USC’s Crunch Time Mistakes Lead to Heartbreaking Loss to Providence

The Trojans season comes to an end at the hands of a game-winning layup

USC was playing with house money. They had already tested their luck and taken the basketball gods to their limit with their missed free throws and spurned opportunities. They had received many a chance to close out a first round victory over Providence in the NCAA Tournament. They had squandered them.

With 58 seconds left, freshman Bennie Boatwright missed a free-throw that would have eventually made the Trojans’ lead two points, not one. With 40 seconds left, Jordan McLaughlin grabbed a rebound only to miss the point-blank layup on the other end. That would have made the Trojans’ lead three points. With 27 seconds left, Elijah Stewart missed the front end of his free-throws, which would have again made the lead three.

With 12 seconds left, Julian Jacobs dribbled the ball off his foot on the inbound pass. The turnover was saved by the shrill of the referee’s whistle, which sent Jacobs to the line, rendering his mistake meaningless. And so Jacobs, the veteran guard and leader of the team took the stripe to do what Stewart and Boatwright could not: Ice this game. Or at the very least make the Friars hit a three.

Jacobs missed his free shot as well.

Altogether, the Trojans missed six free-throws, half of them coming in the last minute. The crunch-time mistakes compounded into a situation that sparked premonitions. USC was somehow going to blow this game.

A game that they had won, through patient play and cunning zone defense. A game they had approached correctly, executed adequately. A game where they were not shooting the lights out, but instead playing the hand they were dealt and using defense as their driving force.

The Trojans forced Providence’s Top 10 pick Kris Dunn into foul trouble, while four of their starters reached double digits. They shot better from the field and from downtown than the Friars, out-rebounded and out-stole them.

All empty stats in the end, as the 12 turnovers and missed free-throws would come back to bite them in the most agonizing way possible.

And so we return, to when the clock read three seconds, and Providence, thanks to the mistakes of those in Cardinal and Gold, somehow had a chance to escape with a win.

Confused and befuddled by the game they seemingly had in their hands being at risk of slipping through the cracks, USC made a final mistake.

In what was a brilliantly called out of bounds play by coach Ed Cooley, the Friars’ Rodney Bullock found himself below the basket, with an abnormal amount of the paint uninhabited and the ball in his hands. The layup that ensued was the receipt the Trojans received after all their expenditures. In Raleigh late Thursday night, the currency was not money, however, but rather missed free-throws and turnovers leading to the culmination of a heartbreaking loss.

Here’s how the play unfolded:

If the final play was the nail in the coffin of a game they lost, then USC’s mistakes leading up to it were all the makings of that coffin. Without, the former, you don’t have the latter. Without the mistakes, even just one of them, the result may have been altered.

USC’s first March Madness stint since 2011 was cut short abruptly and in most gutting fashion. Yet if there is a silver lining to the gloom, it’s the future that lays on the horizon of this program’s journey. With all starters expected to return, and another cohort of talented recruits entering the fold, Andy Enfield’s squad will go from laughingstock to perennial favorite in the Pac-12.

And who knows, maybe the lingering taste of this loss may turn out to be a short-term loss, but a long-term gain once March rolls back around.

You can reach Sports Editor Paolo Uggetti here, or follow him on Twitter @PaoloUggetti