USC's Alex Stepheson is confronted by Charlie Enquist of Washington State in Thursday's Pac-10 game at Galen Center. Washington State won, 67-60. (Photo by Mario Villegas)
Story Created:
Jan 22, 2010 at 12:28 PM PST
Story Updated:
Jan 26, 2010 at 1:42 PM PST
USC has been offensively-challenged all season, but never did it jump up to bite the Trojans more than Thursday’s Pac-10 game with Washington State.
After building a 41-26 lead early in the second half, the Trojans (11-7, 3-3) saw that advantage erode down the stretch to the point Washington State (14-5, 4-3) was able to overtake them for a 67-60 victory at Galen Center.
“We’ve struggled offensively all year,” USC coach Kevin O’Neill said. “We just have trouble scoring because we don’t have great shooters.”
The Trojans, who host Washington at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Galen Center, built their lead largely on the strength of easy baskets off Cougar turnovers.
Once Washington State began taking better care of the ball, the Trojan offense went into the deep freeze.
Other than forward Marcus Johnson (Westchester High School) making seven of 12 shots and scoring a game-high 16 points, most of the Trojans were off in their shooting, reflecting in the team going 22-for-59 (37.3 percent).
Leading scorer Dwight Lewis was 5-for-14 and finished with 13 points. Nikola Vucevic missed all seven of his field goal attempts and scored but four points.
As O’Neill pointed out, it wasn’t as if it was a matter of long-range shots not falling.
“We must have had eight or nine balls right at the rim that missed,” he said.
From Washington State’s standpoint, Klay Thompson and Reggie Moore combined for 41 points.
Thompson, the sophomore forward who leads the Pac-10 in scoring, carried the Cougars early and finished with 20 points.
Moore, the freshman point guard, had a big second half and ended up with 21 points. He also had six assists, getting many after penetrating, then dishing off to open shooters on the wings.
“The kid that killed us was Moore,” O’Neill said. “He took us apart. Our defense couldn’t keep guys in front of them. We were up 41-26 and had the game in hand, then kind of collapsed.”
Next up for USC is Washington (12-6, 3-4), which lost 62-61 to UCLA Thursday on a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Mustafa Abdul-Hamid.
UCLA (8-10, 3-3) battles Washington State at Pauley Pavilion at 1 p.m. Saturday.
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