Before tipoff at USC’s Galen Center on Saturday night, the Trojan men’s basketball team showed a strong connection with its fans.
An advertised near sellout called for a loose definition of the word “near” moments before a 7:30 p.m. start, but the north end of the lower bowl was packed with black and yellow student T-shirts also worn by players.
In bold white lettering, the shirts read, “Crosstown Showdown: Beat the Bruins.”
For the first 20 minutes of the game, the Trojans lived up to the motto, building a 41-35 halftime lead. But as the second half unfolded at the Galen Center and UCLA finally got some room to run, the shirt lost its luster and even displayed the wrong proper noun.
The Bruins won their seventh game of the Pac-12 season 83-73 Saturday, and for large spurts of the second half, the Trojans either failed to contain their opponent or flat-out beat themselves.
USC forward Byron Wesley had just nine of his 27 points in the second half and the Trojans turned the ball over seven times. They even missed four of their 11 second-half free throw attempts. Meanwhile, UCLA posted a 27-8 run in the first 8:12 of the second half, consistently burning the Trojan defense.
The fiery transformation was likely due to coach Steve Alford lighting into his team at halftime.
“Any time you lose and you have a setback, it’s not easy then getting back up,” Alford said. “In the first half we kind of had that demeanor that was in the second half against Oregon State.”
An inexcusable closing stretch against Oregon State was followed up with a sluggish first half in which the Bruins shot an equally unsettling 37.1 percent. Alford tested his vocal cords after the loss in Corvallis, Ore., too, but this time it worked.
“First, I can say we got chewed out,” said sophomore guard Jordan Adams. “That’s from the first time we walked in the locker room – and we don’t get chewed out much – but we felt it and we came out in the second half with a different mindset.”
That mindset, in one word?
“Defend,” said Alford with a chuckle.
UCLA did that plenty in the second half. After allowing the red-hot Trojans to shoot 59.3 percent in the opening frame, USC’s shooting plummeted to 35.5 percent to close the game. In the first 7:30 of the second half, the Trojans (10-13,1-9 Pac-12) converted just two field goals and trailed by 13 with 12:27 to play, a deficit from which they could not recover.
The Bruins (18-5, 7-3) also took the word to heart in that they did not have to defend themselves after the game. Instead of what could have been of their second half effort, the topic of conversation was Adams’ surge of confidence and an unanticipated three-point effectiveness from junior guard Norman Powell.
Adams went 0-for-9 from the field against Oregon State. Powell had been shooting south of 20 percent from deep in his first 22 games this season. Both stats proved irrelevant, as Adams scored 17 points on 5-of-11 shooting and Powell led the Bruins with 21 points, complementing an explosive around-the-hoop game with two three-pointers in four tries.
“Once you make one, you know you have to try to heat check and make another one,” Powell said. “I know I can knock it down. Keep shooting it with confidence and going back to the basics and staying to your shot – that’s what I did and it was able to give us the win tonight.”
Securing the school’s first football-basketball rivalry sweep over USC since the 2006-2007 school year, UCLA returns home this week to take on Colorado and Utah.