Three USC defenders tried to stop him at once without success. His offensive heroics at the expense of these Trojans players left their coach Andy Enfield infuriated. Everyone knew what was coming from Terrell Brown Jr. but couldn't do anything about it.
In the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals, Brown scored 21 points over the first 20 minutes against USC — percentage points below his season average. Unfortunately, he and the Huskies had to play a second half and it didn't turn out as well.
Like any gambler in Las Vegas, Brown's luck changed. He scored just 2 points on 1-for-12 shooting after the break and it wasn't nearly enough to prevent USC from escaping with a 65-61 victory on Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena.
The Huskies (17-15) still were game for an upset and pushed the outcome to the end. They had two shots to tie the game inside the final 12.4 seconds, but Brown's reverse layin was blocked and Emmitt Matthews Jr.'s drive to the basket on an inbounds play missed.
Sixth-seeded UW bowed out of the tourney after two outings and will hope to land a postseason bid to keep going, such as in the NIT. The third-seeded Trojans (26-6) will meet UCLA in the conference semifinals.
Brown, the Pac-12's leading scorer this season, finished with 23 points on 9-for-25 shooting. He also had 6 rebounds and 5 assists.
The 6-foot-3 senior guard from Seattle scored his team's first 9 points in giving USC all it could handle.
A minute into the action, Brown scored the game's first points on a 3-pointer, usually not his preferred method of point-making. It marked just his 11th made trey of the season.
He followed with a mid-range jumper, a driving layin and a fast-break layup and it was Brown 9, USC 8.
With nine minutes left in the half, Brown drove, spun, scored, got hacked and hit the free throw. That gave the Huskies a 24-19 lead, their largest to that juncture.
Once he dropped in the foul shot, Brown was pulled for his much-needed first break of the evening. He sat down with 12 points.
After all, he had done everything except hand out Gatorade during the timeouts.
As the teams hung close to each other, never separated by more than five points, Brown returned and scored 9 more to intermission.
He hit a step-back jumper, a driving layin, a pair of free throws, yet another 3-pointer and a fast-break layup to close out the half. Washington led 46-41.
It was USC 41, Brown 21 at the break.
The Trojans' solution was to put 6-foot-9 Max Agbonkpolo on him thereafter and that seemed to be the answer.
Brown scored a lone layup two minutes into the next half, giving his team its largest lead at 44-36.
But things were different going forward. The Husky scoring machine no longer had carte blanche in attacking the basket. There was too much Agbonkpolo getting in his way.
Yet this remained a close game with the teams tied at 56 with 6:41 left before Isaiah Mobley hit one of two free throws and to USC up for good.
The UW used its press to keep things hanging in the balance to the end. With 27.5 seconds left and USC up 63-61, the Drew Peterson drew an offensive foul while caught in a Husky double-team, knocking down Matthews.
But there was no magic left in the Huskies as the missed those two late shots and had to be content that they made USC highly uncomfortable but not a loser.
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