USC basketball: Leftovers after the Trojans’ 61-51 loss to Oregon...
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It’s all over here at the Galen Center: Oregon 61, USC 51.
The Ducks improved to 13-12 and 6-7 in Pacific 10 Conference play.
The Trojans fell to 13-12 and 5-7 in the Pac-10, dropping a spot to eighth in the conference standings.
How it went down: Oregon had a 10-0 run from the six-second mark of the first half until the 2:10 mark of the second to go up 32-19. USC then used an 11-2 run to cut into that, but the Trojans made only one field goal in the next 6:40 to again fall behind by double digits. Ball game.
The dagger statistic for USC was three-point shooting.
The Trojans missed 16 of 19 attempts from behind the arc.
Junior forward Nikola Vucevic led USC with 22 points and a career-high-tying 16 rebounds to earn his Pac-10 leading 14th double-double.
But his teammates provided little support, as has been the case for most of the season.
Guards Donte Smith and Maurice Jones were the Trojans’ next-highest scorers; they each had nine points.
Oregon was led by guard Malcolm Armstead‘s 14 points.
And here are your postgame quotes, though, it’s worth noting that all the USC players sneaked out the back and only Vucevic was made available to speak to reporters:
From USC Coach Kevin O’Neill on the game:
‘We’re not going to win many games shooting the ball like we did. We didn’t have many turnovers (12), but going 3 for 19 on threes is not going to get it done. They were all good looks.’
O’Neill on what’s next for USC: ‘It’s tough to take, but we have six games left and the conference tournament, so there’s lots of basketball to play.’
From Vucevic:
‘Right now, everybody probably is down. It’s frustrating. By the time we get to NorCal and the next game [Thursday at California], everybody will be fine.’
From Oregon Coach Dana Altman on the game:
‘We played well in a lot of ways tonight and really controlled pretty much ... the game. They had a little run that hurt us but we handled the late game really well. There are a lot of positives from the game tonight for us. We got outrebounded by four, which was big for us. We didn’t let them get the boards, which was our game plan going up against their big guys.’
Altman on Vucevic:
‘Vucevic was just great for them as always. He’s really skilled, and frankly as good as I’ve ever seen for someone his size. He shoots the ball really well, scored 22 points and grabbed [16] rebounds and that was all while our defense was in high gear and we had really prepared for him.’
-- Baxter Holmes