USC shooters on target in win over Stanford

Three-point barrage could help team on tournament bubble.

The red foam fingers sat propped on every seat of Galen Center’s lower bowl, each flashing three digits, as if to tempt fate. Few in the conference had been worse from three-point range than USC this season, while no Pac-12 team during its conference slate had been better from deep than Stanford.

It made for particularly bold pretext ahead of a must-win conference game for the Trojans, a team firmly on the NCAA tournament bubble. But as it turned out, the foam fingers weren’t so much tempting fate as divining it in an 85-75 win for USC.

Just once in the last four seasons had the Trojans been as scorching hot from three-point range as they were Saturday.

Even as Stanford shot better than normal from deep, it couldn’t keep up with USC, which buried the Cardinal with a season-high 13 three-pointers, their most since January 2020.

The barrage began, rather unusually, with a botched attempt from behind the arc by Boogie Ellis. But as Stanford flew out to an early lead, USC’s point guard didn’t have much trouble shaking off that initial miss.

Neither would the rest of the Trojans’ shooters.

USC hit nine of its next 14 from three — all before halftime. Five of the nine belonged to Ellis, who had never made more than six in a collegiate game. As USC dominated from deep, it barely mattered that it returned its defensive stalwart in the middle, Joshua Morgan, from injury.

Stanford had hung tight through that first half, in spite of the barrage, cutting USC’s lead to two with less than three minutes until halftime. That’s when Ellis really came alive.

The point guard hit one three, then on the ensuing fast break, he called for the heat check and fired off another, burying it to give USC the breathing room it needed.

Ellis was hardly the only Trojan firing confidently from long range Saturday. Building on his career night against California, Drew Peterson hit a trio of threes on his way to 21 points. Reese Dixon-Waters, returning from a four-game absence, added two from deep, both in the second half. Oziyah Sellers and Kobe Johnson each added one three-pointer.

It was a particularly positive sign for a USC offense that has been prone to long lapses from the perimeter. The fact it came immediately after the Trojans’ hit a dozen three-pointers in a win over California made it especially noteworthy.

Those 12 threes would remain a season-high for all of two nights, when USC matched that total with more than a quarter of the game still left against Stanford.

The display from deep would slow after the half, as USC fired off just one shot from behind the arc over the final 10 minutes.

But Ellis would make that last one count, letting it fire from the top of the key. As it swished, the arena roared, waving its red foam fingers in triumph.