This has been a developmental season for Max Agbonkpolo, who played just 7.3 minutes per game as a freshman for USC last year and has continued to show that he's learning on the fly now as a sophomore despite more than doubling that playing time.

There are ups and downs, the occasional miscue, etc., but there's also his very obvious potential as a highly-athletic and long 6-foot-9 forward who can be disruptive on the defensive end and flashy on the offensive side at times.

He was both in one of the most pivotal moments of the Trojans' come-from-behind 72-66 win at Stanford on Tuesday night.

USC had trailed by as many as 10 points early in the first half and by as many as 7 inside the final 10 minutes, but the Trojans, as they often do, had chipped away at the deficit and kept the pressure on the Cardinal.

And with a little more than 4 and a half minutes remaining, Agbonkpolo stole the ball from Stanford's Michael O'Connell and finished a fastbreak dunk on the other end to give USC a 62-61 lead -- its first advantage since the opening minutes of the second half.

Stanford would take the lead right back on a 3-pointer by Spencer Jones coming out of an ensuing timeout, but the momentum was with the Trojans, who just kept answering and eventually pulled away for the big road win.

Agbonkpolo had 5 points and 5 rebounds in 20 minutes, but his contributions were key and reflective of a point coach Andy Enfield would make after the game -- even at 14-3 overall and 8-2 in the Pac-12, he feels his Trojans can still keep getting better. That in large part means more consistent and deeper contributions from the supporting cast around star 7-foot freshman Evan Mobley, who had 23 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks in a team-high 38 minutes Tuesday night.

"Max knows exactly what he has to do to keep getting major minutes and that's defend and rebound, run the floor. Tonight he had a huge steal and a dunk, he had 5 rebounds and I thought he played great defense, especially in the last 8-10 minutes of the game. He has very good anticipation, he has good length and he can be a very good defender like you saw tonight," Enfield said of Agbonkpolo in particular. "So we're excited about Max because he's a developing and improving basketball player. We think he's got a long way to go to reach his potential, but he really helped us win the game tonight."

That supporting cast was clutch overall for the Trojans in this one, as Mobley understandably showed some fatigue down the stretch.

The freshman phenom tied the game back up at 64-64 with a smooth hook shot following Jones' 3, and USC never trailed again as Drew Peterson and Tahj Eaddy scored 4 points each in the final 2 minutes to help the Trojans pull away.

Eaddy in particular delivered some decisive buckets on back-to-back possessions late. First, he lofted a floater for a bank-in high off the backboard with 1:18 left, and after Mobley blocked Stanford star Oscar da Silva on the other end, Eaddy came through again. When the possession stalled, Enfield called timeout with 13 seconds left on the shot clock, and the ball found its way to Eaddy on the inbounds. When his drive toward the paint was denied, he gathered himself and swished in a short turnaround jumper to give USC a 70-66 lead with 29 seconds left.

The Cardinal (10-7, 6-5) didn't threaten again, missing the front end of a one-and-one and then a Jones 3-pointer as Agbonkpolo secured the rebound and Peterson tacked on two free throws to seal it.

Peterson finished with 15 points and Eaddy chipped in 14 in the win.

"We had three scoring options in the late part of the game because Drew Peterson stepped up and made a couple big buckets, but Tahj was spectacular the last couple minutes," Enfield said. "He had that big drive and layup and then he hit that turnaround jumpshot in the lane to extend our lead. Tahj has been very solid and sometimes spectacular on offense throughout the season. He doesn't turn the ball over a lot, he takes very good shots, and he's shooting a very high percentage and that's what a veteran player should do."

Stanford was short-handed with three starters missing in Ziaire Williams, Daejon Davis and Bryce Wills. Jaiden Delaire led the Cardinal with 22 points while O'Connell scored a season-high 20 points.

This was the teams' third attempt at playing this game. The first one in December was postponed due to USC's COVID-19 flare-up that stalled its season for three weeks. The teams were then set to play on Jan. 21 up north, but a false positive for USC forced another postponement the day of the game and Enfield later expressed frustration that Stanford wasn't willing to reschedule the game for later that week or the following Monday/Tuesday, as the Trojans were up in the Bay Area to play Cal that Saturday.

Enfield joked after this game that he coached his players on making sure they didn't give any inconclusive test samples and that he wasn't going to leave anything to chance if further tests were needed with quick results.

"We had some backup plans, put it that way. We knew Stanford wouldn't do it for us, so we had some people on speed dial," he said.

There was no such pregame drama this time -- only some late-game suspense and more evidence that this team, albeit with plenty of imperfections, has a certain resilience to it.

USC is second in the Pac-12 standings and will host conference leader UCLA (13-3, 9-1) on Saturday night at Galen Center.

"We're trying to win every game we play, and we're focused game to game. Everything else will take care of itself," Enfield said when asked about the Trojans' NCAA Tournament resume. "We have a lot of improvement [still to make]. We're a better basketball team than we were a few weeks ago, and I also think we can be a better team two or three weeks from now. We have some things that we have to improve on, but to win 9 out of 10 after getting shut down by COVID, it certainly says a lot about our team. They battled. I think we have four road wins now in the league and I think they're playing very well together."