Southern California Trojans vs Colorado Buffaloes Match Player Stats On Mar 09, 2019

Colorado's late-season run continued Saturday as freshman forward Evan Battey scored 21 points and the Buffaloes earned a 78-67 Pac-12 Conference victory over Southern California at Boulder, Colo.

Colorado closed out the regular season with eight victories in its last 10 games, including three consecutive and a sweep at home of the Los Angeles schools after a dominating 93-68 victory over UCLA on Thursday.

Junior forward Nick Rakocevic scored 17 points with 10 rebounds as the Trojans lost their fourth consecutive game in advance of the Pac-12 tournament next week at Las Vegas. Junior guard Jonah Mathews had 13 points for USC.

Sophomore guard McKinley Wright IV and sophomore forward Tyler Bey each scored 17 points while Bey added 11 rebounds for the Buffaloes.

Colorado had a chance to pick up a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament, but UCLA squashed those hopes when it lost against Utah later in the day.

In as big a game as it has played all season, Colorado struggled to get its offense going early. USC led by as many as 12 points in the first half at 33-21 with 3:11 remaining.

But Colorado opened the second half on a 7-2 run, with five points coming from Wright, to close the gap to 39-37. The Buffaloes took a 44-43 lead with 12:57 to play on layup from Battey.

The score was 52-52 with nine minutes remaining before Colorado went on a 12-6 run to take a 64-58 lead with 5:05 to play on a fast-break dunk from Bey.

Colorado held Trojans leading scorer Bennie Boatwright to nine points while forcing the 6-foot-10 forward into foul trouble. When Boatwright went to the bench with his fourth foul and 11:54 remaining, he had just six points and three rebounds.

Boatwright returned to hit a 3-pointer but then fouled out with just over three minutes remaining on an offensive foul. His nine points ended his streak of 20 consecutive games in double digits. It was just the third time all season he did not score at least 10 points.

After Boatwright's 3-pointer with 6:05 remaining, Colorado went on a 12-2 run to take a 72-60 lead with 1:26 remaining and cruised to the victory from there.

--Field Level Media