EUGENE, Ore. — Joseph Young scored 19 points and Elgin Cook added 15 to lead Oregon to 75-67 victory over Southern California on Thursday night.
The win snapped a two-game Pac-12 losing streak for the Ducks (13-6, 3-3), who have won their last nine games against the Trojans (9-9, 1-5). Dillon Brooks finished with 12 points for Oregon, and Jalil Abdul-Bassit had 11 off the bench.
Julian Jacobs and Katin Reinhardt led USC with 16 points each. Jordan McLaughlin added 14 and Nikola Jovanovic had 10 to go with 10 rebounds.
Jordan Bell, who went to the bench late in the game after taking an elbow to the face, finished with 13 rebounds as the Ducks grabbed a 45-37 edge on the boards. Young also had seven rebounds.
Oregon finished 25 of 31 from the foul line to just 11 of 18 for the Trojans. The Ducks scored 12 of their last 14 points on free throws.
After trailing by as many as 15 points twice early in the second half, USC fought back behind Reinhardt and Jovanovic to pull even at 61 with 5:40 left on Jacobs’ three-point play.
However, the Trojans couldn’t score again as the Ducks were 7 of 8 on free throws during a clinching 9-0 run over the next five minutes for a 70-61 lead.
Oregon made 12 of its last 14 free throws after USC had tied the score.
The Ducks opened the game on a 16-2 run by hitting six of their first seven shots and with Bell, the Pac-12’s second-leading shot blocker, rejecting two of USC’s first six attempts. The Trojans climbed back with their own 12-2 burst, but they weren’t able to pull closer than four points in the opening half.
Young, who was coming off a season-low eight points in Sunday’s 85-77 loss at Washington, had 13 points in the first half, including the 1,000th in his 53rd game as a Duck.
Abdul-Bassit, Oregon’s only other senior, added nine points off the bench as the Ducks led 44-31 at the break. McLaughlin had 10 points to lead the Trojans at halftime.
TIP-INS
USC: The Trojans haven’t won in Eugene since the end of the 2008-09 conference season when the Ducks were still playing at McArthur Court and current Washington State coach Ernie Kent was in his penultimate year at Oregon.
Oregon: Joseph Young’s short jumper late in the first half gave the senior his 1,000th point as a Duck. He’s the fourth Oregon player to reach that milestone in two seasons and the 33rd in school history. Young, who played his first two seasons at Houston, is 72 points shy of 2,000 for his collegiate career.
UP NEXT
USC plays at Oregon State on Saturday.
Oregon hosts UCLA on Saturday.
