The USC Trojans had a small cushion, leading Utah 55-49 with 5:52 left in Saturday evening’s game in Salt Lake City. It’s certainly better to be up six than down six, but the lead was hardly comfortable.
Earlier in the day, the USC women’s basketball team came back from a 19-point deficit — and down 15 points with roughly 11 minutes remaining — to beat Washington State in double overtime.
The USC women have set an extraordinarily high standard on defense this season, allowing 54 points or fewer in regulation time in 11 of their last 14 games.
The USC men haven’t clamped down on opponents like that in 2023 … but they picked a mighty fine time to do so in Salt Lake City.
USC owned the final 5:52 by not allowing a single point to Utah. The Trojans’ offense was hardly stellar — it hit a bunch of 3-pointers early in the game but was relatively ordinary after that — but when a defense holds an opponent under 50, it won’t matter.
One of the especially good things about this road trip and this win over Utah is that Boogie Ellis and Drew Peterson didn’t have to carry the team. Make no mistake, they were both good on this trip, and they were central parts of these two wins over Colorado and Utah. However, they didn’t have to go into flamethrower mode to win. They didn’t have to score 22, 25, 28 points. They didn’t have to take 15 to 20 shots. They didn’t have to overextend themselves.
These two games were collective efforts. Saturday was less about balanced scoring (though the Trojans certainly had that, with Kobe Johnson scoring 12 and Reese Dixon-Waters chipping in with nine) than about the defense which reduced the offensive burden on USC’s two best players.
Ellis and Peterson not needing to go crazy this week means that USC has a better chance of getting one of their best games next week … when it might be needed against Arizona or Arizona State.
USC’s defense was supposed to shut down Utah. It did. The Trojans’ defense was mature and steady on a night when it had to be.
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