Cal Basketball: Unbeaten USC Pulls Away From Bears in the Second Half

Cal simply had no answer for the Trojans' size, allowing 50 points in the paint.

No. 7 USC is the fourth-tallest team in the country and the Trojans used that length to stay undefeated at the expense of Cal on Thursday night.

The Trojans converted eight offensive rebounds into 10 second-chance points in the first half. Then they merely attacked basket, making 11 of their first 16 shots in the second half on the way to a 77-63 victory at Haas Pavilion.

By the time it was over, the Trojans had scored 50 points in the paint.

"We didn't play well enough to beat a Top-10 team tonight," Cal coach Mark Fox says in the video at the top of this story. "We simply didn't rebound the ball in the first half. And in the second half we didn't force enough stops to even have our rebounding exposed."

Cal (9-5, 2-2 Pac-12) had won five straight games and nine in a row at home. And Bears played well during long stretches of the game.

They simply had no answer for the Trojans’ physical advantage, although Cal guard Jordan Shepherd said the Bears simply didn't measure up defensively.

USC (13-0, 3-0), with seven players standing at least 6-foot-9, overpowered the Bears in the second half. Isaiah Mobley, a 6-foot-10 forward, put up 19 points scoring on dunks, drives while also making both of his 3-point attempts.

The Trojans, who hadn't played in 18 days, used an 8-0 to push their lead to 46-35 on a drive by Ethan Anderson with 14:25 left. But the Bears did not go away.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jordan Shepherd and Jalen Celestine and a pair of free throws by Shepherd pulled Cal within 52-48 with just over 10 minutes left.

The Bears got no closer, and when Joshua Morgan scored a layup with 5:18 left the Trojans had their biggest lead of the night at 65-53. That margin reached 15 points before the Bears closed a bit in the final minutes.

Drew Peterson scored 17 points and Boogie Ellis had 14 points for USC, which shot 64 percent in the second half. Peterson and Mobley each had nine rebounds.

Grant Anticevich, who led the Bears with 19 points, says in the video below he feels like the Bears gave the game away. Cal, playing two top-10 teams in the same week for the first time since 1975, takes on No. 5 UCLA on Saturday

Shepherd, limited in the first half by two early fouls, scored 15 for the Bears and Andre Kelly had 13 points and 11 rebounds. Celestine added 10 points. Point guard Joel Brown dished a career-high nine assists and had zero turnovers in 36 minutes on the floor.

The Bears shot 40.7 percent from the field, the highest percentage any opponent has managed this season against a USC team that is second nationally, allowing just 35 percent.

Cal trailed 36-31 at halftime after allowing the Trojans to convert eight offensive rebounds into 10 second-chance points. They used their length to build a 23-14 rebounding advantage in the first 20 minutes.

Cal shot well early in a half that had 10 lead changes but the Bears closed the half by making just one of eight attempts to finish the period at 38 percent.

The Bears’ last lead the half was 17-16 after Celestine converted a drive to the basket with 11:22 left.

The Trojans built their biggest lead of the half with an 8-0 run that made it 26-20 with 8 minutes left. They scored two of those basket following offensive rebounds and another off a steal that became a breakaway dunk.

Kelly had eight points and six rebounds for the Bears at halftime and Anticevich had eight points and six rebounds. Celestine came off the bench to score seven.

Mobley had 12 points and six rebounds for USC and Peterson posted eight and six.

Cover photo of USC's Drew Peterson passing around Cal's Andre Kelly by D. Ross Cameron, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo