CORVALLIS, Ore. — Onyeka Okongwu scored 18 points and had several highlight-reel dunks to lead Southern California to a 75-55 victory over Oregon State on Saturday.
USC (16-4, 5-2 Pac-12) never trailed and had balanced scoring with four players in double figures.
Oregon State (12-8, 2-6) has lost four in a row and failed to score 60 points in three of those defeats.
USC went up 46-34 on Nick Rakocevic’s three-point play, but Oregon State answered with 3-pointers from Zach Reichle and Antoine Vernon to cut the lead to 46-40 at the 12:53 mark.
The Trojans responded with a 14-0 run, culminated by Jonah Mathews’ jumper, and led by 20 points with seven minutes left.
USC was in control from the outset.
Oregon State made just 2 of its first 12 shots and trailed 17-7 midway through the first half.
A 13-0 run extended the Trojans’ lead to 30-8.
But Oregon State worked itself back into the game behind Tres Tinkle’s 12 points, and concluded the half on a 20-8 run to trail 36-28 at the break despite shooting just 32.1% from the field compared to 57.7% for USC.
Tinkle led the Beavers with 17 points.
BIG PICTURE
USC: The Trojans have won 10 of their last 12 games and improved to 5-2 on the road. … They dominated Oregon State coming off a double-overtime loss at Oregon.
Oregon State: The Beavers fell to 1-3 in conference home games. … Tinkle’s two free throws late in first half gave him 35 in a row, a school record, and moved him past Steve Johnson into second place on the school’s career scoring list. Tinkle also extended his double-figure scoring streak to 85 games.
UP NEXT
Oregon State will be at Stanford on Thursday.
