Fast break
Why the Buffs won: CU outscored USC 44-21 in the second half while holding the Trojans to a .241 field goal percentage in the second half.
Three stars
J’Vonne Hadley: Narrowly missed the first double-double of his CU career, finishing 7-for-11 with team-leading totals of 15 points and nine rebounds.
Cody Williams. One of the key components of CU’s second-half defensive effort, Williams finished with 13 points, two rebounds and two blocked shots.
KJ Simpson: Early foul trouble helped limit Simpson to a season-low nine points, but he added five rebounds, four assists, and three steals.
Up next: The Buffs host one of the Pac-12’s early front-runners, Oregon, on Thursday (8:30 p.m., FS1).
The Colorado men’s basketball team had recently been in the same position as USC. As recently as, well, just last week.
For the past five weeks, the Buffaloes have played shorthanded. Until last week, the Buffs managed to go 5-0 since the start of a run of injuries began with freshman Cody Williams getting sidelined more than a month ago. Although that streak ended with a miserable 0-3 road trip last week, winning multiple games without Williams and, later, senior Tristan da Silva made CU head coach Tad Boyle adamant in pointing out a shorthanded USC team was not to be taken lightly.
The Trojans limped into Boulder without three key players, yet still very nearly managed to limp home with a victory. At least until the Buffaloes put together a dominant second half, rallying past USC for a 68-58 Pac-12 Conference win on Saturday night.
The result snapped CU’s three-game losing streak and ended a run of three consecutive losses in matchups against the Trojans. Before a season-high crowd of 10,005, the victory also marked the program’s 500th win at the CU Events Center.
USC played without its high-scoring starting backcourt, with Boogie Ellis (hamstring) and freshman Isaiah Collier (hand) both sidelined due to injury. USC forward Joshua Morgan, the top shot-blocker in the Pac-12, also missed his second consecutive game due to an illness. The Buffs, meanwhile, played with their top seven rotation players for the first time since Dec. 3, as backup guard Julian Hammond III returned from a two-game absence due to a back injury.
“I feel like we were trying not to (look past USC) because we were on the flip side of it,” da Silva said. “We had me and Cody out, and we went 2-0 in the first two games of conference play. That can’t really be our mindset coming into games, that their main guys are out and that they’re just going to give up and give us a W. They played well in the first half, but we turned it around in the second half.”
For a CU team that has struggled to put together 40-minute efforts defensively, the first half offered another frustrating sequence, as the Trojans used a hot start to build a 16-point lead. CU managed to cut the deficit to 37-24 at the break, but USC went into the locker room with a .469 field goal percentage and plenty of momentum.
CU erased that momentum in a hurry after the break.
Buffs burst out of halftime with 12-2 run to get back in the game. CU took its first lead since the opening moments on a 3-pointer by Luke O’Brien with 10 minutes, 34 seconds remaining, and CU used an 11-1 run in the final minutes to pull away.
CU shot .563 in the second half and held USC to a .241 mark (7-for-29) after the break. Although the Buffs were outrebounded for just the second time this year (40-36), they also finished with a season-low eight turnovers.
Overall, CU outscored USC 44-21 in the second half, and the rally from a 16-point deficit tied for the 11th-largest comeback win in program history.
“I told the team as soon as we figure out basketball is a 40-minute game instead of a 20-minute game, we’re going to be pretty good,” Boyle said. “But until that time, we’re going to have nights like this. We were obviously not very good in the first half in any capacity — our defense, our offense, everything. We were fortunate to be down 13 (at halftime), to be honest.
“But credit to our guys, they regrouped the second half. They strung some stops together and kept believing in each other.”
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (8-9, 2-4)
Iwuchukwu 5-8 0-0 10, Rodman 4-10 1-1 10, Hornery 0-5 0-1 0, Johnson 3-9 3-3 10, James 0-7 0-0 0, Wright 2-4 0-0 4, Sellers 7-14 2-2 18, Page 1-4 3-4 6. Totals 22-61 9-11 58.
COLORADO (12-5, 3-3)
Williams 4-10 5-8 13, da Silva 5-12 0-0 12, Lampkin 5-9 2-3 12, Hadley 7-11 0-0 15, Simpson 4-11 0-0 9, Hammond III 1-5 0-0 2, O’Brien 1-3 2-2 5, Diop 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 27-61 9-13 68.
Halftime — USC 37-24. 3-point field goals — USC 5-17 (Rodman 1-2, Hornery 0-3, Johnson 1-5, James 0-3, Sellers 2-2, Page 1-2); Colorado 5-17 (Williams 0-2, da Silva 2-6, Hadley 1-3, Simpson 1-1, Hammond 0-2, O’Brien 1-3). Rebounds — USC 40 (Iwuchukwu, Rodman 7); Colorado 36 (Hadley 9). Assists — USC 9 (Johnson 4); Colorado 14 (da Silva, Simpson 4). Turnovers — USC 14 (Johnson 4); Colorado 8 (da Silva 3). Total fouls — USC 11; Colorado 14. Technical fouls — CU coach Tad Boyle; USC coach Andy Enfield. Fouled out — none. A — 10,005.