Pe’shon Howard was directing his teammates around, yelling and gesticulating wildly. The sophomore point guard, who came off a tremendous 23-point performance in USC’s 84-78 victory over Xavier in the Bahamas, was visibly unhappy with his team’s defensive execution and transition play. At this point, with 5:19 left in the first half, Boston College had just responded to USC’s catching up and pulled away by five again. 

“Boston College is way better than their record indicates,” Howard said. “We knew it was gonna be a tough game, but the main thing was just to keep the pressure on them.”

For most of the first half, the Trojans were fighting an up-hill battle. It took more than 10 minutes for USC to catch up with the Eagles, when center Omar Oraby hit a bucket to make it 20 all, and it was not until 3:43 left in the half that the Trojans took the lead for the first time through Roschon Prince at 27-25.

When the momentum just seemed to have swung in USC’s favor, BC sophomore guard Joe Rahon tied the score in the last second of the half at 32. 

Nonetheless, starting off the second half, the Trojans managed to defend against the Eagles’ quick offensive play better and soon took over control of the pace of the game. 

USC picked up their three point shooting and improved from 22.2 percent in the first half to 37.5 percent shooting from downtown for the entire game. They also defended better against their opponents’ three-point shooting. 

The Trojans were dominating in the paint. The team had 44 rebounds, with Julien Jacobs contributing eight, Nikola Jovanovic seven and Oraby, Prince and Byron Wesley had five each. 

USC’s head coach Andy Enfield was pleased with his team’s performance under the glass: “We did a good job using our size offensively in the first half and, in the second half, we did a good job defensive rebounding...and we need out guards to be rebounding on that type of level to be effective.”

When the Eagles came close for the last time in the game with a three-pointer to cut the Trojans’ lead to 40-35, Howard immediately netted a three-pointer in response.

Coming off a 23-point game against Xavier, Howard looked very strong and energetic again, but as the best passer on the team, Enfield emphasized that while he was impressed with his offensive and defensive performance: “He had four assists today, but he probably should have had six or seven.”

Moving up to 46-35 very fast, the Trojans gained a comfortable lead, which they were able to maintain throughout the rest of the game. USC now seemed to have an answer for everything Boston College did. 

USC was very effective from the three-point line with Howard going 3-9, Jacobs 2-2 and Wesley hitting one out of two. 

With the game winding down, the Trojans started to pull further away and extended their lead into the double digits. 

Howard had a terrific assist when he laid-up the ball against the glass and left it for Jacobs to slam-dunk it to make it 60-49.

USC had six steals and five blocks and a couple of plays later, Oraby had a monster block, which initiated a quick counter attack that looked a lot of like what coach Enfield seems to envision for the team’s up-tempo system. 

“I thought it was terrific. We really did well with getting our hands on the ball and by challenging all lot of their three-point shots and getting rebounds we created a lot of offensive transitions,” Enfield said. 

The Trojans capped the game with a series of dunks by Jacobs, Wesley and Jovanovich demonstrating their dominance and seal the commanding 78-62 win.

Five players on USC’s team scored in the double digits, including three freshmen led by Jacobs (16 points), Jovanovic (15), and Prince (14). 

“They’ve had a great week of practice and I saw improvements in those three freshman particularly this week,“ Enfield noted.

The Trojans improved to 6-3 with the win over Boston College and are now 5-0 at home. 

 

Reach Staff Writer Alexander Wowra here.