USC basketball: Trojans trail Arizona State at halftime, 31-29

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USC isn’t struggling that much against Arizona State’s zone defense tonight at the Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe, Ariz., running counter to the Trojans’ season-long trend. In fact, the Trojans are playing well.

And despite their seven-man rotation, the Trojans have overcome a slow start and a big deficit to trail the Sun Devils by only two points at halftime, 31-29.

USC started slow and fell behind, 19-8, with 11 minutes 47 seconds left till halftime.

At that point, junior forward Nikola Vucevic had scored all of USC’s points, hitting his first four shots.

But trailing 21-10, USC went on a 10-2 run, capped by a layup from senior guard Donte Smith, with 8:12 left.

A particularly telling moment occurred a few minutes later, when Arizona State’s 6-foot-4 freshman guard Keala King was able to grab two offensive rebounds to keep alive one Sun Devils possession, which he ended with a layup to put Arizona State up, 27-20, with 5:18 left.

Because USC has a thin bench, down another man after freshman guard Bryce Jones’ recent departure, its two 6-foot-10 forwards -- Vucevic and Alex Stepheson -- often get little rest, and each looked tired battling King on the glass on that possession.

Freshman guard Maurice Jones, who has been told lately that he needs to be more aggressive on offense, hit two three-point jumpers for USC to close the half.

USC is shooting 12 for 25 (48%) and is led by 11 points and seven rebounds from Vucevic.

Arizona State is shooting 10 for 22 (45.5%) and is led by 11 points from senior guard Ty Abbott.

USC is outrebounding Arizona State, 18-11, but has 10 turnovers to Arizona State’s seven.

-- Baxter Holmes in Tempe, Ariz.