USC basketball team’s upset bid falls short in loss to Oregon – Daily News

USC basketball team’s upset bid falls short in loss to Oregon – Daily News

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USC’s Saint Thomas handles the ball as Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad, center, and Kwame Evans Jr., right, defend during the first half of their Big Ten opener on Wednesday night at the Galen Center. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — They had lost their identity somewhere in the Palm Desert, a week earlier. They rediscovered it, on Wednesday night, at the Galen Center. That much, for these Trojans, was at least sure.

For 35 minutes against Oregon, USC got its scrap back, as Coach Eric Musselman put it after the game. The Trojans got their scrap, really, like nobody at the Galen Center had seen before. After two brutal losses in Palm Springs the previous week, an improbable and magical upset bid suddenly materialized just a few days later in their Big Ten debut. Their small-ball lineup disrupted passing lanes like never before, guard Desmond Claude shouldered the entirety of a five-man offense, and Terrance Williams II sent a second-half shockwave through a respectable home crowd with a third-quarter dunk directly on Oregon’s Kwame Evans Jr.

But the upset was a simple mirage, USC unable to close against 12th-ranked Oregon, a 10-point second-half lead slipping into a 68-60 loss. The grit was there. The execution – and the experience – were not.

And afterward, a blunt Musselman didn’t mince words, asked his expectations for his team in Year One of a rebuild.

“Yeah,” Musselman said, “I don’t know how many Big Ten games we’re gonna win.”

“What I do know is,” he continued, “if you put forth that effort, from a culture standpoint … you walk out of the building, you think the team played hard, you think the team gave great effort, and you think the team didn’t close the game. Which we didn’t.”

Indeed, USC held a 53-46 lead with seven minutes left after a layup from Claude, who finished with 22 points and poured the tank empty in intentionally trying to attack and foul-out Oregon center Nate Bittle. He succeeded. Plenty more, too, went USC’s way through three quarters of the night.

Boise State transfer sharpshooter Chibuzo Agbo Jr. gave the Trojans an early first-half lift with 14 points. San Diego sophomore transfer Kevin Patton Jr. was a breath of fresh air in second-half minutes, cramming home a lob and recording six rebounds and two blocked shots in his first real extended minutes of the season. And, most notably, USC (5-4 overall, 0-1 Big Ten) authored its best defensive performance so far: rotating on a string to shooters, completely sealing off entry passes to the post against a bigger Oregon team, and holding the Ducks (9-0, 1-0) below 40% shooting overall.

“I thought the fight, and the battle, and the competitive nature, was phenomenal,” Musselman said. “We lead for 30 minutes against a team that’s ranked 12th in the country.”

Indeed. Unfortunately, there were still several minutes to be played, and USC collapsed at the hands of a more cohesive and more dynamic Ducks team. The Trojans simply “couldn’t stop” Oregon point guard Jackson Shelstad, who scored 21 second-half points (11 of them at the free-throw line), as Agbo put it. Sandwiched around a go-ahead Shelstad 3-pointer with four minutes left, too, Patton showed his youth with back-to-back turnovers in the span of 36 seconds.

“We kinda came into the game thinking that, a young player like Kevin Patton, that there’s going to be a chance that he’s going to play in a big moment in a Big Ten game,” Musselman said. “And hopefully he learns a little bit from it.”

The flaws in USC’s roster construction, which ultimately might be irreparable, showed up down the stretch. The Trojans don’t quite have a true point guard: they turned the ball over four times in the last five minutes. The Trojans don’t quite have a true center: two Oregon big men bullied their way to back-to-back post buckets to give the Ducks a six-point lead with three minutes left. The Trojans are light on shooting: they went 2 for 13 from behind the arc, and now sit at 30% from 3-point range for the season.

Asked about Musselman’s comments postgame – saying he didn’t know how many conference games this team would win – Agbo and Claude both vehemently disagreed.

“I think this team’s for sure gonna win some Big Ten games,” Agbo said.

“We’re still confident that we’re gonna go in and do some damage,” Claude said.

But USC now has a three-game losing streak.

“The question is, can we masquerade some of our holes,” Musselman said, “and continue to evolve as a team?”

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