Looking like a changed team, USC celebrates return home with win over Iowa

USC’s Wesley Yates III drives around Iowa’s Brock Harding during the Trojans’ win over the Hawkeyes on Tuesday at Galen Center.At the end of a long, emotional week, USC’s men’s basketball staff emerged one by one from the Galen Center tunnel just before tip-off Tuesday, relieved as ever to be back home. Days earlier, as wildfires ravaged their city, the team was 2,000 miles away, stuck first in a southern Indiana hotel then in a similar one in Illinois, reduced to periodic updates from assistant Will Conroy, who had downloaded local news apps to his phone.

The uncertainty made for an unnerving few nights. Assistant coach Quincy Pondexter initially wasn’t sure whether his home in Pasadena…