Boogie Ellis, hot-shooting USC Trojans take apart Colorado on the road
Boogie Ellis posted his third consecutive 20-point game, Kobe Johnson added 15 points and seven boards, and USC continued to roll toward another NCAA Tournament appearance with an 84-65 win over Colorado on the road.
The Trojans were hot on Thursday night.
They hit 57% of their shots from the field and 42% of their 3-point looks (8-for-19). Johnson made six of his nine shots. Tre White hit four of five to finish with 10 points. Joshua Morgan hit four of five to finish with eight points. Reese Dixon-Waters, in his second game back from injury, made 5-of-8 for 15 points off the bench.
Ellis finished with 21 points. USC also got 15 from Drew Peterson.
Meanwhile, the Trojans held CU to 36% shooting from the field and 21% from 3. Colorado’s KJ Simpson led the way with 18 points, but he took 16 shots to get there.
Colorado had a 7-3 lead to open the game. A pair of free throws from Boogie Ellis tied the game at 14-all six minutes in.
From then on, it was all USC. A 12-1 run in the second half blew the lead up to 20 points. CU briefly threatened with a run of its own to get the deficit back down to 13 with just under three to play, but USC shut down any hopes of a last-second comeback by scoring the game’s next nine points to go back up 22.
The Trojans (20-8, 12-5 Pac-12) entered the day viewed as one of the last at-large teams into the NCAA Tournament, and while a potential loss wasn’t believed to be damaging, USC handled its business all the same. All of the attention in the conference is on UCLA and Arizona, but the Trojans are starting to roll as they head down the closing stretch of the season.
Thursday’s win marked the seventh in the last nine games for coach Andy Enfield’s squad.
USC will look to keep it going against Utah on Saturday at 5 p.m. PT (ESPNU).