From ESPN.com:
O.J. Mayo had 19 points, Davon Jefferson added 18 and USC spoiled Kevin Mouton's coaching debut with a 68-44 win over Oregon State on Thursday.
Mayo played despite reports that he may have violated NCAA rules by accepting free tickets to the Denver Nuggets-Los Angeles Lakers game Monday night.
Taj Gibson added 14 points and 14 rebounds for the Trojans (12-6, 3-3 Pacific-10).
Pretty solid game overall. SC jumped out to an early lead, but completely lost focus to end the 1st half allowing Oregon State to make a 15-pt run to cut the lead down to 2 points. Slow starts and lapses in play seem to be the big issues for the team right now. Mike Montgomery pointed out that the team has a tendency to look "bored" at times and plays at the level of their opponents. That is almost always the mark of a young team.
SC regained their focus to start the 2nd half going on a 12-0 run, holding the Beavers scoreless for the first 5 minutes. The game was pretty much sealed at that point and SC cruised to a comfortable victory. I thought the major positive from the game was the team making the extra pass for the open J. Earlier in the season, we were catching and shooting immediately, but now you see guys utilizing the pump fake and making the extra pass to the open man. We're going to have to do a lot of that against an athletic guard-oriented Ducks team on Saturday.
