This is going to loom as a major missed opportunity for the USC basketball team.

The No. 19-ranked Trojans had a chance to secure a win over a top-10 opponent on the road and make a power move in the Pac-12 standings. They had every chance to knock off No. 7 Arizona in Tucson, for that matter.

If only they could have hit a few more shots ...

USC went a woeful 7 of 30 from 3-point range, missing many open looks and several pivotal ones late, and that was too much to overcome as the Wildcats closed out a 72-63 win at the McKale Center.

Isaiah Mobley was the only Trojan to score in double-figures with 15 points, while starting guards Drew Peterson (1 of 13 from the field, 0 of 6 on 3s) and Boogie Ellis (3 of 12, 2 of 7) could never find their touch in this one.

USC drops to 19-4 overall and 9-4 in the Pac-12 to fall to the middle of the conference standings, while Arizona continues to pace the league at 19-2 overall and 9-1 in the Pac-12.

"The last 6 and a half minutes we scored 3 points and we missed wide-open looks from the 3," coach Andy Enfield said in his postgame radio interview, summing it up plainly. "[After the] under 4-minute timeout, we came out and executed beautifully, got Isaiah a wide-open 3 in the corner, we got the rebound, Boogie missed a wide-open 3 and then Drew missed a wide-open 3 all in the same possession. ...

"Our players played very hard and well. We shared the ball. We had 18 assists, only 8 turnovers. We won the turnover battle, we also had more offensive rebounds so we had more possessions. ... We did everything we could do and should have done to give us a chance to win, but the ball has to go in the basket. Our starting guards were 4 for 25 between them, between Drew and Boogie, and that's just not going to get it done."

USC started 1 of 14 from 3-point range and yet managed to go into halftime down just 29-28 after a late 3 from Isaiah White and a long 2 from the corner at the buzzer by Ethan Anderson.

The Trojans even took a 60-54 lead with 6:39 left in the game after a 10-0 run that included an Ellis 3-pointer, Peterson's only made field goal along with two free throws, a score in the paint by Chevez Goodwin and a Mobley free throw.

Then they made only 1 of their final 15 shots the rest of the way.

A layup and free throw by Azuolas Tubelis and a 3-pointer from Kerr Kriisa tied the game at 60-60 for Arizona, a Tubelis dunk on a fastbreak give-and-go gave the Wildcats the lead and a Christian Koloko second-chance basket made it 64-60 as the hosts scored on four straight possessions to take control of the game.

Ellis scored on a fastbreak layup to make it a 2-point game and the Trojans had a great chance to retake the lead on that sequence Enfield described. Anderson found Mobley open in the corner, but he missed the 3. Peterson got the offensive rebound and was blocked, but the ball stayed with USC and eventually found its way back to Peterson, who was even more wide open from the same corner -- another miss. And after another offensive rebound, Ellis had a good look several feet behind the arc from the left wing but couldn't get it to go.

Koloko dropped in a turnaround hook at the other end and the game never got closer than 3 points the rest of the way as the Trojans' shooting struggles persisted until the end.

The frustration for Enfield was that, unlike in an ugly 58-53 win two nights earlier at Arizona State, the Trojans created good looks offensively this time -- they just didn't make them.

"The whole team, up and down the roster, they played the right way, they defended, they had energy, they shared the ball and it's just disappointing that we couldn't finish the game," Enfield said. "Our guys played the right way. We learned a lot from our Arizona State game where we did not share the ball and we took tough shots and didn't play well on offense. Tonight, we played outstanding offensive basketball. We had 18 assists on 24 made field goals and it would have been 22 or 23 assists if we had had some of those shots in the last 6 minutes.

"We had wide-open looks on good penetration kick, throw it in the post, throw it out, drive and kick again. I'm proud of our guys because they learned a lot from two days ago. And we defended at a high level today. We just couldn't make shots when it mattered."

With six conference games left, the Trojans are probably out of the Pac-12 regular-season race at this point, but they are firmly in the NCAA tournament field and have a lot at stake the rest of the way with regard to seeding.

USC added in a final non-conference game Tuesday at Galen Center vs. Pacific and will then host UCLA next Saturday in a highly-anticipated rivalry showdown.

"This is a long season. We played well today -- just not well enough to win. This is the No. 1 team in our league currently and this is a tough place to play. So we will take some positives away from this game," Enfield said. "We expect to try to win every game so it's disappointing that we lost here in Arizona, but we have two big games next week. We have to go back and keep getting better as a team."