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Los Angeles • That old saw that says teams that play a lot of zone defense in college basketball don't like to play against zone defenses certainly applied to the BYU Cougars on Saturday night in a 91-84 loss to the undefeated USC Trojans.

Trojans coach Andy Enfield went to a smaller lineup and used a 2-3 zone midway through the first half at the Staples Center to effectively throttle the uptempo Cougars — themselves a zone-loving teams, although not as much this season as in the past.

Trailing 12-2 and missing 15 of their first 16 shots, the Trojans turned up their defense to turn the game around.

"I think a combination of their length and their quickness hurt us," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "We had a few possessions where we were just surprised with our inability to find open guys. We play on attack, we play fast, and we were never really able to get into that pace. A lot of it was we made a few mistakes early, and we got timid."

The Cougars simply couldn't buy a basket when the big lead got away from them in the first half. And USC's Shaqquan Aaron started shooting like Kobe Bryant used to shoot here at the home of the Los Angeles Lakers, making four 3-pointers in the last nine minutes of the first half.

"They really caused us problems on both ends of the floor tonight. We got off to a pretty good start and then they kind of turned it around and we had a hard time [stopping] their penetration and then getting out to three-point shooters," Rose said. "They hit quite a few threes in that first half to give themselves the lead, and we had just a terrible time trying to make baskets ourselves."

The Cougars shot 36 percent in the first half (13 of 36) and went 1 of 11 from 3-point range the first 20 minutes. They finished at 43.5 percent, thanks to 52 percent shooting in the second half.

"Usually against a zone you can spread them out a bit by making a couple shots," Rose said. "That makes it even tougher, when shots aren't falling. We did a better job in the second half. We still didn't make shots, but we put a bigger lineup in there, which allowed us to get some closer shots and get some offensive rebounds and score. But it was a hard lineup to defend with."

Inside, freshman Yoeli Childs replaced 6-8 senior Kyle Davis in the starting lineup and scored five points and grabbed seven rebounds in 17 minutes. Davis, who missed the Utah State game with a knee injury, came off the bench to play 18 minutes and scored 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting.

"I thought [Davis] was really good," Rose said. "He was a guy who we could get the ball to down low and he could make positive plays for us. I kind of had a number [of minutes] in mind. I didn't want to play him 30-40 minutes this game. But he was playing well enough to play a lot of minutes. Hopefully we can get him better and better and get him back to 100 percent here soon."

Elon transfer Elijah Bryant, who has a sore knee after meniscus surgery two months ago, made the trip but did not play. Braiden Shaw (nine) and Jamal Aytes (seven) logged significant minutes and combined for two points and three rebounds.

"We played a lot of guys, trying to find the combinations that would work in a game like this where [USC] played a small lineup - and it was hard for us to adjust," Rose said. "When we did, it was too late in the game and we were too far behind."

Twitter: @drewjay