AFTER 20 YEARS, USC IN ELITE 8
Trojans dispatch Ducks, now get shot against No. 1 Gonzaga
Isaiah White scored 22 points and USC shut down Oregon’s potent offense to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in 20 years with an 82-68 win in the West Regional semifinals Sunday night.
Pac-12 After Dark Indy-style turned into a lights-out performance by USC.
The Trojans (25-7) clipped the high-flying Ducks with their length on the perimeter and 7-footer Evan Mobley in the middle. Offensively, the region’s No. 6 seed bobbed and weaved through the holes in Oregon’s defense, shooting 57 percent and 10 of 17 from 3.
The all-around domination put three Pac-12 teams in the Elite Eight for the first time since 2001 and gives USC a shot at undefeated Gonzaga in the region finals Tuesday.
Oregon certainly had no answer for the long-armed Trojans.
The seventh-seed Ducks (21-7) floun
No. 6 USC 82 ,No.7 Oregon 68
dered against USC’s zone, unable to find holes or get much of anything to drop over it until a late rally that came up short. The Pac-12’s best 3-point shooting team (38 percent) went 5 of 21 from behind the arc.
Eugene Omoruyi had 28 points and 10 rebounds, and Chris Duarte scored 21 for the Ducks.
Oregon and USC have been a big part of the Pac-12’s unexpected success in the Circle City.
Picked to be the worst among the major conferences, it opened the NCAA Tournament with nine straight wins and got four teams through to the Sweet 16.
Oregon State and UCLA already advanced, so the showdown between the Ducks and Trojans meant a Pac-12 trio in the Elite Eight.
Oregon was in a familiar position, running this deep into March for the fourth time in five NCAA Tournaments. USC had to reach back to the 2006-07 team with Nick Young and Taj Gibson for its last Sweet 16 ride.
The Trojans won the teams’ lone regular-season meeting 7258 by getting off to a fast start.
They did the same in the rematch by slowing the fast-moving Ducks.
Normally free flowing on offense, Oregon had a hard time solving USC’s zone between the big guards up top and the shotswatting Mobley anchoring the paint.
Offensively, USC looked more like the Ducks than they did, pouring in 3s and getting shots at the rim, using a 17-2 run to go up 14.
The Trojans led 41-26 at halftime. USC stretched the lead to 20 in the opening 31⁄2 minutes of the second half before the Ducks finally came to life.
An 11-0 run cut USC’s lead to 69-60, but the rally ran out of steam when Mobley threw down a two-handed dunk over Franck Kepnang.
No. 1 Gonzaga 83, No. 5 Creighton 65: Gonzaga guard Andrew Nembhard believes he still has room to improve.
The scary part is, he thinks that also might be true for the undefeated Zags.
Nembhard had 17 points and eight assists, both season highs, to keep the NCAA Tournament’s top overall seed rolling with Sunday’s rout of Creighton (22-9) in the West Regional semifinals. Afterward, he insisted nobody was satisfied.
“I don’t think we have peaked,” he said. “I think, as I said earlier, we can always get better. We can always work on our stuff. So I think we’re getting close, and we need to squeeze out that five percent that we talked about.”
It’s hard to imagine the Bulldogs (29-0) could play much better.
They extended their schoolrecord winning streak to 33, the Division I record for consecutive double-digit wins to 26 and reached the Elite Eight for the fourth time in six years. Next up is Tuesday’s West regional final against sixth-seeded USC, and if Gonzaga continues playing with the same balance it has shown throughout the season, it will be hard for either opponent to stop the Zags short of the Final Four.
Some of Gonzaga’s usual stars were content with supporting roles Sunday.
Second-team All-American Drew Timme led the way with 22 points, six rebounds and four assists as the Zags shot 59.6 percent from the field against a foe that led the Big East in defensive field goal percentage. Joel Ayayi added 13 points and eight rebounds.
First-team All-American Corey Kispert scored 12 points and Timme’s fellow secondteamer Jalen Suggs finished with nine.
Defensively, the Zags held Creighton to 40 points over the final 30 minutes as they methodically turned a 27-25 game into a blowout. Gonzaga never trailed, led 43-33 at halftime and spent most of the second half pulling away.
The Bluejays never really had a serious chance at advancing to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1941, when the NCAA Tournament only gave out eight bids.
“They just play so fast, so efficient with everything they do,” said Marcus Zegarowski, who led Creighton with 19 points. “There are no lapses. You just can’t take, not even a play, you can’t take a second off or they’re going to make you pay.”