Bay Area a no-fly zone for Trojans

Reporting from Berkeley — 

Missing the NCAA tournament is suddenly the least of USC’s worries.

Among the more pressing concerns: When will the Trojans win another game?

USC arrived in the Bay Area as the hottest team in the Pacific 10 Conference and departed with a middle-of-the-pack feel after a 67-59 loss to California on Saturday night at Haas Pavilion.

The Trojans have lost two consecutive games since they announced a self-imposed postseason ban in the wake of alleged rules violations involving former guard O.J. Mayo. Before that, they had won eight games in a row and seemed bound for postseason play.

Have the Trojans mentally checked out?

“That’s not the thing at all,” USC Coach Kevin O’Neill said. “We just didn’t finish.”

For a second consecutive game.

The Trojans (10-6 overall, 2-2 Pac-10) missed a couple of last-second tips that could have given them a victory at Stanford on Wednesday. Then on Saturday they took a 50-43 lead with 9 minutes 45 seconds left and watched it slip away amid a flurry of missed shots, turnovers and offensive fouls.

USC forward Leonard Washington, who committed a reach-in foul against Stanford with 10 seconds left that led to the winning free throw, cost his team again three days later with a pair of offensive fouls in the final 5 1/2 minutes.

Trojans guard Dwight Lewis scored 20 points but made two key mistakes late in the game. He turned the ball over when he passed to himself, and badly missed a twisting layup with his back to the basket.

“When you’re on the road there’s not a lot of room for error,” USC guard Mike Gerrity said, “and down the stretch we made some mistakes mentally and really just lost control of it.”

Guard Jerome Randle scored 21 points and forward Theo Robertson had 20 for the Bears (10-5, 2-1), who wiped out their seven-point deficit with a 16-1 run.

Seated behind the USC bench, Athletic Director Mike Garrett remained stoic as the final seconds ticked away. A man seated next to him patted Garrett’s arm sympathetically.

Cal students weren’t nearly as compassionate. They tried to rattle the Trojans with chants of “O.J. Mayo!” as players completed warmups before the second half, and they later yelled “No postseason!”

Players said the postseason ban is no longer a topic of discussion. “It hasn’t come up in one conversation since we’ve been up here,” said Gerrity, who had four points and no assists or turnovers.

Said forward Alex Stepheson: “There’s nothing to say.”

USC used eight players but only six played more than 10 minutes. Guard Donte Smith, competing on a sore left ankle, played all eight of his minutes in the first half and did not contribute much other than one three-point basket at the end of the shot clock.

O’Neill lamented that his team was stuck in the Bay Area for an extra day between games because of a scheduling quirk attributed to the Bowl Championship Series title game being played Thursday in Southern California.

“It felt like two months,” O’Neill said. “If I had to do it again I would go home after the first game and come back up.”

The coach said the Trojans needed to get back to working on a best-in-the-nation defense that seemed less than stifling during the consecutive losses.

“The bottom line is we have to get back to practice and get better defensively,” he said. “We’re not a scoring juggernaut, so we have to be almost flawless defensively.”

ben.bolch@latimes.com