Los Angeles, Ca – The Trojans made sure the Bulldogs felt the USC rain by raining on their hopes of leaving Los Angeles with a win. The Trojan made it perfectly clear that there was to be a change in the forecast by beating Yale … final score USC 68 Yale 56.
From the initial start of the game it looked like it was going to anyone’s game. The pace was real up tempo from both teams. There was intense ball movement, with a lot of team communication going on. Unfortunately for Yale they didn’t see the gray clouds looming in their future. USC went into their trusty war chest of secret weapons and came out with their height hefty line up. Scoring most of their points in the paint because Yale had no answer for the supersized line up. The Bulldogs literally had no blocks for the entire game.
Now by no means did Yale lay down and take this beating they managed to have 3 players in double digits, the always energetic Justin Sears with 14 point, their everywhere man Makai Mason with 18 point and Jack Montague with 10 points.
The additional issue for Yale was that Jordan McLaughlin and he and his latest face mask had finally become BFFs. Looking at almost in pre broken nose form. Jordan had 14 points, 2 steals, 4 assist and at the line he hit 3 out of 5. With improvement like that Cal Poly should be highly concerned about their match up with the Trojans on the 17th.
Naturally this win for the Trojans was a team effort and nothing brought that to light more then see Darion Clark out there demanding the Bulldogs respect his hustle, height and physical presence, with 7 points, 9 rebounds, 2 blocks and 1 steal. Clark was a starter last year but when Head Coach Andy Enfield decided to make some tweaks to the team’s recipe that left Clark as a bench player. But to Coach Enfield’s credit Darion Clark’s shot percentage is up over last years to prove there is method to the madness. Clark credits this change for making him a better team player.
So if McLaughlin was the grey cloud and Clark the thunder then Bennie Boatwright (with 17 points) and Katin Reinhardt (with 14 points) must have been the rain. We mustn’t forget the lightning that was Malik Marquetti with 4 steals.
The Trojans and the Bulldogs last and only meet up was in 1988 where the Trojans issued them a merciless lost. Needless to say I think Yale will be more happy not to see USC for another 17 years after this loss.
