Tournament MVP Chad Baker-Mazara poured in 23 points and Southern California won the Maui Invitational for the first time by defeating Arizona State 88-75 in the championship game Wednesday at Lahaina, Hawaii.
Jaden Brownell provided 16 points off the USC bench, Ezra Ausar added 14 points and Jacob Cofie had 11 points. The Trojans (7-0) made 59.6% of their shots from the field,
USC played without Rodney Rice, who was out with a shoulder injury sustained Tuesday. This week marked the third time the Trojans were entered in the tournament.
Maurice Odum topped Arizona State (6-2) with 17 points and Anthony Johnson provided 15 points off the bench, while Massamba Diop and Santiago Trouet each added 13 points.
Arizona State shot 42.3% from the field, including 8-for-25 on 3-pointers. So even though the Sun Devils went 23-for-27 on free throws – and outscored USC by a dozen points from the foul line – the overall shooting snags were too much to overcome.
Baker-Mazara went 4-for-9 on 3-point shots, accounting for half of the team’s 3-point baskets. He was 9-for-16 overall from the field.
Ausar was 6-for-6 from the field.
Southern California ended up with a 32-21 advantage on the boards, led by Cofie’s eight rebounds.
The score was tied at 43-43 at halftime. Baker-Mazara scored 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half.
Back-to-back baskets by Ausar stretched the lead to 77-66 with slightly more than five minutes to play. Bryce Ford then hit a 3-pointer for the Sun Devils to snap he teams scoring drought of more than 2 1/2 minutes.
Then the offensive troubles worsened for Arizona State as it went more than three minutes without a point
That turned out to be comfortable margin for a USC team that won its previous three games by a combined six points.
–Field Level Media
