Postgame Notes: USC 82, BYU 76

The following notes and quotes are from BYU men’s basketball 82-76 loss to USC on Wednesday evening in the first round of the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis.

Series Results: USC leads all-time series 3-9.

Attendance: 465

TEAM NOTES

Finding Their Range

BYU finished with a season-high 12 3-pointers as the Cougars went 12-of-32 from behind the arc.

Looking to Get Over the Hump

The Cougars fell to 1-1 on the season and 12-20 in the Mark Pope era when trailing at halftime.

Second Half Struggles Resurface

BYU have now been outscored in the second half in three of its five games with USC outsourcing the Cougars, 51-46 in the final 20 minutes. In their two losses this season, they have been outscored by 12 after intermission.

PLAYERS NOTES

Not New Here Just Doing New Things

In his 66th game at BYU, Spencer Johnson did something on Wednesday he hadn’t done in his career: Score the first points of the game for the Cougars.

Strong Start for Spencer

Speaking of Johnson, the junior guard from American Fork scored a team-high 10 points in the first half marking the second time in his career has reached double figures in the opening 20 minutes. He would finish with a career-best 18 points.

Action Jaxson

Jaxson Robinson finished with a career-high 14 points, marking the second time in his career that the sophomore from Ada, Okla. has scored in double figures. He went 5-of-9 from the field including a career-best four 3-pointers.

CAREER HIGHS

Points: Jaxson Robinson (14), Spencer Johnson (18)
Field Goals: Jaxso Robinson (5)
Free Throws: Spencer Johnson (6)
3-point Field Goals: Jaxson Robinson (4)
Blocks: Jaxson Robinson (2)

QUOTES

Mark Pope

Opening Statement

“Congratulations to USC. They are a good team. They are long and skilled. Boogie Ellis was absolutely terrific tonight, we just couldn’t find an answer for him. I am proud of our guys effort in the end, trying to hang in there. I know we are all disappointed by how we played today. We will play better tomorrow.”

What did you like about the intensity at the end of the game?

"My guys have a ton of fight. They are really beautiful kids. They are going to get better because they want to get better so badly. They are going to get more comfortable with each other because they are going to mature. We are playing a lot of young guys but they have a lot of fight."

What allowed USC to get a big lead in the second half

"They are complicated team because Drew Peterson is such an elite level playmaker. There are things you don’t try defensively because he is just going to pick you apart. At the end of the day, Boogie Ellis was just a problem for us. We wanted to give away long contested two’s and he just said ‘Yep, give them all to me and I will make them’."

Jaxson Robinson

What allowed USC to get a big lead in the second half

"I felt we lost our defensive intensity. I felt like in the first half we did a great job of contain Drew Peterson and Boogie Ellis. But in the second half we came and didn’t have the intensity and it really hurt us."

Gideon George

What allowed USC to get a big lead in the second half

"We can’t not turnover the ball. We are going to fix that as a group. We need to play a game with 10 turnovers or less if we are going to win on the big stage."