LOS ANGELES — Their most trusted shooter stepped to the free-throw line, the ballgame squarely in Boogie Ellis’ hands, no man USC would have rather had in the biggest possible moment.
He’d sent one 3-point attempt after another clanking off the rim on Thursday night against Utah, finishing just 1 for 9 from behind the arc, visibly hanging his head after back-to-back deep shots missed during one second-half stretch. He’d been haggled ever since a return from a hamstring injury, not himself, unable to cut or burst properly and embroiled in a major five-game slump. But he was still a sniper, and his shot, as Ellis said Tuesday, was the “least of (his) worries.”
Except he missed. The front end of a one-and-one fell away, and Utah immediately pushed the ball down the court with a chance to tie, the very worst of outcomes flying through Coach Andy Enfield’s head in this Twilight Zone of a season.
“Someone’s gonna bank in a three and beat us?” Enfield grinned after the game, when asked for the morbidity of his thoughts in the moment. “I wouldn’t say my mind went that far. But it was pretty close.”
And then Joshua Morgan, seizing a dying fate in his hand, flew from the top of the 3-point line to swat away a game-tying Utah layup and seal a gritty USC win 68-64.
With just a few ticks left, Utes guard Deivon Smith took Ellis’ missed free throw up the court, bursting past junior Kobe Johnson, extending for a layup. But Morgan, hanging onto Utah’s star center Branden Carlson near the top of the arc, read Smith’s drive perfectly in what he called a “split-second decision” – and burst back into the play, rejecting Smith’s layup squarely off the glass to seal the win.
In early January, Morgan missed a couple of games with a respiratory virus. The impact was worse than the diagnosis. Morgan lost 15 pounds, unable to keep down food. He looked “skinnier than me,” Enfield quipped, and “wasn’t himself” when he returned, the coach added. But he had climbed all the way back by Thursday night, one of the premier shot-blockers in the Pac-12 – freshman Isaiah Collier argued in the entire country postgame – finishing with four blocks on the night in a terrific team defensive performance.
They walked off the court up north last weekend humiliated and embarrassed after getting blitzed by Stanford in a performance with little effort and little heart. So when they reconvened for practice Monday, Enfield said, coaches gave players a simple mandate: If you can’t go hard, go home.
“We have no time for softness – you don’t want to be here, just go home,” Enfield said after Thursday’s win. “We compete. And give our guys credit.”
USC (10-15 overall, 4-10 Pac-12) played with a vengeance, a connectedness, never quite before seen for the first 12 minutes on Thursday night. Twelve minutes, quite precisely, of near-flawless defensive execution after a rather rude kick in the rear end by Stanford last Saturday. The Trojans moved their feet and got their bodies in front of drives, rotating seamlessly, forcing Utah shooters into tough midrange jumpers or contested triples with no other option available. The Utes (15-10, 6-8) started out shooting sub-30% for an extended stretch; James and Kobe Johnson hit 3-pointers, and USC took a 24-11 lead with a vengeance.
Yet a consistent, sustained effort has been elusive for USC this season, their defense wavering for the rest of the first half and the start of the second, Utah suddenly finding gaps for a couple of open 3-pointers and runs to the rim by Smith. After a turnover by Johnson, Utah’s Cole Bajema hit a 3-pointer to give the Utes a 51-49 lead.
But freshman Isaiah Collier continued to attack, and DJ Rodman added a couple of key second-half buckets to give USC enough offense amid a great defensive closing stretch, keyed in particular by hounding contributions from freshman Bronny James.
“He had been struggling with his shooting,” Enfield said of James. “And we want him to shoot open shots, but as you saw tonight, he can affect winning in a variety of ways.”
Collier led USC with 15 points and six assists to go with five rebounds and three steals, while Rodman added 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Ellis had 11 points and four steals and Morgan finished with four blocks as the Trojans won for just the second time in their last 10 games.
Smith finished with 19 points, nine rebounds and seven assists to pace the Utes, who have lost three straight and five of six. Carlson had 15 points and seven rebounds. Utah has yet to win on the road in conference play.