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Donovan Dent maintains his mojo as UCLA thumps USC

February 25, 2026

LOS ANGELES — It was well past midnight on the East coast but the nation must know, Donovan Dent is back. If that wasn’t clear after Dent’s heroics against No. 10 Illinois last weekend, it is now.

For a kid from Riverside, if that game-winning layup was his dream shot, his performance against rival USC on Tuesday was his dream night.

He finished with a season-high 30 points to lead UCLA to an 81-62 victory over the rival Trojans, a result that pushes both teams further from the NCAA Tournament bubble, in opposite directions.

After Saturday’s game, Dent said it would be easy to have intensity for Tuesday’s rivalry, and he proved that.

Despite his status as a transfer, he brought animosity for the Trojans from the jump. Vice versa for Chad Baker-Mazara, who scored 25 points and grabbed eight rebounds in his first crosstown rivalry since coming to USC from Auburn.

Baker-Mazara assumed the role of villain to the Pauley Pavilion crowd. He dribbled into consecutive 3-point shots, jawing with the UCLA student section while running back on defense. Later in the first half, as he was falling out of bounds, he chucked the ball off Bruins guard Eric Freeny’s face, earning glares from the UCLA players. When he missed everything on a jump shot in the second half, the crowd let him know it, chanting “air ball” at him on every touch, and after the game ended as the Trojans left the court.

Baker-Mazara hit four 3-pointers in the first 9:06 as USC (18-10 overall, 7-8 Big Ten) took a 16-12 lead. Dent answered that with four first-half 3-pointers of his own. He made one from the left wing, then knocked down a pair of free throws to flip the score in UCLA’s favor.

Dent set a single-game season-high for 3-pointers in the first 8:30 as the basket became an ocean for him. He grabbed a defensive rebound and took it 94 feet around a Xavier Booker screen for a layup. He faded away for a jump shot as the buzzer sounded, smiling his way into the locker room with 19 points, giving the Bruins (19-9, 11-6) a nine-point lead.

Dent skied to scoop home an inside-hand layup and knocked down another pair of free throws before Skyy Clark took a defensive rebound coast-to-coast to put UCLA ahead by double-digits.

Perry drove for consecutive layups, but after the second one Baker-Mazara sprinted the other way for a three-point play to cut the margin to six.

To that point, UCLA’s leading scorer Tyler Bilodeau had been quiet, but he erupted for eight points over a 4-minute stretch to help extend the lead.

Dent floated for an up-and-under layup, then bullied Ryan Cornish to create space for a floater. Freeny hit a 3-point shot and Perry made another layup to add to UCLA’s cushion.

NOTES

Dent, who also had seven assists and no turnovers in 37 minutes, is the first Bruin to score 30 points against the Trojans since Aaron Holiday had 34 points on March 3, 2018, in an 83-72 win. … The Bruins improved to 16-1 at Pauley Pavilion this season.

More to come on this story.

Orange County Register

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Donovan Dent maintains his mojo as UCLA thumps USC

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