The list of problems for USC men’s basketball in Friday night’s Pac-12 Tournament semifinal against UCLA starts with momentum.
Momentum — 5-0 runs for the Bruins leading into every single one of the first four media timeouts — is what kept the Trojans at bay in the first half, facing an 8-point deficit at the intermission.
Momentum — a 7-0 run, capped off by a disheartening 3-pointer by freshman forward Peyton Watson — is what extended the Bruin lead to 11 early in the second half after the Trojans had cut it to a hopeful four.
Momentum — a 27-point show against USC six days ago and a 23-point outing against Washington on Thursday — is what kept junior guard Jaime Jaquez Jr. rolling against the Trojans on Friday, his 19 points spearheading the Bruin attack yet again.
UCLA’s momentum was the unstoppable force on Friday evening, and USC’s counter-attack was far from the immovable object necessary to resist it. There’s no paradox here — just a 69-59 victory for UCLA and an end to USC’s Pac-12 Tournament run.
“They played a very solid game,” head coach Andy Enfield said, “and they beat us.”
Second on that list of problems might be the Trojans’ offensive stagnation, which didn’t bear itself out in their 39% clip from deep but certainly did in their 14-for-35 mark from inside the arc. Far too many times, USC struggled to get its offensive sets going until the shot clock hit single digits, resulting in desperation heaves that ended up fruitless far more often than not.
Junior guard Boogie Ellis was least to blame for those shooting woes, dropping a career-high 27 points on 9-for-17 from the field and 5-of-9 from three. But whereas that exact number — 27 — spelled victory for senior guard Drew Peterson’s Trojans on Feb. 12 and Jaquez’s Bruins on March 5 in the first two crosstown showdowns, Ellis’ supporting cast Friday was no deeper than Peterson (11 points) and some flashes from freshman forward Kobe Johnson.
No small factor was the absence of freshman guard Reese Dixon-Waters, who was held out due to a reported hip injury suffered in Monday’s practice. Dixon-Waters had paced USC’s bench unit with nine points against Washington; without him, the Trojans’ bench contributed just seven (all from Johnson) on 2-for-9 shooting in a combined 46 minutes.
Tough nights for junior forward Max Agbonkpolo (zero points) and junior forward Isaiah Mobley (4-for-11 overall, 0-for-4 from deep) only compounded USC’s offensive struggles.
“We have some guys that had little off nights tonight putting the ball in the basket,” Enfield said. “We just need to be more efficient … It puts a lot of pressure on your defense if you can’t score the ball when you need to.”
It was nowhere near enough ammunition to match the four Bruins who scored in double figures — Jaquez (19), senior guard Jules Bernard (15), redshirt junior guard Tyger Campbell (14) and junior guard Johnny Juzang (10).
“They’re very good one-on-one players,” Enfield said. “They can really put pressure on your defense, and they make tough shots. And when they make those tough shots at a high percentage, it’s pretty tough to guard them.”
That — shooting — was the difference. It certainly wasn’t rebounding; USC and UCLA tied with 31 boards apiece. It wasn’t turnovers; they tied at nine giveaways each. It wasn’t even free throws; the Trojans’ 10-for-16 mark from the charity stripe wasn’t phenomenal (when is it?), but it wasn’t what cost them.
Simply put, it’s never a particularly good sign when the opposing team’s student section starts half-assing the “airball” chants because they simply got old; at least five different Trojans fell victim to the taunt after being forced into smothered, last-second looks and hitting nothing but the sky. The airballs, the desperation heaves, the utter lack of rhythm in the halfcourt offense — all were products of UCLA having its way on defense, and USC having the opposite on offense.
Not only did Friday night bring about the end of the Trojans’ Pac-12 Tournament run. Not only did it give UCLA the 2-1 edge in the season series. It also gave USC its third loss in four games, not an ideal trajectory just two days out from Selection Sunday.
“Obviously, we know the stakes down the stretch,” Peterson said. “Three of those games were top-25 teams. They’re really good opponents, and they’re the opponents we’re gonna see next week. We’re gonna stay confident, we’re gonna be in the gym and we’re gonna be ready to go. These are the tests we need as we head into the biggest weekend of the season so far.”
March Madness seeding is merely speculative until it’s not. Nonetheless, the Trojans are projected to fall in the 6-8 range, whereas a strong showing in Las Vegas could have perhaps bumped them up to 5 or possibly even 4 territory.
“We lost in the [Pac-12 Tournament] semifinals last year, and then we re-grouped and played really well for a couple weeks in Indianapolis in the bubble,” Enfield said, referring to USC’s Elite Eight run. “What seed we are, I have no idea. That’s up to the selection committee … Whoever we play, wherever we play, we’ll be ready.”