USC basketball team is edged by Wisconsin in third-place game in Bahamas
Chucky Hepburn capped a 17-point game with a steal and layup with 10.5 seconds to play to secure Wisconsin’s 64-59 win over USC in the Battle for Atlantis third-place game Friday.
The Badgers closed the game with a 10-2 run, six points coming from Hepburn.
Both teams were coming off overtime losses to ranked teams in the semifinals and played another nail-biter. There were seven ties and 10 lead changes, with USC’s largest lead being seven points and Wisconsin’s five.
Boogie Ellis had 21 points and USC forced Tennessee into overtime but couldn’t come up with a win at the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas.
Both teams also had eight-point runs, but Wisconsin’s came within the last five minutes after Drew Peterson’s three-pointer put USC ahead 57-54 with 5:42 to play. Tyler Wahl and Hepburn alternated baskets in the game-changing run as the Trojans went scoreless for 4:52 and missed eight straight shots.
Boogie Ellis ended the drought with 50 seconds to go, and after a miss by Hepburn coming out of a timeout, Hepburn picked Peterson’s pocket near the top of the key and went down and iced the game with a pump-fake layup.
Boogie Ellis scored 21 of his 27 points after the break to help USC beat BYU 82-76 in Wednesday’s first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Wahl scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Badgers (5-1), who face Wake Forest on Tuesday in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Conner Essegian had four three-pointers and 12 points off the bench. Wisconsin’s three games in the Bahamas were decided by one, one and five points.
Peterson went five for six behind the three-point arc and scored 17 points and added 10 rebounds. Ellis, the top scorer for USC (4-3) at 18.5 points per game, finished with 15 points, but he had only two in the second half. The Trojans open Pac-12 Conference play at California on Wednesday.
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