USC Has a Surprise for UCLA

The old building still had one special memory left in it.

USC players may be antsy to move into the new Galen Center, with its modern amenities and view of the downtown L.A. skyline, but it will be difficult to replicate the heart-thumping drama that unfolded in the final moments Sunday inside the Sports Arena.

Playing its most inspired basketball of the season, the undermanned Trojans built a late double-digit lead and then held on to pull out a 71-68 victory over No. 15 UCLA in front of a season-high crowd of 9,009.

USC had a three-point lead with 4.9 seconds to go when Bruin guard Michael Roll intercepted an inbounds pass from Nick Young near midcourt and tried to get the ball into the hands of UCLA sharpshooter Jordan Farmar, who had already scored 21 points.

Trojan guard Sead Odzic knocked the ball out of bounds, giving the Bruins one last chance with one second left. But Roll’s inbounds pass skipped past Arron Afflalo and the clock ran out as USC ended its three-game losing streak in the cross-town rivalry.

“I don’t remember touching the ball,” said Afflalo, who had 19 points. “I tried to get a hand on it, and I thought it might have gone off the defender.”

Said Trojan guard Lodrick Stewart, who was defending Afflalo on the play: “It went right past him. I don’t think he even touched it.”

Playing without injured guard Gabe Pruitt, its second-leading scorer, USC received double figures in scoring from five players and a step-up performance from senior reserve guard Dwayne Shackleford, whose dribble penetration continually hurt the Bruins in the last minutes.

Shackleford, who finished with 12 points and made all four of his shots, fed center Abdoulaye N’diaye for a dunk and converted a pair of three-point plays in the last 4:15 after driving for layups and drawing fouls.

“Coach always tells me to penetrate and look to kick out, but I was so open I had to take some of those shots,” Shackleford said.

The Trojans improved to 16-9 overall and 7-7 in the Pacific 10 Conference, solidifying their hold on sixth place in the conference standings and boosting their fleeting NCAA tournament hopes. USC has four games left in the regular season, three against teams it has defeated.

“I’m telling them that we’ve got four games left and we’re going to try to win all four,” Coach Tim Floyd said.

After winning its first six road games, UCLA has dropped two straight away from Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins (20-6, 10-4) also fell back into a tie for first place in the conference with California after losing a second consecutive game overall for the first time all season.

“We have a young team,” UCLA Coach Ben Howland. “We can beat anybody and anybody can beat us. We could lose the rest of our games or win the rest of our games.”

The Trojans had looked lost while losing their three previous games, two without Pruitt, who suffered a broken bone in his left knee. But USC served notice with its hustle in the opening minutes Sunday that it wasn’t going to be manhandled the way it had been last month during a 66-45 loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.

USC built an eight-point lead midway through the first half and led by four at halftime despite being outrebounded by 11, a statistic that caught Floyd’s attention.

“Any time you shoot 50% and you’re up four, you’ve got problems,” Floyd said.

A 13-0 run early in the second half, keyed by a pair of Farmar jumpers, gave UCLA a 38-32 lead, but the Trojans responded with a 13-0 run of their own to take back the lead, 45-38.

A free throw by Stewart gave USC a seemingly commanding 65-55 lead with 1:04 left before a pair of three-point baskets by Roll and one by Farmar made things interesting again.

“We must have looked at that clock 100 times in the last minute and 30 seconds,” Floyd said.

Shackleford broke the Bruin press and fed Odzic for a layup that made it 71-66 with 17 seconds left, but two free throws by UCLA forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute with 4.9 seconds to go set the stage for the final frenzied sequence.

“It felt like forever,” Shackleford said. “It seemed like the game would never be over. And then when they got the ball back with [one second] I was like, ‘Oh.’ All they needed was another second because they’re a tough team.”