by Jerry Feitelberg

The University of California Men’s basketball team travelled to Los Angeles Wednesday evening to face the USC Trojans in a PAC-12 Contest. The Bears were 1-1 in conference play so far this season while USC was 0-2 having suffered two huge losses to Utah and Colorado. However, it was the Trojans that shut down the Bears by a final score of 71-57.

The Trojans got off to a fast start and led the Bears by 15 at one point in the first half. The Bears made a run and narrowed the gap to 38-29 at the end of the first 20 minutes of play 38-29.

It was more of the same in the second half as all the Bears could do was score 28 points and were not able to overcome the deficit and fell to the Trojans 71-57.

The Bears were led by junior guard Tyrone Mathews’ 21 points and sophomore guard Jordan Mathews added 17 and the rest of the team put up just 19 points.

USC was led by Nikola Jovanovic (20) Julian Jacobs(17) and Katin Reinhardt(16).

The Bears had a new starting lineup as coach Martin had sophomore Roger Moute a Bidias and freshman Kingsley Okoruh record their first career starts.

The Bears are now 11-5 overall and 1-2 in conference play and the meet the struggling UCLA Bruins Sunday at Pauley Pavilion at 4:30pm.