Michigan State muscles past USC 72-62 in March Madness

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Upset with the officials and his team’s defense, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo angrily snapped a white board in half during a timeout.

“It felt damn good,” Izzo cracked.

The Spartans broke Southern California soon after.

Joey Hauser scored 17 points and No. 7 seed Michigan State clamped down defensively on No. 10 seed USC in the second half on Thursday for a 72-62 win in the first round of the NCAA Tournament’s East Region.

Izzo’s Spartans (20-12) will face the winner of the Vermont-Marquette matchup on Sunday for a spot in the Sweet 16. Marquette coach Shaka Smart sat on press row for part of the second half to get a closer look at what could be his next opponent.

Smart watched as Michigan State got more physical after halftime to muzzle the streaky Trojans (22-11), who were knocked out in the tournament’s first round for the second straight year.

Tyson Walker and Jaden Akins added 12 points apiece for Michigan State, which held USC to 34% shooting in the second half. It felt like every possession was a challenge for the Trojans, who only stayed within range with some late 3-pointers and atrocious late free-throw shooting by Michigan State.

The Spartans missed six straight from the line during one stretch while trying to close it out and finished 15 of 25 overall.

“It was a bad day,” Walker said when Izzo asked him to comment on the misfires.

“Well said,” added the coach.

Joshua Morgan scored 14 and Kobe Johnson 13 to lead USC.

Michigan State, appearing in its 25th straight tournament under Izzo, will move on in what has been a unique and challenging season for the Spartans. The team became the face of a grief-stricken school after a gunman killed three students and injured five others in a campus shooting on Feb. 13.

Following his 54th win in the NCAA Tournament, Izzo said he’s savoring every moment of this March.

“I’m not taking too much for granted anymore,” Izzo said. “It’s too crazy of a world.”

Playing in Big Ten country, and backed by a crowd wearing even more green on St. Patrick’s Day, the Spartans took control in the second half by leaning on their defense, which hasn’t been up to Michigan State standards of late.

“We got our mojo back,” Izzo said. “We talked about it for two or three weeks. But no secret that I haven’t been pleased with our defense. And I’d say 32 or 33 minutes I thought it was exceptional.”

A.J. Hoggard’s steal and layup put Michigan State ahead 58-49, and Spartans center Mady Sissoko followed with a monstrous block on USC’s next possession.

By then, the Trojans were out of sync, and they fell into a bigger hole when Hauser and Jaden Akins buried consecutive 3-pointers as Michigan State’s lead swelled to 66-51 with 4:23 left.

Johnson knocked down two 3s to pull USC within nine, but the Trojans were unable to get any closer.

“In the second half, a couple possessions we went one-on-one too much instead of playing basketball the way we were capable of,” Trojans coach Andy Enfield said. “And then missed some wide-open, timely shots.”

TWO TOMS

Izzo showed his soft, nurturing side, especially when he helped his team and the school cope following the tragedy.

However, he didn’t like being described as a “teddy bear.”

And while he’s not as fiery these days, the 68-year-old is still demanding of his players.

“I look in the mirror a lot,” he said, “and sometimes I don’t like what I see in me. And I let the players know that. So maybe the terror side will come out again. I had a parent tell me something two days ago that I really enjoyed: ‘Coach my kid, the hell with the outside stuff. Coach my kid.’

“So I’m coaching them. So hopefully I bring that with me this weekend and hopefully our team responds.”

BIG PICTURE

USC: The Trojans got a taste of what life will be like when they join the Big 10 in two years. This wasn’t their style of game as the officials allowed some hand-checking and maybe more contact than USC is accustomed to.

Michigan State: Following an uneven regular season, the Spartans look to be playing their tough brand of ball.

UCLA’s Jaquez Jr., Cronin highlight AP All-Pac-12 team

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
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Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s decision to return for his senior season worked out quite well for No. 2 UCLA.

Jaquez was named The Associated Press player of the year in the Pac-12 and Bruins coach Mick Cronin is the conference coach of the year. Washington forward Keion Brooks was named Pac-12 newcomer of the year by an eight-person panel of journalists who cover the conference.

Jaquez considered leaving Westwood for the NBA after three productive seasons that included a trip the Final Four and the Sweet 16 in consecutive years. The crafty 6-foot-7 swing man had another boxscore-stuffing season in his return, averaging 17.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game while helping lead the Bruins to their first Pac-12 regular-season title in a decade.

Cronin has returned UCLA to prominence in four seasons since leaving Cincinnati. The Bruins had deep NCAA Tournament runs the past two seasons and were the class of the Pac-12 this year.

UCLA went 27-4 overall during the regular season, 18-2 in Pac-12 play and had its first undefeated home season (17-0) since 2006-07. The Bruins have the nation’s longest active home winning streak at 25 games and are the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament this week in Las Vegas.

Brooks had an immediate impact at Washington after transferring from Kentucky. The 6-foot-7 forward was third in Pac-12 scoring at 17.8 points per game while grabbing 6.9 rebounds.

FIRST TEAM

u-Guard – Tyger Campbell, UCLA, Sr., 5-11, 180, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Guard – Boogie Ellis, USC, Sr., 6-3, 185, San Diego.

u-Forward – Jaime Jaquez Jr., UCLA, Sr., 6-7, 225, Camarillo, California.

u-Forward – Azuolas Tubelis, Arizona, Jr., 6-11, 245, Vilnius, Lithuania.

Center – Branden Carlson, Utah, Sr., 7-0, 228, South Jordan, Utah.

-“u” denotes unanimous selection.

SECOND TEAM

Guard – Drew Peterson, USC, Sr., 6-9, 205, Libertyville, Illinois.

Guard – Keion Brooks Jr., Washington, Sr., 6-7, 210, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Forward – Mouhamed Gueye, Washington St., So., 6-11, 210, Dakar, Senegal.

Forward – N’Faly Dante, Oregon, Sr., 6-11, 230, Bamako, Mali.

Center – Oumar Ballo, Arizona, Jr., 7-0, 260, Koulikoro, Mali.

Player of the year – Jaime Jaquez Jr., UCLA.

Coach of the year – Mick Cronin, UCLA.

Newcomer of the year – Keion Brooks, Washington.

All-Pac-12 voting panel: Bruce Pascoe, Arizona Daily Star; Michelle Gardner, Arizona Republic; Paul Klee, Colorado Springs Gazette; Adam Grosbard, Orange County Register; Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News; James Crepea, The Oregonian; Pat Rooney, BuffZone.com; Jesse Sowa, Corvallis Gazette-Times.

No. 8 UCLA picked to win Pac-12 in preseason poll

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No. 8 UCLA has been picked to win the Pac-12.

The Bruins received 26 first-place votes from a 33-person media panel in the poll. No. 17 Arizona, No. 21 Oregon, Southern California and Stanford rounded out the top five. The Wildcats and Ducks each received three first-place votes and the Cardinal one.

UCLA has four of its top seven scorers back from a team that finished runner-up in the Pac-12 and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament last season. The Bruins also added a stellar freshman class, headed by Amari Bailey and Adem Bona, both top-20 recruits.

Arizona won the Pac-12 last season, its first under coach Tommy Lloyd, and also reached the Sweet 16. The Wildcats lost three players to the NBA for the second straight season, but have a strong core returning and added several veterans who should contribute right away.

Oregon is looking to return to the NCAA Tournament after struggling defensively last season. The Ducks added several transfers and 7-foot freshman Kel’el Ware, one of the top recruits in the 2022 recruiting class.

Pac-12 facing uncertain future after losses to Big Ten

Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
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The Pac-12 can make a case as the most successful conference in collegiate athletics, amassing more than 500 NCAA championships while leading the nation in titles 56 of the past 62 years.

But when it comes to the biggest moneymakers, football and men’s basketball, the “Conference of Champions” has come up short for years.

The lack of success, particularly in football, combined with the conference’s media rights missteps have put the Pac-12 on shaky financial footing, opening the door for two of its marquee schools to jump ship.

Now, with the loss of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten in 2024, the conference and its remaining member schools face an even more uncertain economic future.

“You have exploding costs on one end and your revenue sources are being decimated, which is a tremendous pressure,” Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist said. “On the other hand, what do you do? Well, something pretty radical I think is going to have to happen.”

The Pac-12’s dilemma has been building for years.

Once a powerhouse football conference, the Pac-12 has been a bit player in the national championship conversation of late.

Since Oregon was blown out by Ohio State in the 2015 championship game, the Pac-12 has had one team play in the College Football Playoff: Washington in 2017. Oregon has fallen off since Chip Kelly left for the NFL in 2013 and Southern California, once the conference’s marquee program, never fully got back on track after the NCAA sanctions of the Pete Carroll era.

The Pac-12 has been just as quiet in men’s basketball, getting two teams – Oregon in 2017 and UCLA in 2021 – through to the Final Four.

The lack of success made the Pac-12’s football games maybe-watch TV, which in turn has made it more difficult to lure top coaches and recruits away from rival conferences – particularly the football juggernaut SEC.

“In the old days, USC and UCLA would be right up there at the top of the national football heap every year, and they’ve fallen way down,” Zimbalist said. “And so you need some fill up, some boost to get them to a point where they can really be a strong, strong franchise again – and I just don’t see that.”

The Pac-12 drop-off was compounded by its media rights deals.

As TV packages began to bulge, former Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott pushed for the conference to build its own network instead of partnering with ESPN, Fox or another network. A self-sustained network would allow the Pac-12 to control programming, showcase its highly successful Olympic sports and reap all the financial rewards.

The Pac-12 Networks never soared like Scott envisioned, bogged down, in part, by an inability to reach an agreement with DirecTV, which prevented the conference’s sports from reaching millions of homes.

The Pac-12 did work out a lucrative deal to have some of its games shown on ESPN and Fox, but the networks often wanted those to fill late-night time slots on the East Coast.

The deals left the conference in a “Pac-12 After Dark” hole. The Pac-12 had the lowest distribution number among Power Five schools, paying its member institutions $19.8 million in 2021.

By contrast, the SEC distributed $54.6 million to each of its member schools in 2021 and the Big Ten $46.1 million.

Finances mean stability in the world of college sports, so the lure of more money was a big driver in the departures of USC and UCLA, which said it faced cutting sports if it didn’t leave for the Big Ten.

The moves in turn will hurt the Pac-12’s bottom line; not only did the conference lose two big programs, its foothold in the nation’s second-largest media market is going away.

“When you see the rich get richer, people are going to grab for their share,” said Tom McMillen, president and CEO of Lead1, which represents Football Bowl Subdivision athletic directors and programs.

The loss of UCLA and USC puts the Pac-12 at a crossroads.

The conference announced last week that it is pursuing all expansion avenues and pushed up negotiations for its next media rights deal; the current one is set to end in 2024.

The Pac-12 could form a partnership with another conference in need of a lift, like the ACC, which would possibly cause travel problems for smaller sports. It also could add members from a smaller conference like the Mountain West or convince schools from the Big 12 to defect, like Colorado and Utah did in 2011.

The conference also may have its hand forced if several schools bolt for another conference to find stability, perhaps to the Big 12 to form another superconference with the SEC and Big Ten.

“I think you’ll see more consolidation,” McMillen said. “This is not new. This is economics 101. There’s a lot of efficiencies. Think about all this: we have 32 conferences. There’s probably $1 billion of overhead and when you merge conferences, you’re obviously streamlining some of that.”

More conference realignment is coming. The fate of the Pac-12 is still to be determined.

Moore’s foul shots lift Miami to 68-66 NCAA win over Trojans

Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
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GREENVILLE, S.C. — Charlie Moore used all the focus he’d learned at California, at Kansas, at DePaul and now Miami to produce the biggest moment of his career in the NCAA Tournament.

Moore’s free throws with three seconds left lifted the 10th-seeded Hurricanes to a 68-66 win over No. 7 seeded Southern California in the Midwest Region on Friday.

Moore, at his fourth school in his sixth college season, calmly swished through the winning shots to send Miami (24-10) to its first NCAA win in six years.

“I just wanted to focus and take my time,” Moore said of the final moments. “I felt like, if I make them, we had a great chance of winning the game, and I knocked them down.”

USC (26-8) had a final chance, but Drew Peterson’s half-court attempt hit off the backboard and the front rim before bounding away.

“Unfortunately,” Trojans coach Andy Enfield said, “we were a possession short.”

Not before a couple of dramatic comebacks. USC trailed by 13 points three minutes before halftime before rallying to a 37-32 lead. Then, down 65-58 with 44 seconds to go, Peterson made two 3-pointers and a layup to tie things at 66-all and set up Moore’s winning foul shots.

Moore drove the lane in the final moments and appeared to have his layup blocked by Chevez Goodwin. But a foul was called on Ethan Anderson and Moore made the free throws.

Miami coach Jim Larranaga, who led George Mason to the 2006 Final Four, will take his Hurricanes to the second round Sunday for a game against Auburn.

Isaiah Wong led Miami with 22 points before fouling out with 2:07 to play with his team ahead 59-58.

Peterson led Southern Cal with 17 points.

Miami won its first NCAA game since defeating Wichita State in the second round in 2016.

Miami led 29-16 late in the first half, but the Trojans (26-8) opened the second half on 17-2 run to go ahead.

Wong scored the next five points to regain the lead and set up a tight, back-and-forth battle to the final seconds.

There were eight lead changes over the final 11 minutes.

“This is a good win for the university because it’s been a minute since we’ve been here,” Wong said. “With the team we have right now, we’ve been playing good.”

Especially Wong, who who hit seven of his 12 shots and eight of his nine free throws.

Wong scored Miami’s first 13 points to lead his team to an early lead, but USC went ahead 14-13 on Goodwin’s putback. That’s when the Hurricanes went on an 18-6 run to lead 31-20.

THE BIG PICTURE

Miami: The Hurricanes leaned heavily on Wong the first 37 minutes, then got contributions from Moore and Kameron McGusty to advance. They’ll need everyone from the start if they hope to keep playing after Auburn showed its power and versatility in an 80-61 first-round victory over Jacksonville State.

Southern California: The Trojans’ slow start put them in an early hole, and it didn’t help that they had trouble taking care of the ball with 18 turnovers, 12 off steals. USC made just 8 of 27 shots the first 20 minutes as Miami moved out to a double-digit lead.

CONTRACT EXTENSION

USC’s Enfield got a six-year contract extension on the eve of the postseason. The new deal, announced March 9, will keep Enfield at the school through the 2027-28 season. Before this loss, Enfield and the Trojans had won five of their last seven NCAA Tournament games including a run to the Elite Eight a season ago.

TAKING CARE OF THE BALL

Miami finished with a season-low three turnovers. “Ridiculous,” Larranaga said.

“Back in September at practice, we turned the ball over like it was a good thing,” he recalled. “Everybody’s turning the ball over, turning it over, bad passes everywhere.”

Larranaga talked with his players and the message worked as the team’s offensive flow and efficiency improved. The team has had 16 games with single-digit turnover performances.

No. 17 UCLA beats No. 16 USC, 75-68, finishes second in Pac-12

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LOS ANGELES – The UCLA Bruins could shout “We’re number two!” and feel good about it for now.

Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 27 points and No. 17 UCLA defeated 16th-ranked Southern California 75-68 on Saturday night to claim the No. 2 seed in next week’s Pac-12 Tournament. No. 2 Arizona earned the top seed with 18 league victories.

“We’re definitely focused and locked in going into the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments,” said Jules Bernard, who added 19 points.

The Bruins (23-6, 15-5 Pac-12) came into the teams’ regular-season finale tied for second in the league with their crosstown rival. They snapped a five-game skid against the Trojans with their first win in the series since Feb. 28, 2019, and first under third-year coach Mick Cronin.

“It definitely means a lot to end the regular season on a good note,” Bernard said.

Jaquez has scored 57 points in the Bruins’ last two games, including a career-high 30 against Washington.

“I’m just feeling a lot better,” he said. “My ankles are doing a lot better right now.”

Johnny Juzang returned for UCLA after missing two games with a sprained right ankle. He finished with eight points, missing two free throws with 30 seconds left and the Bruins clinging to a four-point lead.

Bernard went 3 of 4 at the free-throw line to close out the win.

The Trojans (25-6, 14-6) were led by Isaiah Mobley with 20 points and eight rebounds. Boogie Ellis and Drew Peterson added 13 points each. Except for scoring the game’s first basket, the Trojans trailed the rest of the way. But they made it close at the end.

Fueled by a raucous, profanity-chanting student section, the Bruins’ defense forced 15 turnovers in avenging a 67-64 loss to the Trojans last month at Galen Center. UCLA had just one turnover – by Myles Johnson – for its fewest in any game on record and fewest by a Pac-12 team on record.

“Just sharing the ball, not trying to force anything, playing good offense,” Jaquez said.

USC tied the game 47-all on a four-point play by Ellis that capped a 12-6 run to open the second half.

Jaquez dunked one-handed to spark six straight points by UCLA before Peterson scored five in a row to draw the Trojans within one.

Jaquez took over, scoring on three consecutive possessions in a 16-4 run that gave UCLA its largest lead, 69-56. The Trojans committed four turnovers in short order and Ellis picked up his third foul.

But USC regrouped and closed to 70-68 with a 12-1 spurt, including seven points by Mobley, as the Bruins went cold.

“I didn’t like the way we finished the game. We had some egregious errors down the stretch,” Cronin said. “We did everything we could to let them back in. We should have won by double figures.”

Cody Riley hit a turnaround jumper in the lane that kept UCLA ahead 72-68.

Max Agbonkpolo committed USC’s final turnover with 31 seconds to play. Reese Dixon-Waters and Ellis missed 3-pointers and Ellis missed an easy layup over the final 16 seconds.

BIG PICTURE

USC: The Trojans won a school-record 25 games in the regular season and are poised to make another postseason run. They reached the Elite Eight last year.

UCLA: The Bruins went 5-1 in making the Final Four at last year’s NCAA Tournament and they are eager to go a step further with their talent-laden roster.

GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

The Bruins marked the 50th anniversary of the program’s 1972 national championship at halftime. Among the players gathered at center court were Bill Walton, Jamaal Wilkes, Henry Bibby, Larry Farmer and Sven Nater, along with assistant coach Gary Cunningham. UCLA went undefeated in 1971-72 under coach John Wooden en route to winning the school’s eighth NCAA basketball title.

SENIOR NIGHT

Bernard, Riley and David Singleton were honored before the game, although it might not be the seniors’ last. All three could return next season since the NCAA has granted extra eligibility to players because of COVID-19.

UP NEXT

Both teams earned first-round byes for the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas and will open play on Thursday. The Bruins play the winner of No. 7 Washington State against No. 10 California. The third-seeded Trojans play either No. 6 Washington or No. 11 Utah in the quarterfinals. If both teams win, the Bruins and Trojans could meet in the semifinals.