Trojans, with two regular rotation players injured, overcome Washington
The USC Trojans don’t make life easy for themselves, but then again, they weren’t in a position to make things easy for themselves on Saturday night.
Reese Dixon-Waters joined Joshua Morgan as an inactive player for the Trojans. Dixon-Waters suffered an injury at the end of Thursday’s win over Washington State. He, like Morgan, could not play. The other Trojans on the roster had to band together against Washington. USC needed to avoid a damaging loss, a resume-crushing event. The Trojans were on course for the NCAA Tournament, but they couldn’t afford to slip up.
When Washington took a 60-58 lead with under 4:30 left, the Trojans knew they would have to sweat out another test in the white-hot spotlight. NCAA Tournament pressure weighs down a lot of teams. USC had to show it could handle the heat.
Enter Kobe Johnson.
The USC glue guy hit a three, drew an offensive foul, collected a steal, and hit several free throws in the final 3:10 to help the Trojans score an 80-74 win over Washington. The result keeps the Men of Troy on course to reach the NCAA Tournament. Winning without Dixon-Waters and Morgan shows how tough this team is.
A few more tough and successful games will get the Trojans back to the field of 68 one more time.
