Los Angeles, CA – Coming into Tuesday night’s game, the USC Trojans (2-1) played up to their No. 16 rank in the country. Wins over Kansas State and Cal State Bakersfield, the Trojans rightfully earned their rank.
It all came crashing down after the UC Irvine Anteaters (2-1) stormed into the Galen Center and defeated the Trojans, 70-60.
It was a rough night for the USC offense as the Trojans shot 28.8% from the field and an abysmal 19% from three.
USC head coach Andy Enfield was blunt about his team’s performance .
“You can’t shoot 28 percent from the field and expect to beat a good team,” he said.
Trojans freshman star Isaiah Collier had a team high of 23 points but paired it with seven turnovers, the most in his young career so far. Collier took full responsibility for his play and attributed his rough night to “freshman mistakes”.
“It’s about knowing when to make the plays and I take the blame for that,” he said firmly.
Justin Hohn lit up the scorebook for UCI as he finished with a career high and a game high in points with 25. Bent Leuchten was the only other Anteater to finish in double-digits as he had 19.
USC was missing two important players as Boogie Ellis was out with a right ankle sprain and Kobe Johnson was out with left knee soreness. Enfield said postgame that both players are day-to-day.
DJ Rodman and Oziyah Sellers both struggled to find their shots. The two Trojan starters combined for four points and shot 1-19 from the field.
Despite coming into the game as a big underdog, the Anteaters’ experience got the best of a short-handed USC team. This is the second consecutive year, where UCI has upset a Pac 12 team in the non-conference portion of their schedule. Last year, they went on the road to upset then No. 21 Oregon.
For the Trojans, they have a handful of days to get healthy as Ivy League foe Brown comes into the Galen on Sunday Nov. 19.
