USC’s Luck Runs Out in Loss to Utah : College basketball: No. 13 Utes waste little time putting away Trojans, 84-49.

USC had a flashback Saturday night against No. 13 Utah and it was not pretty.

The same forced shots, bad passes and poor rebounding that plagued the Trojans in finishing 7-21 last season returned in their 84-49 loss to the Utes before 13,827 at the Jon M. Huntsman Center.

Three days after scoring 118 points in a victory over George Mason, USC (6-2) managed only 18 first-half points and was outrebounded, 58-26. The Trojans shot only 34% from the field and their leading scorer was Ty Reuter with 12 points. Brandon Martin, who scored a career-high 29 points against George Mason, scored six points on two-of-three shooting from the field in 31 minutes.

“Things that we had ignored previously caught up with us this game,” said Martin, who did not attempt his first field goal until five minutes remained in the first half. “Things like rebounding and our transition defense. All of our basic principles as a team.”

After winning six of its first seven games, USC pointed to its matchup with Utah (7-2) as the Trojans’ first real test of the season. Knowing that Utah’s only losses came on the road against No. 1 Kansas and No. 12 Wake Forest on Thursday, the Trojans figured that they would get a good reading on where they stood as a team with the Pacific 10 Conference schedule approaching.

They found out that they’re miles away from competing with the nation’s best on the road.

“We got a good lesson in basketball,” USC Coach Charlie Parker said. “They played harder and were more physical than us. We came out and took some ill-advised shots, and you can’t do that against a good team like Utah.”

The Utes had a field day against a listless Trojan team that made only six field goals and shot 21% in the first half. USC’s inside play was so bad that Utah sophomore center Michael Doleac, who averaged only 8.1 points and 8.5 rebounds going into the game, had eight points and 12 rebounds in the first 10 minutes of the game.

Utah’s Keith Van Horn, a 6-foot-9 junior from Diamond Bar, single-handedly outscored USC in the first half with 19 points on six-of-nine shooting from the field.

“Our first-shot defense was pretty good, but our rebounding killed us,” Parker said. “That was a major disappointment because that did not enable us to get out and run and get some easy baskets.”

Any hopes for the Trojans to make the game competitive in the second half ended quickly when Van Horn, who finished with 25 points and nine rebounds, made two of his five three-point shots in the first two minutes.

When Van Horn left the game after injuring his right wrist following a collision with USC’s Maurice Strong with 12 minutes remaining, Brandon Jessie took over for the Utes.

In his second game back after an NCAA suspension cost him the first seven games of the season, Jessie finished with 14 points and five rebounds.

“I’m all about effort,” said Utah Coach Rick Majerus, who in his seven years at Utah has an 87-10 record at the Huntsman Center and has won 25 consecutive games at home. “We came back and played like a team should after losing a game. . . . We played great defense all around.”

It was understandable why USC came into the game confident against the Utes based on last year’s matchup between the teams. With Utah playing with essentially the same lineup it used Saturday night, the Trojans led for most of game only to lose, 72-70, when a last-second shot by Martin missed by inches.

USC’s leading scorer, Stais Boseman, finished with eight points, and its leading rebounder, Jaha Wilson, had a team-high four.

“We just had a poor overall effort by the whole team,” Reuter said. “Not anything good came from this game. We came in thinking that we were a little better than we really were. Hopefully, we learned a lesson tonight.”

USC, which will play only one out of its next 11 games at the Sports Arena, will travel to Honolulu the day after Christmas to play in the Rainbow Classic. The Trojans will open the tournament against No. 11 Missouri Dec. 28.