USC Basketball: Trojans Blow Late Lead To Cougars In DJ Rodman's Return To WSU
Freshman guard Isaiah Collier was both savior and villain tonight against the No. 19-ranked Washington State Cougars, as your USC Trojans' seemingly doomed 2023-24 NCAA campaign seemingly put the nail in its coffin by blowing a game it led for the first 37:25.
Collier's scoring helped propel the Trojans to a 39-35 first half lead. The 6'5" former five-star recruit out of Georgia scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor, grabbed two rebounds, dished out two assists and swiped two steals.
He was doing a decent job of engaging his teammates, too, as he did here by feeding center Joshua Morgan in the second quarter:
But in the second half, after USC built out a nine-point lead, the Huskies gradually inched their way back into the match.
And that's when all of Collier's worst instincts took over. After being red-hot in the opening half, he went ice-cold in the third quarter. But rather than involve his teammates, he resorted to stubbornly, singlehandedly trying to cling to the lead and, when that lead faded away during the game's 37th minute, trying to dig his way back with relentless tough iso takes on the block. That, coupled with sloppy passing from his comrades, helped set up Washington State for a total momentum shift during the contest's waning moments.
A 12-4 Cougars run helped put the club up by four points with 35 seconds remaining. Here's the painful moment they took their first lead of the entire game, via this step back triple from freshman bench guard/hometown hero Isaiah Watts off a Myles Rice dish:
Collier drew a late foul from Washington State senior forward Andrej Jakimovski , enjoying the game of his life with his family in attendance for the first time all season (he had a WSU-leading 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-10 shooting from long range). Collier split the free throws to get USC within a possession, junior small forward Kobe Johnson fouled Cougars star Jaylen Wells, who stunningly missed both his free throws to give the Trojans a chance. Unfortunately, Andy Enfield had been doing some offense/defense hockey substitutions, and wasn't able to bring Isaiah Collier back onto the floor in time. First USC point guard Boogie Ellis, who had a pretty good look (and is a 41.3% three-point shooter this year on 7.3 attempts), and then Kobe Johnson (a 29.2% three-point shooter this season), throwing through traffic, chucked up two awkward trey tries with (marginal) time to spare.
USC fell, 75-72. Their season record now stands at 11-17. While they technically could make the NCAA Tournament in March, the Trojans only have one path to do it: winning the whole Pac-12 Tournament. Given that they're 5-12 in their Pac-12 games played this season, I'd say there's a slim chance of that actually happening.
Collier led the way in the Trojans' losing effort, with 24 points on 9-of-17 shooting from the field and 6-of-8 shooting from the charity stripe, plus four rebounds, two assists and two steals. Ellis, ostensibly USC's best player, finished with a measly five points on 2-of-10 shooting from the floor.
Fifth-year USC redshirt senior forward DJ Rodman, who transferred from Washington State, probably regrets that decision, as his old team improved to 16-13 and remains in the hunt to secure a March Madness berth. In 33 minutes, Rodman finished with eight points, five boards, two steals, a block and an assist.
USC finished shooting a respectable 51.9% from the field, but absolutely could not buy a bucket from deep. The Trojans took half as many three-point attempts (10) as the Cougars (20), and made just two (20%) to WSU's 10 (50%). That total disregard for triples proved mighty costly in the end, especially when Isaiah Collier's hard luck spin moves were proving fruitless late.
