Rivalry Gets a Reality Check

USC has a new custom, one that has nothing to do with a galloping horse. Or cheerleaders in white sweaters. Or fans pumping a peace sign in your face to the beat of an ever-playing band.

“When we play UCLA,” Trojan junior Derrick Craven said, “we take the most raggedy van to the Sports Arena just to show us, to let us know that we’re the rag-tag team.”

All that’s missing is that funky theme from “Sanford and Son” for the Trojans’ trek to their home arena to be complete.

“We try to do things as humble as possible, try to keep it as grimy and scummy as possible, like we play,” Craven said.

USC, the purported University of Spoiled Children, taking a vow of humility?

Stranger things have happened, especially recently in this cross-town basketball rivalry.

Having won four of the last five meetings with UCLA, including three in succession, the Trojans are feeling like basketball royalty in the Southland. Even if they have yet to pass UCLA in the public’s consciousness.

And therein lies the rub.

Because with all of the Trojans’ recent success against the Bruins -- by winning tonight, they will sweep the Bruins in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1940-42 -- it is UCLA that still gets the front page of the sports sections, the lead stories on the sportscasts, the national recognition.

Eleven national championships, an endearing legacy and USC’s failure to fully jump through a closing window of opportunity by taking advantage of UCLA’s down years tend to do that.

“It takes more than just beating one school,” USC senior Desmon Farmer said. “You have to have a total outright good season and we’re not having that right now. We didn’t have that last year. That’s how you get the respect, you’ve got to have a totally good season.

” ... They play better teams than us and that’s how you get your respect. You have to play better teams and get the victories over good teams and the respect gets higher.”

Neither team, though, has commanded much respect lately, what with the Bruins at 11-12 overall, 7-8 in the Pacific 10 Conference, and the Trojans at 11-13, 6-9.

A quick history lesson: With the Bruins embroiled in the soap opera that was Steve Lavin’s tenure, the Trojans seemed to make inroads in 2001, advancing to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament while UCLA was bounced in the Sweet 16.

Trojan forward David Bluthenthal would later say that USC had indeed passed UCLA, courtesy of its longer tournament run.

But in 2002, with USC a popular pick to advance to the Final Four while UCLA was left for dead, the Trojans made a quick exit in the first round with an overtime loss to North Carolina Wilmington. Lavin, meanwhile, pulled another Sweet 16 spot out of his hat.

And a year ago, with UCLA suffering through its worst season since 1947-48 at 10-19, USC fell on its face as well, a surprising run to the Pac-10 tournament title game notwithstanding as the Trojans finished 13-17.

This season has been more of the same, what with USC losing six of seven at one point and UCLA, which stole any momentum USC had gained by canning Lavin and bringing in Ben Howland from Pittsburgh, dropping eight of nine.

“It’s a jinx, I guess,” USC junior Errick Craven said.

Not if you ask the Bruins. To them, it’s the natural order of things.

UCLA junior Dijon Thompson said last week that it didn’t matter if UCLA won another game this season, so long as it beat USC tonight.

Cedric Bozeman concurred.

“Beating SC would be good,” Bozeman said. “They’ve had our number the last three games. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”

Then isn’t USC supposed to reap the rewards?

“It should be obvious -- the last time they beat us was my freshman year and that was off a fluke, that shot,” Derrick Craven said of Billy Knight’s buzzer-beating three-pointer at Pauley Pavilion that gave the Bruins a 67-65 victory.

“We’ve been beating them since I’ve been here, so I think in my mind, and the players’ minds, it should be acknowledged that we’re the dominant team now and we’re coming in full force.”

But even the Trojans realize that perceptions have a hard time becoming reality.

“It’s the tradition,” Derrick Craven said. “You’re never going to get the full acknowledgment because of the history of the teams, especially having a coach that went to UCLA.”

USC Coach Henry Bibby, who helped the Bruins to three NCAA titles as their point guard in the early 1970s, usually bristles during UCLA week.

“Give credit where it is,” he said. “They’ve had some pretty good basketball players over there since I’ve been here.”

Farmer agreed, to a degree.

“They’re known for getting the best players, so-called,” he said.

Said Bruin senior T.J. Cummings, “We know the prestige we have at this school. We know the players we have at this school.”

So do the Trojans.

Because where Cummings would not bite on a question about the gap between the programs closing with every USC victory in the rivalry -- “I don’t want to provide any bulletin board material,” he said -- Derrick Craven was practically standing at the bulletin board, tacks in hand.

“They’re always going to get the spotlight and actually I think that’s a positive for us, I think that’s why we win,” Craven said.

“We’re the underdogs, always, even though we’ve got the better players.”

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Times staff writer Steve Henson contributed to this report.