Inconsistency plagued No. 15 Illinois men’s tennis team against USC, giving it a second loss to a top-two team in as many days.

“It’s too much up and down and not enough steady play, and that is just biting us in the butt,” head coach Brad Dancer said.

Illinois’ doubles game showed more fight than in Sunday’s shutout loss to No. 1 Virginia; however, the winning duo of sophomores Farris Gosea and Tim Kopinski wasn’t enough to grab the point.

Dancer said the court two combo of senior Stephen Hoh and sophomore Ross Guignon couldn’t bring enough energy. On court three, he said the problem was a lack of execution for senior Bruno Abdelnour and freshman Brian Page.

“I felt like in doubles, we could have done better across the board, just putting our game on them a little better,” Gosea said.

The Illini dropped five of six of first sets in singles, which allowed the Trojans to clinch match wins on courts one, four and six. Gosea claimed the only point for the Illini, winning his match in the third set 4-6, 6-4, 10-8.

“You’ve got to be focused and playing well,” Gosea said. “I feel like everyone was focused on what they were doing, it’s just the execution wasn’t as high as it needed to be.”

Dancer said, if anything, the match against Virginia helped the Illini stay more competitive against USC, but practice ahead of time couldn’t help them from falling to the Trojans, 6-1, and sinking to 7-6 on the season.

Illinois has less than a week to prepare before welcoming Nebraska to Atkins Tennis Center, where it will try to stop a three-match losing streak.

“I’ll talk to each (player) individually and see where breakdowns occur,” Dancer said. “Fitness was a little bit of a factor today. If we’re going to make any run NCAA-wise, we’ve got to be able to play back-to-back matches.”

J.J. can be reached at [email protected] and @Wilsonable07.