BERKELEY — Nothing was working in front of the cacophony of jeers and swells from a packed Haas Pavilion, and Isaiah Collier couldn’t be a savior, because that was simply too much to put on a 19-year-old’s shoulders.
USC’s freshman point guard was back, surprisingly quickly, after not having played for a month with a hand injury. And he looked it for the better part of 30 minutes on Wednesday night against Cal, his touch gone rusty. He had just a handful of points by the time he careened to the basket a few minutes into the second half, pausing in mid-air and deciding to dump off a pass in the paint, the ball flying out of bounds. And assistant coach Eric Mobley glanced at him incredulously from the bench, holding his left hand high in a motion with only one meaning.
Go up with it.
And for 13 subsequent minutes in a miraculous comeback against Cal, Collier shredded the pressures that had fallen on his shoulders ever since he had entered USC’s program, tasked as a freshman with leading a free-flowing Andy Enfield offense in a season that was slipping away. He played free, firing himself at the rim like a cannonball with arms and legs, each drive and whistle on an incredulous Golden Bear chipping away at a double-digit Cal lead until USC had miraculously pushed a once-sloppy game into overtime minutes.
Except it wasn’t enough, and Collier (20 points, all after halftime) and USC fell one play short in a debilitating 83-77 overtime loss.
With under 30 seconds left in a barnburner in overtime, the ball again in the freshman’s hands, Collier got a wide-open lane to the basket and went up with a layup – only for Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq to get enough of an arm in front of Collier’s attempt to send it clanking short. Collier and Enfield’s desperate pleas to the referees went unheard, and the Golden Bears closed out a win, senior Jaylon Tyson bellowing and waving his arms to an arena in sheer delirium.
USC’s hopes looked cooked by the first play of the second half, Aimaq snaring his own rebound and kicking out for a 3-pointer that extended Cal’s lead to 14 points. After seeming to right the ship in a victory over Oregon State over the weekend, the Trojans (9-14 overall, 3-9 Pac-12) again got pulverized on the glass as Cal (10-13, 6-6) vibrated its home court with beautiful ball movement, USC simply shooting itself in the foot at times.
With 10 minutes left, Collier knifed for an and-one finish to cut Cal’s lead to six and quiet the crowd – only for Tyson to immediately re-ignite them with a 3-pointer in Johnson’s face to beat the shot clock. A pass to DJ Rodman went right through his hands in the corner. Tyson fired a loose ball off of USC’s legs to earn an extra possession. A collection of red zip-ups on USC’s coaching bench drooped their heads.
Then Collier, in the most brilliant stretch of his young USC career, simply shifted into turbo. He didn’t start, this night, returning after a month-long absence from a hand injury sustained on Jan. 10 against Washington State. But he closed. And closed hard.
Trailing by 11, he skied to the rim for another and-one finish. Seconds later, he nabbed a steal off a brilliantly timed full-court press and ascended for a thunderous cock-back tomahawk dunk. He scored eight of USC’s next 10 points, eschewing an innate table-setter’s nature and re-activating dormant genes of a hard-hitting youth football safety growing up in Georgia, clapping his hands and bellowing after parading to the free-throw line. Miraculously, after falling behind by 16 early in the second half, Collier’s push and a swarming USC defensive effort pulled the Trojans to within down a single point on a final possession – and after a rebound, Collier again attacked the basket, bellowing in ecstasy after drawing yet another whistle.