USC basketball’s latest collapse vs Washington is requiem for lost season

CHICAGO — Some sat at their lockers with heads down, others with blank stares.

The disappointment hung thick in the air after an eighth consecutive loss that registered as one final letdown for the USC basketball team.

“I mean, it’s hard,” graduate guard Ryan Cornish told The California Post on Wednesday before taking off his uniform for the last time as a college player. “Ending the season, especially for the seniors, it’s not something you want to go through.”

Coach Eric Musselman indicated that the season was over.

There will be no National Invitation Tournament for this team, not after the way the Trojans played over the last five weeks and all the injuries they had accumulated since the season’s early going.

“I can’t wait to get to work for next year,” Musselman said, “starting tonight when I get back to the hotel.”

There’s no point in looking back, not after USC’s 83-79 overtime loss to Washington in its Big Ten Tournament opener at the United Center fit a frustratingly familiar pattern.

The Trojans came out strong. They looked connected. They took the lead.

Then the second half started, and the inevitable collapse came.

A 13-point lead was wiped out in a matter of minutes. A chance at going ahead in the final seconds of regulation was lost. So was another one late in overtime.

“That’s been the story of our last eight games,” said Musselman, who has presided over the Trojans’ longest losing streak since they dropped nine in a row during the middle of the 2014-15 season. “I think we’ve led at halftime four of our last eight games, and as a group, we haven’t figured out how to close games the last 20 minutes with a lead. Disappointing last eight games of the season.”

After appearing in a good position to make the NCAA Tournament as recently as early February, the Trojans (18-14) weren’t included in any projections over the last week or so.

Trying to inject some new life into a season fading to black, Musselman juggled his starting lineup Wednesday, going with Cornish for the first time since Feb. 8.

What was significant about that date? It was USC’s last victory, on the road against Penn State.

It looked like there might be some repeat magic given Cornish’s early impact against the Huskies. The 6-foot-5 guard swished two 3-pointers, found Kam Woods cutting for a layup and took two charges in the first 12 minutes.

After building a seven-point halftime lead, the Trojans looked like they were finally going to change the narrative about their second-half struggles. They stretched their advantage to 57-44 on a free throw by Woods with 13:07 left.

Somehow, only 2 ½ minutes later, the score was tied.

What happened?

Said Woods: “I would say it was (on the) defensive side. We could have gotten more stops and took the life away from them.”

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Said forward Jacob Cofie: “I’d say it was a combination of things. I feel like we could have done a better job following the game plan.”

Musselman, who coached in the NBA before successful college stints at Nevada and Arkansas preceding his move to USC, called this season-ending stretch “the toughest by far” of his career.

“In the NBA, you go through four-game losing streaks, and it happens,” said Musselman, who is now 35-32 in two seasons at USC. “Normally our teams start to get cooking at this time of year, and we prided ourselves on that, whether it was Nevada or Arkansas. I’ve never experienced anything like this, but we’ve got to get better obviously.

“Like I said, when I look back and things that we’ve always talked about at Nevada, we’re never losing two games in a row. That was our theme. We lose a game, and it’s like stop the bleeding right now. We couldn’t do that this year for whatever reason.”

No answers were forthcoming in a quiet locker room, the silence pierced only by players’ answers to a reporter’s questions. 

“It sucks losing,” senior forward Ezra Ausar said after his final college game. “We let the game slip away as a team.”

How much does it hurt?

“Words,” Ausar said, his voice trailing off, “can’t describe it.”