LAS VEGAS – As dubstep pumped through the speakers in Vegas, a rocking overstimulation of a hostile crowd and Arizona’s body-bumping defense overwhelming USC with their season on the line, freshman Isaiah Collier stood by halfcourt out of the break and closed his eyes.
He breathed. In. Out. In. Out.
This was mayhem, a freshman taking a moment before the war resumed on the floor of T-Mobile Arena. This was college basketball at its finest Thursday afternoon, two teams with regular-season history matching up in the second round of a one-and-done conference tourney, unwilling to give an inch. Open jumpers came as freely as water in Vegas. Arizona’s Caleb Love and Collier, their programs’ respective top scorers, exchanged words and snarls virtually from the tip.
And Collier’s breaths were for naught, as USC’s composure fell apart by the second half. Passes were thrown scared. Jumpers were taken short-armed. USC’s shot died in the desert against top-seeded Arizona, a drought unlike any other they’d seen in a rocky season, and its season died with it in a 70-49 loss in the second round of the Pac-12 Tournament.
“We did all we could,” senior forward DJ Rodman said postgame. “And sometimes, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not enough. That’s what happened today.”
The ninth-seeded Trojans had finally clicked by March, a roster fully healthy, rolling off a four-game winning streak as players like Collier and Rodman and Kobe Johnson tapped into grooves they’d never found all season. But they ran into Arizona, frothing at the mouth from the tip after USC embarrassed the Wildcats on Saturday, a team ranked sixth in the country that has still never lost in the Pac-12 Tournament in head coach Tommy Lloyd’s tenure.
And a season that began with March hopes, with super-senior Boogie Ellis returning for one last NCAA Tournament shot and top recruits Collier and Bronny James joining the fray in viral explosion, fell short for the last time…
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