USC Basketball: Trojans Blow Late Lead To Cougars In DJ Rodman's Return

Freshman guard Isaiah Collier was both savior and villain tonight against the Washington State Cougars, as your USC Trojans' seemingly doomed 2023-24 NCAA campaign seemingly put the nail in its coffin by blowing a game it led for the first 37:25. 

Collier's scoring helped propel the Trojans to a 39-35 first half lead. The 6'5" former five-star recruit out of Georgia scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the floor, grabbed two rebounds, dished out two assists and swiped two steals.

But in the second half, after USC built out a nine-point lead, the Huskies gradually inched their way back into the match.

And that's when all of Collier's worst instincts took over. After being red-hot in the opening half, he went ice-cold in the third quarter. But rather than involve his teammates, he resorted to stubbornly, singlehandedly trying to cling to the lead and, when that lead faded away during the game's 37th minute, trying to dig his way back with relentless tough iso takes on the block. That, coupled with sloppy passing from his comrades, helped set up Washington State for a total momentum shift during the contest's waning moments.

A 12-4 Cougars run helped put the club up by four points with 35 seconds remaining. Collier drew a late foul from Washington State player Andrej Jakimovski, enjoying the game of his life with his family in attendance for the first time all season. Collier split the free throws to get USC within a possession, Kobe Johnson fouled Cougars star Jaylen Wells, who stunningly missed both his free throws to give the Trojans a chance. Unfortunately, Andy Enfield had been doing some offense/defense hockey substitutions, and wasn't able to bring Isaiah Collier back onto the floor in time. First Boogie Ellis, who had a pretty good look, and then Kobe Johnson, throwing through traffic, chucked up two awkward trey tries with (marginal) time to spare.

USC fell, 75-72. Their season record now stands at 11-17. While they technically could make the NCAA Tournament in March, the Trojans only have one path to do it: winning the whole Pac-12 Tournament. Given that they're 5-12 in their Pac-12 games played this season, I'd say there's a slim chance of that actually happening.

Fifth-year USC redshirt senior forward DJ Rodman, who transferred from Washington State, probably regrets that decision, as his old team improved to 16-13 and remains in the hunt to secure a March Madness berth.