If you're looking for positive thoughts you came to the wrong place.
USC is going to have a hard time getting to the Tournament with the type of play I saw tonight. I give our guys credit going the whole evening on just one substitution but the amount of turnovers we had tonight (Mayo had like 10 by himself) and the lack of a 3-point threat really hurt us. I don't want to hear about how young this team is but 22 turnovers shows a lack of discipline and at this late juncture in the season we shouldn't be using that excuse.
I am going to go against the conventional wisdom here and pretty much say that Mayo is not our go to guy. His lack of consistency outside the arc and his lack of control with the ball hurt us tonight. Angelo Johnson looked scared out there tonight while Taj held his own with a great game and Dwight Lewis had a decent game with 16 points. Jefferson was so-so being held out of the later portion of the first half because of foul trouble.
We still have a hard time defending the screen as ucla found numerous ways to get the ball into a position score. I'm sorry this ucla team is not as good last year's team, they can be beat. Sure, they Love in the middle but they looked really sloppy on offense numerous times tonight I just don't see them as a number one seed. They play some good defense but when you need your big man to fire 3's to keep you in the lead that shows me that they are inconsistent.
Heck they didn't score for some 4-plus minutes towards the end of the game and we still couldn't close it out.
Love grabbed the last rebound and hung onto the ball for the final seven seconds. A grinning Collison stuck out his tongue at Love and they hugged as time expired.
USC was without starting guard Daniel Hackett, whose season is in jeopardy because of a stress fracture in his lower back and a torn oblique muscle.
His absence forced coach Tim Floyd to shorten his bench and he used just one sub, Keith Wilkinson, the entire game. As a result, some of the starters appeared winded midway through the second half.
The Trojans never led by more than one point in the first half, when they shot 48 percent. The Bruins outscored them 17-8 to end the half ahead 31-23 despite shooting 37 percent from the floor.
I realize we are thin and losing Hackett doesn't help matters but the continued high rate of turnovers and the high rate of missed 3-point shots are not going to help us going down the stretch. We haven't improved in these areas and that's a real issue this late in the season.
So that's it for tonight I will have more tomorrow.