet Knights offensive explosions came — you guessed it — against USC. For what it's worth, oddsmakers expect the two teams’ Big Ten Tournament rematch to be a reasonably high-scoring affair, and are giving USC the slightest of 1-point edges as the clock ticks down toward tipoff.
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