Davon Jefferson dunks over Love as the Trojans defeat #4 UCLA.

It was more than just USC-UCLA. It was unofficially billed as Love vs. Mayo and The Battle of the Freshman. Kevin Love and OJ Mayo, arguably the best two freshman in the country, happened into the hottest rivalry in college sports. The hype was unimaginable. It didn’t seem to matter much that Mayo plays guard and Love plays center, and that in all likelihood, the two phenoms would have little direct contact with one another throughout the game. In the eyes of many the game was simply Love vs. Mayo, mano a mano, and the world seemed about ready to hand a victory over to Kevin Love and UCLA.

I guess nobody told the Trojans it was supposed to go that way.

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It seems with all the hype that everyone mistook USC for being one note wonder: Mayo. And with all the attention on Mayo, everyone appeared to forget about that other freshman, a 6-8, 215 pound forward named Davon Jefferson. Big mistake. Jefferson had the first score of the game with a dunk, and ended with 8 unanswered points in the last 1:08 to play. Start strong, end stronger. Jefferson finished the game with a career high 25 points. I don’t think UCLA is going to forget about him again: he’ll be all too busy haunting their nightmares.

Mayo played it cool with a mere two points in the first half, bringing the heat in the second, to give him 16 on the day. Dwight Lewis had 11, and Taj Gibson finished with 9. Daniel Hackett only had 6 on the game, but was credited with 8 assists.

On the Bruin side of the ball, Mbah a Moute and Lorenzo Mata-Real both suffered first half-concussions greatly limiting their play-time. Josh Shipp 21pt, Kevin Love 18pt – 12Reb, Darren Collison 11pt led the way for the Bruins, out rebounding and out-stealing the Trojans by a decent margin. The Bruins even out-shot the Trojans, 66 attempts compared to 46 for USC. But it came down to accuracy. The Trojans shot 60.9% from the field, the Bruins only landed 33.3%

Everyone expected Mayo. But the whole team came out to fight. To fight on…and to win.

*Stats from ESPN-U