BERKELEY — Nothing was working in front of the cacophony of jeers and swells from a packed Haas Pavilion, and Isaiah Collier couldn’t be a savior, because that was simply too much to put on a 19-year-old’s shoulders.
USC’s freshman point guard was back, surprisingly quickly, after not having played for a month with a hand injury. And he looked it for the better part of 30 minutes on Wednesday night against Cal, his touch gone rusty. He had just a handful of points by the time he careened to the basket a few minutes into the second half, pausing in mid-air and deciding to dump off a pass in the paint, the ball flying out of bounds. And assistant coach Eric Mobley glanced at him incredulously from the bench, holding his left hand high in a motion with only one meaning.
Go up with it.
And for 13 subsequent minutes in a miraculous comeback against Cal, Collier shredded the pressures that had fallen on his shoulders ever since he had entered USC’s program, tasked as a freshman with leading a free-flowing Andy Enfield offense in a season that was slipping away. He played free, firing himself at the rim like a cannonball with arms and legs, each drive and whistle on an incredulous Golden Bear chipping away at a double-digit Cal lead until USC had miraculously pushed a once-sloppy game into overtime minutes.
Except it wasn’t enough, and Collier (20 points, all after halftime) and USC fell one play short in a debilitating 83-77 overtime loss.
With under 30 seconds left in a barnburner in overtime, the ball again in the freshman’s hands, Collier got a wide-open lane to the basket and went up with a layup – only for Cal’s Fardaws Aimaq to get enough of an arm in front of Collier’s attempt to send it clanking short. Collier and Enfield’s desperate pleas to the referees went unheard, and the Golden Bears closed out a win, senior Jaylon Tyson bellowing and waving his arms to an arena in sheer delirium.
USC’s hopes looked cooked by the first play…
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