INDIANAPOLIS — Wesley Yates III sat in disbelief at his locker, rewinding the video over and over on his phone, reliving the same moment when USC’s season slipped away in a 76-71 loss to Purdue. With each successive watch, it only made less sense.
“They took it away from us,” Yates said. “That’s how I feel.”
He shook his head, rewinding it one more time.
In the final seconds of Thursday night’s back-and-forth battle, the Trojans were down three, their season hanging by a thread, when the redshirt freshman came flying around a screen.
USC scratched and clawed its way to that point in its first Big Ten tournament, outlasting Rutgers in double overtime the night before, only to find itself in another dogfight with Purdue. The Trojans’ legs, after a roller-coaster 24 hours, were fading.
But as Yates sprinted around the arc, where point guard Desmond Claude was waiting to find him, he felt his shoulder suddenly yanked backward. His feet slipped out from under him.
As he hit the hardwood, Yates looked up to see Purdue’s Braden Smith, whose arm he swore was extended into his spine just a split-second prior, with the ball in hand.
Claude threw up his hands toward the referee. Yates looked around, searching for an explanation. Eric Musselman, the Trojans’ coach, hurled expletives for all to see on the jumbotron.
The frustration had only festered by the time the Trojans reached the locker room. Josh Cohen stomped around, ranting to no one in particular. Saint Thomas sat silent in the hallway, a towel over his head. All the while Yates clung tight to his phone, as if it somehow would provide him an answer.
“I just don’t understand how it’s not called with the game on the line,” Yates said. “No one expected us to come out here and do this. I feel like we got robbed of something that we worked for.”
He paused, looking down at his phone at a freeze-frame of Smith’s arm hooked under his shoulder.
“They had it in their hands,” he said.
Claude sat nearby, his eyes puffy and red. After sitting out for much of the night in foul trouble, he came alive in the final 10 minutes, at one point scoring 10 in a row to keep USC afloat. The ball had been in his hands just one play prior, with 28 seconds left and the Trojans down two.
No other Trojan scored since the nine-minute mark. So out of a timeout, Musselman put the ball in Claude’s hands again, entrusting him with the season on the line.
Immediately, he saw a lane. He sprinted to the center of the paint, lifting off for a floater. He was dominating the midrange, and the look was clean. The shot was one he hit so many times before.
But it hit the back iron. Purdue got the rebound. And USC was forced to foul.
“I should make that,” Claude said. “There’s no excuse for why I didn’t make that. I make that all the time.”
A missed free throw from Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn, who scored 30 on Thursday, kept USC’s hopes alive.
But then Yates hit the deck, Claude’s pass was intercepted, and the Trojans’ run was done.
“The refs gave them the game,” said Claude, who finished with 18 points. “He got fouled. It’s on video. There were a few calls even before that. We’ve got to do a better job of securing the ball, rebounds and getting stops. That’s on the team. But they screwed us at the end.”
Musselman stopped short of expressing those sentiments. But his sarcastic tone said enough.
“It doesn’t do me any good to sit up here and get fined or whatever,” Musselman said. “I saw what everybody saw, you know what I mean? My daughter’s at home. She watched it on TV. She’s a freshman in high school. My mom’s living in San Diego watching it. All you’ve got to do is go on Twitter. Look, we played well enough to win. That’s all I can say.”
He added another call to USC’s list of grievances: a foul levied against Rashaun Agee, just before Claude’s missed floater. After a Purdue pass appeared to hit the backboard before ricocheting out of bounds off Agee, the Trojans center was called for a foul on the ensuing inbounds pass.
Agee said he didn’t think he touched Kaufman-Renn, who hit both free throws to give Purdue a late lead.
“You’ve got to let us play,” Agee said, shaking his head.
Musselman shrugged. “We’ve got to defend without fouling there, I guess,” he said dryly.
Fouls left the Trojans shorthanded early on. Claude picked up two quick fouls in the first half, and Musselman chose to sit him for the final 13 minutes. Claude returned in the second half, only to draw two more quick fouls.
He came back just in time to put the Trojans on his back, keeping their season alive as long as he could. But the fight was over, even if those final few seconds were sure to linger for USC (16-17).
At his locker, Yates set aside his frustration for a moment. He thought of how much they went through to get here, grasping for whatever solace he could find.
“Just know we went out fighting,” he said, “and that’s what it’s all about at the end.”
