LOS ANGELES – On New Year’s Eve, with an NFL game on the other side of campus and the country’s preseason No. 10 in a bit of a rut, a Pac-12 basketball game at the Galen Center was understandably not the most popular gathering of Los Angelans, or perhaps even USC fans, on Sunday night.
Thus, it could’ve been an ideal scenario for the Cougars to snare an unlikely win on the road, especially from the 5:43 mark of the first half on. That’s when USC’s high-rising, ball-swatting junior forward Chimezie Metu was disqualified for swinging a closed fist into Carter Skaggs’ groin following a 3-point attempt.