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No. 6 Arizona cruises past USC

Jan 27, 2013 - 4:34 AM Tucson, AZ (Sports Network) - Nick Johnson scored 14 points to lead No. 6 Arizona in a thorough, 74-50 pasting of USC in a one-sided Pac-12 clash.

The Wildcats (17-2, 5-2 Pac-12) jumped on the Trojans early and never let up in bouncing back nicely from a humbling double-digit home loss to UCLA.

Solomon Hill and Brandon Ashley netted 13 and 11 points, respectively for Arizona, which forced 16 turnovers and held the USC to 28.1 percent shooting.

"It's not easy to put a loss behind you, especially a game like we played against UCLA," Arizona head coach Sean Miller said. " I give our team a lot of credit."

The Trojans (8-13, 3-5), who have dropped three of four under interim head coach Bob Cantu, were paced by Jio Fontan's nine points.

Two days after watching UCLA race out to a 19-3 lead, Arizona took a page out of the Bruins' book and scored 18 of the first 22 points to take control. Mark Lyons drilled a 3-pointer and assisted on Kevin Parrom's NBA-range trifecta to end the game-opening run less than 6 1/2 minutes in.

The Wildcats scored 11 straight points a little later to go up by 22 and wound up forcing nearly twice as many turnovers (11) than USC had made field goals (seven) in the first half, which ended with the hosts holding a healthy 39-20 cushion.

USC shot a woeful 24 percent in the opening half and didn't do much better to start the second, by missing 11 consecutive shots at one point. A Johnson jumper at the midway point pushed the margin over 30 points at 58-27, and the Wildcats cruised the rest of the way.

Game Notes

Arizona has won six of the last seven meetings ... The Wildcats scored 20 points off turnovers ... Kaleb Tarczewski scored 10 points, while Lyons had nine in the win ... USC is 2-26 its last 28 games at McKale Center.