Earlier this week, USC basketball coach Andy Enfield was asked about the lack of offensive support around star freshman Onyeka Okongwu. He was asked who he felt he could count on when Okongwu was having an off night or being negated by the defense.

Enfield said he believed his team was deep enough for any number of players to fill that role, and he cautioned that the loss at Washington last Sunday was just one game.

Well, right on cue the Trojans showed Saturday night they can indeed rally and respond without Okongwu playing the starring role.

The freshman standout was limited by foul trouble and finished with only 4 points, but USC controlled the game most of the second half on the way to a 74-63 win over rival UCLA inside Pauley Pavilion.

"We had other guys step up and that's what it takes -- it's a team game. Our seniors played great tonight. They played like seniors on the road," Enfield said. "… Onyeka, he's been spectacular this year for us. He's helped us win a lot of games, so when he has an off night offensively his teammates need to take care of business and they did."

Right on down the line.

Senior forward Nick Rakocevic looked much more comfortable and assertive than he has of late, tallying 17 points, 14 rebounds and 3 blocks after combining for just 8 points over the previous two games.

Freshman point guard Ethan Anderson, meanwhile, was the leader early on Saturday night and finished with a season-high 14 points while shaking off a painful-looking lower-leg injury midway through the second half to close out the game.

And senior guards Jonah Mathews (16 points) and Daniel Utomi (matched a season-high with 13 points) came up clutch several times in the second half as the Trojans shot 69.6 percent from the field (16 of 23) after halftime.

With that, the Trojans moved to 13-3 overall, 2-1 in Pac-12 play and have won seven of their last eight games while putting that dismal performance in the 72-40 loss at Washington in the past -- for now at least.

USC will face tougher challenges than the Bruins (8-8, 1-2) if it hopes to climb into Pac-12 contention, but this was the next challenge after getting stifled in Seattle and the response was encouraging.

"It's very encouraging. I knew that this team was that deep, just playing in practice that everybody on any given night could get 15-16 points for us," Anderson said. "Just coming into the game, I think the opposing team has to choose one and they chose O today. So it opened up for people like us -- if we come in and stay aggressive you can score some easy buckets."

Anderson was the tone-setter for USC in the first half, scoring 12 of his points before halftime and playing with renewed confidence after combining for just 5 points over the previous three games and attempting only 1 total shot on that two-game road trip to Washington State and Washington. He noted that his teammates encouraged him to shoot more leading into this game, and he finished 6 of 9 from the field overall Saturday and knocked down his only 3-pointer.

Enfield further challenged him this week to find the aggressiveness he showed early in the season -- and the style of play that got USC to notice him at nearby Fairfax High School late in this past recruiting cycle.

"He just has to play aggressive. He started out the year playing very aggressively, and then he took a left turn and started being less aggressive. He only took, I think, four shots the last three or four games. We need more out of him," Enfield said. "We need him to play like the LA City Player of the Year. He wouldn't have done that at Fairfax [High School], right? He would have scored it, he would have defended, he would have passed the ball. We need him to put pressure on the defense and he did a great job tonight."

Said Anderson: "He said he wanted me to play how I played in high school, so I think me being aggressive I think our team is a lot better that way so I can free up shots for my other teammates like I did in the second half because of my first-half performance."

USC was protecting a slim 35-33 lead when Mathews hit a long jumper from the left wing just on the line. After Rakocevic blocked Cody Riley in the paint on the defensive end, Mathews again controlled the ball and this time drove in from the perimeter for a smooth take to the rim and a 39-33 lead.

Later, he again drove in and this time kicked it back to a trailing Rakocevic for an early layup and a 43-37 lead.

Utomi then fed Rakocevic for a dunk to make it 45-38 as the teams traded points, and the grad transfer guard soon followed with a big 3-pointer to make it 48-40.

The lead ballooned to 14 points on a Mathews 3 with a little more than 9 minutes remaining, but UCLA had cut it to 63-57 with under 4 minutes to play when Anderson kicked out to Utomi for another clutch 3 to push the lead back to 9.

And Mathews dribbled down the shot clock and drained another 3 with 1:26 left to make it 71-61 as the Trojans maintained control until the end -- and did so with Okongwu largely a non factor.

Okongwu, who has too often had to shoulder too much of the scoring burden for this team, was just 2 of 3 from the field with 2 rebounds -- season lows. Enfield attributed that to the early foul trouble, which limited the big man to 24 minutes, and UCLA's defensive approach.

That said, Enfield was quick to retort when asked if after the last two games (Okongwu had just 10 points at Washington) if he felt more teams would try to take the star freshman out of the game.

"Defenses have tried to guard him all year and he's averaging 18 and 9, so he'll be fine," Enfield said.

Honestly, the best thing that could have happened to this team was to have to win a game without "Big O" leading the way.

After shooting a combined 3 of 20 vs. Washington State and Washington, Rakocevic looked confident and assertive while finding his way into more of the well set-up post touches on which he thrives and also cleaning up loose ends around the rim.

"Well it's not hard to bounce back from 2-for-14 with 3 turnovers in a game, right?" Enfield quipped. "Nick played like an all-conference big man tonight. … He was so solid defensively. He just played great basketball. He had those big tip-ins at the end in the second half -- he's very good at that -- so very, very proud of Nick because I know he was extremely disappointed on how he played on the road trip, especially the Washington game. For him to come back here the next game and turn it around speaks volumes of what he is as a senior."

Said Rakocevic: "That's just a part of college basketball. You take one day at a time and you just have to bounce back. So myself, I struggled, I played one of the worst games of my career against Washington and then come out here play one of my best ones. You've just got to move on, you've got to come in with a new mentality."

The big night held added significance for Rakocevic and Mathews, the two seniors who won for the first time at Pauley Pavilion in their four years with the program.

"Honestly, this feels surreal, amazing," Mathews said. "We've been here with some of the best UCLA teams, we've been here neck and neck with them every single game for the past four years I've been here. It feels good to finally come [a winner] -- not by just single digits, by double."

Said Rakocevic: "Yeah, I wanted this one bad, I'm not going to lie. Me and Jonah both did. Just being here for so long, it being the rivalry. I wasn't even from here so when I got in I didn't even know how big it was being from Chicago. ... But then when you spend your time here, you're like, wow, it's really like what it is. It was important to me that we got this win."