The No. 21 Trojans opened up their regular season in Vegas with a statement win against Kansas State Monday night, beating the Wildcats 82-69.

USC’s (1-0) backcourt has been praised profusely in the offseason, and understandably so. Pairing freshman guard Isaiah Collier, the top-ranked high school recruit, with fifth-year guard Boogie Ellis, a 2022-23 first-team All-Pac-12 player, created high expectations for a USC team coming off three straight March Madness bids.

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The two did not disappoint. Collier, in his first collegiate game, scored 18 points to go along with six assists on 7-9 shooting. Ellis, who is used to carrying the brunt of the Trojans’ scoring, added 24 points and five assists.

The guards helped gain control of the game for the Trojans, who led the Wildcats (0-1) for all but just over two minutes of the game. Collier was particularly impressive handling the ball, looking as comfortable as he did when he led his team to multiple high school state championships in Georgia.

It was a game of firsts for Collier. The freshman guard pushed the pace from the get-go, making his presence known on a fast break with an and-one for his first points early in the first half. Collier often found himself in the paint throughout the game, using all his 6-foot-5, 210-pound frame to bulldoze Kansas State defenders. From there, he did what a responsible point guard often does — dishing out to open shooters or hooking passes inside to his centers.

However, Collier had his freshman hiccups as well. He turned over the ball six times and fouled out with under five minutes left in the second half.

“I definitely made a lot of mistakes in this game as far as turnovers and fouls as well,” Collier said. “I’ve just got to be smarter down the stretch.”

Collier may get less sloppy as the season goes on. It’s worth noting that most of his turnovers came from overzealous passes in hopes of creating easy points for his teammates. Overall, the young guard exceeded the sky-high expectations coming into opening night.

While the Trojans were in control for most of the game, it wasn’t all roses for them. USC surrendered 16 offensive rebounds in the first half, allowing Kansas State, which was shooting 25% from the field, to stay in the game.

When asked about the lack of defensive rebounding, Head Coach Andy Enfield stressed the importance of being able to rebound while staying small.

“It was a big factor, especially the first half,” Enfield said. “[Kansas State] shot a lot of threes — they took 33 threes — and a lot of those rebounds were long. So we had to have our guards come back in and rebound the ball. Boogie did a good job, he had eight rebounds. [Junior guard] Kobe [Johnson] had eight rebounds. Isaiah had a big rebound over the back.”

The Trojans will likely play small for most of the year, opting to play three guards in most lineups. That means that they will have to box out better than they did tonight as to not allow teams to beat them with second-chance points.

USC had some help Monday night, with the Wildcats shooting 31% from the field and 24.2% from 3-point range. And while the Trojans played solid defense for most of the night — Johnson and transfer graduate forward DJ Rodman helped ensure that — Kansas State missed a number of wide-open 3-pointers coming off offensive rebounds.

USC won’t be that fortunate every game, and failing to grab boards is not a winning recipe in college basketball. Enfield knows that, the players do too.

“It’s a big win for us, but we didn’t play perfectly,” Enfield said. “So we’ll go back and look at the video and hopefully improve next game.”

Still, it’s difficult to not be hopeful about a team littered with this much talent, led by two of the best guards in the country. Last year’s Trojans lost to an inferior Florida Gulf Coast team in their first game. This year, they comfortably beat a team fresh off a trip to the Elite Eight on national television.

This team will go as far as Ellis and Collier can take them, and this game was a testament to that notion.

The Trojans will play their first home game at Galen Center Thursday against Cal State University, Bakersfield (1-0) at 6 p.m.