Los Angeles, CA – It was a dejavú for USC.
Stanford had one last chance to potentially sweep the season series against the Trojans but were unable to pull off another miracles come back and fell 69-64.
“It was a very challenging PAC-12 basketball game tonight. Our league is excellent from top to bottom this year,” said USC head coach, Andy Endfield. “We are fortunate to beat a very good Stanford team tonight.”
The Trojans, who were up by as many as 15 and double digit-points majority of the contest, found themselves in a position too negatively familiar.
In the end, a 3 point attempt by the Cardinals was unsuccessful and USC escaped with its 5th straight win.
It was a team effort victory for USC, who’s leading scorer, Jonah Matthews, came off the bench with 18 points. Jordan McLaughlin had a couple of opportunities to give USC a cushion in the final minutes but he couldn’t convert on critical free-throws down the stretch. McLaughlin finished with 8 points on 3 of 11 shooting and 9 assists.
The Trojans were able to pull away in the first half, much like the first game in Palo Alto. Dunks by Metu, McLaughlin and a 3-pointer by Matthews helped USC gain its first double-digit lead of the game.
In the teams first meeting of the season, USC was denied of a road victory after Stanford converted on half court buzzer beater with 1.7 seconds remaining.
All signs pointed to another Hollywood-fairy tail ending in Los Ángeles.
USC lead the entire game. The cardinals cut its 15 point deficit to just 2 points with 32-seconds left on a Daejon Davis free-throw.
USC went 5-20 (25%) from the 3-point line and were only able to get to the free-throw line 8 times.
This is USC’s 7th victory its last 8 games. They will have a chance for a 6th straight victory on Sunday when they host Cal.
