Freshman point guard Ethan Anderson had been held scoreless in two of USC's last three games and he got off to a rough start shooting the ball Saturday night.

So USC coach Andy Enfield sat Anderson down and gave fellow freshman Kyle Sturdivant a long look in the first half. Whatever message he wanted to send Anderson was implied -- not explicitly conveyed, he'd say later.

"You don't have to say anything -- he's a competitor," Enfield said.

And, indeed, the Trojans got the desired response from the young playmaker. Anderson went on to score all 11 of his points after halftime, including two big 3-pointers down the stretch as USC rallied back for a 70-68 win over LSU at Staples Center.

The Tigers (7-4) led much of the second half and were up by 6 midway through the period before the shots finally started falling for USC, spurring the Trojans (10-2) to a much-needed notable non-conference win.

The story of the game was the late shooting -- LSU coach Will Wade acknowledged his gameplan was to make the Trojans take a lot of shots from the outside. It's a logical defensive approach against this erratic shooting team, but on this night those shots eventually going in.

Senior Jonah Mathews finished with a team-high 15 points, including three 3s, senior forward Nick Rakocevic added 14 points and 9 rebounds, freshman forward Onyeka Okongwu had 10 points, 9 boards and 4 blocks and senior guard Daniel Utomi added 10 points and 6 rebounds.

The story inside the story, though, was Anderson.

The local freshman -- the last addition to USC's highly-ranked 2019 recruiting class, and the least heralded of the bunch -- has become a trusted starter for Enfield. He's a smooth distributor of the ball, though his own offense can be inconsistent.

Case in point, in the last game vs. Long Beach State, he racked up 12 assists and just 2 turnovers but missed all four of his shots to finish scoreless. When he started slow again Saturday, going 0 for 4 from the field in the first half (0-for-3 from 3), Enfield gave him some time to clear his head on the bench.

"I didn't say anything to him," Enfield said. "… If you notice, he came in and he just played basketball. He used to get up at 5 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. and drive an hour and a half to Fairfax High School -- they live in Carson -- because he wanted to go to Fairfax. And he did that for four straight years, and he became city player of the year. You do that with dedication, you do that with toughness, so what am I going to tell a kid that has done that? 'Hey, you're playing like crap'? No, I'm just going to let him be, because when I put him back in the game I expect him to show that toughness and competitive spirit that he's showed his whole high school and college career."

USC was down 50-43 approaching the midway point of the second half when the 3s started falling.

Rakocevic, who had hit just three all year, went 2-for-2 from behind the arc Saturday with the second of those cutting it to 50-46.

After an LSU layup, he and Anderson scored back-to-back baskets to make it a 2 point game.

Anderson had snapped his scoreless streak with a free throw early in the second half, added that layup and then would deliver a some pivotal points the rest of the way.

His 3-pointer with 6:14 remaining cut the deficit to 57-56 and started a 13-2 run -- a run he also capped with another big 3 to give the Trojans a 66-59 lead with a little more than 3 minutes remaining.

"Ethan started out the game slowly ... and he lost his confidence a little bit, but we all have confidence in Ethan," Enfield said. "We put Ethan back in in the second half and that's what I expect as a head coach, our staff expects that, his teammates expect that, to come in and play like he did down the stretch because he's a heck of a basketball player."

Mathews also had a big 3 during that game-swinging run and had all three of his 3s coming after halftime.

While USC stretched out its lead entering the final minutes, this would turn into a tense finish nonetheless.

The Trojans were still up 68-62 with 1:08 left after Anderson hit a pair of free throws, but LSU's Darius Days followed with a quick jumper, Okongwu threw the ball away for a USC turnover against the press, and Skylar Mays drove full-court for another quick Tigers layup to suddenly make it a 68-66 game with 44.2 seconds on the clock.

Okongwu and Mays traded baskets to keep it a two-point game, and LSU sent Mathews to the line with 4.9 seconds on the clock. He missed the front end of a one-and-one and the Tigers got the rebound, but Javonte Smart couldn't get the final shot off as Okongwu was credited with his fourth block.

"It's a great win for our basketball team against a quality team," Enfield said. "LSU is extremely tough, they have a lot of good one-on-one players as you saw tonight. To really grind it out like we did, give our players a lot of credit -- they hung tough all night even though we were trailing most of the game until the last few minutes. So it was a great win."

Wade, LSU's coach, said the game plan was to limit opportunities in the post for USC and that it was a setback when forward Emmitt Williams picked up two fouls early. He'd play only 17 minutes the whole game.

"We basically didn't guard Anderson and tried to double-down on [the bigs]," Wade said. "... [Rakocevic] hit two 3s. I think he was 3 of 6 on the year coming in, he hit 2 of 2 against us. It's one of those deals. We were trying to help off 20 [Anderson] and 1 [Sturdivant], and then of course 20 hits a 3 and Sturdivant hit two 3s tonight. So, playing the numbers and that's the way it goes."

USC is 10-2, but its only win over an opponent from a major conference before Saturday night was against TCU (with losses to Temple and Marquette). So this was a crucial to putting a positive stamp on the Trojans' non-conference schedule, which wraps up next Sunday with a home game against Florida Gulf Coast.

"We've had a tough schedule, so to be 10-2, where we are and have wins on the road in neutral-site games against power conference teams and to be playing like we are right now, I feel like we're a much better team than we were a month ago," Enfield said.

NOTES: Sturdivant logged a season-high 17 minutes (his previous high was 12) and he finished with 8 points, 2 assists and 2 turnovers on 3-of-6 shooting. ... Mathews has now hit 12 3-pointers over the last three games.