Behind a stingy defensive effort and Ethan Anderson's career-high 19 points, host USC moved into a tie atop the Pac-12 Conference with its 66-48 rout of short-handed and No. 21-ranked UCLA Saturday in Los Angeles.

The Trojans (15-3, 9-2 Pac-12) took a considerable step toward their first regular-season conference championship since 1985, leading almost wire-to-wire against a UCLA side that came into Saturday's rivalry matchup alone atop the league.

USC capitalized on the absences of Bruins big men Cody Riley (sprained ankle) and Jalen Hill (personal reasons), stifling UCLA's offense and dominating the glass. The Trojans held the Bruins to just 33.9 percent shooting from the floor and won the rebounding battle, 40-33.

Isaiah Mobley led the Trojans with 11 rebounds, while his younger brother Evan Mobley grabbed nine. Evan Mobley finished with a quiet nine points, almost eight points below his season-long average.

But Anderson picked up the slack with a 7-of-12 shooting performance, including 5-of-7 from behind the 3-point line. Tahj Eaddy, who scored 16 points, shot 3-of-8 from beyond the arc.

UCLA (13-4, 9-2), meanwhile, shot just 3-of-19 from long range as a team. Johnny Juzang, who led the Bruins with 13 points, reflected the team's overall shooting woes with a 6-of-21 performance from the floor and 0-of-5 from 3-point range. He did pull down a game-high 13 rebounds.

The Bruins managed just 20 first-half points and went into intermission down by 10 points. They trimmed the deficit to seven early in the second half, but USC responded with a 17-5 run spanning almost five minutes that effectively put the game away.

UCLA scored just two points in the game's final 5:16, sealing the program's lowest-scoring outing since notching 44 against Kentucky in December 2014.

With the absences of Riley and Hill, Bruins coach Mick Cronin played midseason enrollee Mac Etienne for the first time in his UCLA career. Etienne scored eight points on 4-of-5 shooting and grabbed five rebounds.

--Field Level Media