SAN DIEGO – San Diego men's basketball hung tough with a skilled USC squad as the Toreros had a second half lead in Tuesday night's affair, but were ultimately outlasted on their home floor, 94-81.
 
Behind a season-best crowd of energetic Torero Faithful in the Jenny Craig Pavilion, USD got off to a blitzing start and rode it. The USD defense forced 20-plus turnovers out of its opponents for a second straight game but were finally overcome by USC's 3-point shooting as the Trojans shot 56.3% from beyond the arc, 71.4% in a knotted first half.
 
The game featured 10 lead changes and 14 ties as San Diego – the heavy underdogs – stood their ground into the second half. The Big Ten visitors capitalized on an unfortunate three-and-a-half-minute stretch of USD mishaps, going on a run midway through the second half and USD was never able to recover.
 
Grad guard Dominique Ford led the host's scoring contingent with his best game as a Torero, dropping 22 points. USC, now at 9-1 and the third-leading unranked vote-getter in the latest AP Poll, was led by Chad Baker-Mazara's 31 points and Ezra Ausar's additional 29.
 
How it Happened

• Ford and junior forward Assane Diop returned to the USD starting lineup for the first time since Nov. 7 while freshman forward Alejandro Aviles, in his second career game made his first career start
• The Toreros were in it from the start, getting off to a 7-0 run and a lead six minutes into the game
• USD stuck through a slow shooting start thanks in part to strong defense, forcing 13 first half turnovers out of the Trojans while turning the ball over just three times themselves in the first 20 minutes
• Both teams would go into field goal shooting lulls, but USC stayed in the game nailing timely threes at a stunning rate, seeing the score tied 38-38 at the break
• It was more of the same for the first five minutes of the second half, but it only took one run in which the Toreros let their guard down for the Trojans to break away
• The turnover bug flipped almost entirely as the Toreros were punished for a strand of giveaways by a USC 13-0 and 18-2 run in a span of just 3:30
• While USD limited the damage, they couldn't make up the ground lost as the Trojans remained out of reach up until the final buzzer
• A 12-2 San Diego run in the final three minutes closed out the game as a 13-point loss for the Toreros

 
Notable

• Behind Ford, junior guard Ty-Laur Johnson added 13 points and a game-high four steals while senior guard Juanse Gorosito reached double digits for a fifth time and tallied four assists
• Aviles was solid in just his second collegiate game and first start, posting his first seven career points, two steals and an assist to go with six rebounds
• The Toreros turned the ball over just three times in the first half but a more human nine times in the second half
• San Diego forced 21-plus turnovers out of their opponents in a second straight game, notching a season-high 12 steals against the USC
• USD, top 20 nationally in free throw percentage, went 20-24 (83.3%) from the charity stripe
• 17 different Toreros saw the court in the contest
• USD 2024-25 season redshirts Emmanuel Callas and Josh Hecht scored their first points since the 2023-24 as they tallied the game's last two buckets
• It was a homecoming for USC Head Coach Eric Musselman who played for the Toreros from 1983-87 and graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Political Science … He was a part of two NCAA Tournament appearances and the 1986-87 team's program-best 24-6 record his senior year, earning WCC All-Academic Team honors three times as a Torero … In the 2000s, he became the fifth former USD player to serve as an NBA head coach — tied for the second most of any program nationally ... USC Assistant Coach Michael Musselman ('18), son of Eric, also got his start as a four-year student manager for San Diego

 
Up Next
Following the contest vs. NET No. 36 USC – the Toreros' first Quad-1 matchup of the season – USD will stay home for a Saturday matchup with Northern Arizona in what is San Diego's lone non top-100 NET opponent in a six-game stretch. Tip-off vs. the Lumberjacks is set for 3 p.m., streaming on ESPN+.