Isaiah Mobley, USC top Eastern Kentucky to stay perfect

2 years ago 342

LOS ANGELES — The USC men’s hoops squad extended its season-opening triumph streak to 9 games connected Tuesday night, beating Eastern Kentucky, 80-68.

The Trojans’ Isaiah Mobley had a career-high 23 points to spell with a career-high-tying 13 rebounds. Drew Peterson had 15 points, Chevez Goodwin logged 14 points and 7 rebounds and Max Agbonkpolo had 12 points and 5 assists.

The 16th-ranked Trojans (9-0 overall, 2-0 Pac-12) are disconnected to their champion commencement since 2016-17 erstwhile they opened 14-0.

USC’s flashy show started early, with Mobley corralling a missed escaped propulsion and leaping for a dunk adjacent the 17-minute mark. Curt Lewis drained a 3-pointer to get EKU a little lead, but Mobley made 1 of his ain to enactment USC ahead, 8-6.

USC raced to a 17-6 pb to commencement the game, including 12 consecutive points, with Mobley scoring 7 points. The Colonels (5-5) missed 14 of their archetypal 16 shots.

A Max Agbonkpolo bargain led to a dunk 5 minutes into the archetypal half, and USC continued to physique its pb arsenic the timepiece edged person to halftime.

Within the past 5 minutes of the half, Drew Peterson made a 3-pointer and Joshua Morgan and Peterson added dunks to assistance the Trojans widen the borderline to 41-25 by halftime.

USC changeable 53% successful the fractional and its defence held the Colonels to 26% from the floor.

The Trojans had different violative burst to unfastened the 2nd half. They outscored the Colonels 17-9 to propulsion their pb to 58-34. Morgan dunked doubly much and USC deed 4 3-pointers successful the spurt, including 2 by Mobley.

Mobley, who changeable 8 for 10 wide and 5 for 6 from down the arc, looked comfy each night. His 5 3-pointers tied his vocation high.

The Colonels managed to enactment unneurotic their champion agelong of the game, going connected a 15-5 run, led by six points from Lewis, to adjacent to 63-49. USC responded by moving disconnected 9 successful a row. Peterson threw down a monster jam, getting fouled and making the escaped throw.

Mobley and the remainder of USC’s starters sat down. That’s erstwhile the Colonels recovered their touch. They scored 11 points successful a row, hitting 3 consecutive 3-pointers to get to 74-62. They outscored USC 43-39 successful the 2nd half.

That forced the Trojans to bring backmost the starting 5 for the last 2 minutes.

Boogie Ellis, USC’s starring scorer astatine 14 points a game, went scoreless. He was 0 for 10 and missed each of his 7 3-point attempts. He had 5 rebounds and 5 assists.

Beverly’s 3-pointer chopped USC’s pb to 78-68 with 1½ minutes left. The Colonels deed 5 consecutive 3-pointers to extremity the game.

Eastern Kentucky, which mislaid its 4th crippled successful a row, was led by Braxton Beverly with 16 points.