The Trojans ended a two game losing streak Thursday night
LOS ANGELES — USC snapped a two game losing streak with a dominant 97-60 win over Cal on Thursday night. Drew Peterson led all scorers with 30 points, which is a new career high. Boogie Ellis added 22 points and Oziyah Sellers put in a career high 11 points. USC shot 52% from the field. Monty Bowser paced Cal with 13 points.
The win improved the Trojans to 18-8 on the season and 10-5 in the Pac 12. Cal fell to 3-23 and 2-13 in conference play. USC currently stands alone in third place in the Pac 12 a half game up over 10-6 Utah.
Coming into Thursday night, ESPN college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi had USC as one of the first four teams out in his most recent NCAA Tournament projections.
Here’s what Trojans head coach Andy Enfield had to say following USC’s victory.
On the win over Cal:
“That’s a nice home win for us. I thought our team played well. We shared the basketball and really defended in the first half to get that lead. It was nice to see some shots go in because last week we didn’t see too many go in.”
On Oziyah Sellers’ performance:
“Oziyah’s defense has really improved. He’s in the right spots. He boxes out. Although he’s not a real big guy compared to some of the guys in our league, because he’s a freshman he’s got a slighter build, he’s learning how to use his positioning and defend. Offensively, it was nice to see him make shots because he is a terrific shooter, but if you don’t make them in games it doesn’t matter how good you are in practice.”
On being on the NCAA Tournament bubble and paying attention to bracket projections:
“It’s still very early. We look at [the projections] to an extent. The NET rankings are one metric the selection committee will use. The NET doesn’t make much sense to me sometimes because you see some teams that haven’t beaten a Power Six team all year and their NET is in the the top 20 in the country. How does that happen? I think they’ll make the best decision when the season is done. We have a lot of basketball left so we don’t get too worried about the bracketologists or the NET right now. Right now, what we’re concerned about is improving as a team and controlling what we can control because we have some great opportunities ahead of us.”
Watch Enfield’s complete press conference above.
USC returns to the Galen Center on Saturday night against Stanford. Tip off is at 7 pm.
