USC Men's Basketball Outlasts Seton Hall In Southwest Maui Invitational Semifinals

Tuesday, November 25

Lahaina, Maui, Hawai'i

2:00 p.m.

USC

6-0,0-0Big Ten

Seton Hall

6-1,0-0Big East

Seton Hall

Southern California

USC Men's Basketball Outlasts Seton Hall In Southwest Maui Invitational Semifinals

November 25, 2025 | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Press Conference Highlights

Ezra Ausar led the way with 25 points in the 83-81 win.

MAUI, Hawai'i — Playing in another close, competitive game at the Southwest Maui Invitational, the USC Men's Basketball (6-0) team outlasted the Seton Hall Pirates (6-1) 83-81 in the semifinals on Tuesday, Nov. 25.

After trailing by as many as 13 points, Ezra Ausar and Chad Baker-Mazara sparked a decisive 13-0 USC run midway through the second half to put the Trojans back in front for good. Although Seton Hall tied the game at 78 with a minute to go, Baker-Mazara sank two go-ahead free throws with 28 seconds left. The USC defense forced a late Seton Hall turnover, and Jordan Marsh iced the game with three late free throws to keep the Trojans' perfect record intact. Ausar finished with a game-high 25 points, while Baker-Mazara chipped in 18.

USC's rebounding and free-throw shooting were the difference-makers in the win. The Trojans won the rebounding battle 35 to 21, while going 31-for-38 (81.6%) at the charity stripe. Seton Hall, meanwhile, went 12-for-18 (66.7%) from the free-throw line.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Fending off the Pirates' frenetic backcourt defense, the Trojans found early success by scoring at the rim. Ezra Ausar scored USC's first five points, then Jacob Cofie converted a three-point play to give USC an 8-6 lead. Although Jordan Marsh nailed a deep two in transition to give USC a 12-10 lead, the Trojans were held scoreless for nearly two-and-a-half minutes as the Pirates went on a 9-0 run. With less than 12 minutes to go in the half, Rice found Chad Baker-Mazara in transition for a left-handed layup to get the Trojans' offense back on track. However, Seton Hall quickly took a double-digit lead thanks to its defensive pressure and transition offense.

USC cut the deficit to eight on back-to-back possessions: First with a dunk from Ausar, and then with a pair of free throws from Terrance Williams II to make the score 27-19 with just under nine to play. But Seton Hall pushed its lead back to double-figures and the Pirates led by as many as 13 points until Rice nailed his first three of the afternoon to make the score 34-24.

Needing an offensive spark, Rice answered the call. The junior scored 13 straight points for the Trojans by driving to the basket and sinking deep threes. Thanks to his efforts, USC pulled within six points of Seton Hall before Jerry Easter II's floater beat the halftime buzzer to make it a 42-38 game in favor of the Pirates.

Just like he did in the first half, Ausar opened up the scoring for USC by scoring the Trojans' first six points of the second half. Although Seton Hall kept USC at arm's length, Baker-Mazara came alive, scoring seven straight points for USC to help the Trojans keep pace.

With about 14 minutes to go, USC finally broke through by going on a 10-0 run. Ausar made a pair of free throws, then Baker-Mazara sank an elbow jumper to tie the game at 57. Dickerson and Baker-Mazara made back-to-back threes to help the Trojans take a 63-57 lead.

As USC's defense started putting the clamps down on Seton Hall, the Trojans kept getting to the free-throw line to maintain their advantage. USC made six straight free throws to go up 69-61— its largest lead of the game to that point — with 7:19 to play. Cofie put USC up by eight with 6:21 left, but Seton Hall answered with a three on the next possession.

The game slowed down and tension rose in the final five minutes. Free-throw shooting was key for the Trojans: Ausar kept getting to the line and made five free throws in the final five minutes to help USC maintain its two-possession lead.

But with a minute to go, Seton Hall forced a turnover and A.J. Staton-McCray tied the game at 78 with a three. On the next possession, Baker-Mazara was fouled on a difficult shot attempt, and the graduate student sank both free throws to put USC up 80-78 with 27.4 seconds remaining. On the ensuing Seton Hall possession, the USC defense forced a turnover on an entry pass, forcing the Pirates to foul. Both teams traded fouls and Jordan Marsh iced the game with three late free throws to seal the 83-81 win.

NOTABLES

Ezra Ausar finished the game with a season-high 25 points for his third 20-point game of the season. He also went 15-for-19 from the charity stripe. This is a new career-high for the senior and puts him in the USC record book for the fifth-most made and fifth-most attempted free throws in a game. The last time a USC player made 15 free throws in a game was on Feb. 15, 1990, when Harold Miner made that many against Stanford.
Chad Baker-Mazara lit up in the second half. After finishing the first 20 minutes with just two points, Baker-Mazara came back to end the semifinals with 18 points.
Rice scored 13 points in the first half, marking the fifth time in USC's six games that he reached double-digit scoring in the first half alone.
This is the fifth time in six games that USC's Baker-Mazara, Rice and Ausar finished with double-digit points.
Amarion Dickerson and Jacob Cofie crashed the boards for the Trojans. Cofie tied his career high with 11 rebounds, marking his third game of the season with 10 or more rebounds. Dickerson tied his season-high with nine rebounds.
Cofie extended his streak of recording a block in all six games this season.
Today's starting lineup featured Rodney Rice, Ezra Ausar, Chad Baker-Mazara, Terrance Williams II and Jacob Cofie. This starting five is now 5-0 on the season.
USC is now 3-2 in the all-time series against Seton Hall and Eric Musselman is 1-0 against the Pirates.
Tuesday marked the first time USC won after trailing at halftime since beating Nebraska 78-73 on Jan. 22, 2025.

QUOTABLES
Coach Eric Musselman on the team's performance against Seton Hall…
"Super proud of the effort. In the first half, we were discombobulated with their physicality. Offensively a lack of rhythm. We were really fortunate that Rodney Rice got hot during that stretch in the first half, and then, at halftime, we had to make an adjustment on who was playing the point guard position. I thought we did a phenomenal job. It was a really good second half for us, obviously. And then coming into the game, we felt the theme or the story of the game was going to be the battle of the boards. We doubled them up on O-boards and won the battle of the glass by 14 against a really physical team. I'm super pleased with our defensive effort on the defensive backboards."

Coach Eric Musselman on what it took to get to the Southwest Maui Invitational Championship…
"When you come to this tournament, it's like you've got to get one win and then can you figure out a way to get two, and now we're potentially in a position to win three. It would mean a lot. Getting to the finals means something as well, but to win tomorrow, we have two Big Ten games coming up when we get out of here, and the biggest concern, quite frankly, was coming to Maui and not playing well and then knowing that we had two Big Ten games to follow this up with the travel back home and all that type of stuff. Super happy. We're learning on the fly. We're playing guys at different positions. We're running sets that we hadn't – we had a whole playbook today that we hadn't even really run before, but we were able to walk through some stuff. Our middle pick-and-roll was really good tonight, and I thought our first half running our normal stuff was not good against Seton Hall."

Chad Baker-Mazara on what it means to play in the Southwest Maui Invitational Championship…
"It's very important because it shows what type of team we are. We're tough. We like to play hard. We played two very hard games. So I feel like we prepared, Coach prepared us for this moment. I feel like we've been responding the way we have."

Ezra Ausar on his performance from the free throw line…
"I continued to get my repetitions in at the free-throw line and take my time, so I'm grateful for myself."

UP NEXT
USC will face the winner of the semifinal matchup between Washington State and Arizona State in the Southwest Maui Invitational Championship on Wednesday, Nov. 26. Tip-off at the Lahaina Civic Center is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. PT on ESPN. There will also be a radio stream through the USC Game Day app.