UWA men fall to Southern Cal

LOS ANGELES – West Alabama men’s basketball fell to Southern California 73-57 in exhibition play at the Galen Center on Thursday.

USC (4-1) led the entirety of the game, securing a 45-25 lead at the half. West Alabama (1-1) battled back shooting 8-for-14 (57.1 percent) from the three-point arc in the second half to outscore the Trojans 32-28 in the final 20 minutes.

“We just had a hard time getting our guys to buy into what we were trying to do tonight,” said UWA head men’s basketball coach Mark Downey.

“We really wanted to take this as a practice and emphasize being patient offensively and sharing the ball. In the first half we didn’t do that very well. We definitely improved tonight, especially in the second half. We played better tonight, but we still have to clean some things. What we can really take from this is that we ended on a positive which is something we haven’t done in the past three games. That gets us going into Montevallo on the right foot.”

USC’s Bryon Wesley led the Trojans with 15 points, while Nikola Jovanovic finished 5-for-6 from the field (2-for-2 three-point field goals) for 14 points.

Desmond Raymond and Sandy Underwood led the Tigers on offense. Raymond posted 18 points as well as three steals. Underwood tallied 16.

Cordell Pope shot 3-for-4 three-pointers in the second half scoring all nine of his points.

The Tigers will return home to take on Montevallo on Wednesday. Tipoff is set for 4:00 p.m. in Pruitt Hall.