It’s That Time of Year Again

UCLA fans who see red at the mere thought of cardinal and gold don’t want to hear it.

USC fans who get the blues at the sight of powder blue and gold consider it blasphemy.

Tonight’s basketball schedule reads USC vs. UCLA, but Henry Bibby and Ben Howland recognize not a decades-long, contempt-filled cross-town rivalry, but only one letter.

W.

Both teams sorely need a victory after losing three in a row. And to the coaches, this enemy is no different than any other, regardless of the enmity.

Bibby, the USC coach: “Every game is important.”

Howland, the UCLA coach: “Every game is the biggest game of the year.”

Forget that Pauley Pavilion is expected to be sold out for the first time since last season’s game against the Trojans.

Forget that players are motivated by the unpleasant prospect of taking verbal jabs from the other side during their inevitable off-season mingling.

Forget that USC has won five rivalry games in a row in football, giving the hardwood Trojans a lot to live up to and the hardwood Bruins a lot to live down.

Rivalry chatter doesn’t matter. Coaches operate in an insulated environment where external elements such as fans and players detesting their opponent are annoyances.

It didn’t bother Howland that the USC band launched into an anti-UCLA song at the end of a televised ceremony last week to celebrate the Trojans’ three fall sports national championships.

“I find that childish,” he said.

Bibby, the USC coach of nine seasons, had no qualms attending a Dec. 20 lunch at UCLA to celebrate the christening of Nell and John Wooden Court.

“It was nice to see that,” he said.

Of course, Bibby is a former Bruin All-American who played under Wooden during UCLA’s heyday, making him well-acquainted with the rivalry. He wants us to believe it has lost some zip.

“The last five or six years, it’s not what it used to be,” he said. “I don’t know why. There is so much emphasis on the next game. Every game is important.”

Howland is from the same school of coach-speak, even if he hasn’t coached anywhere that has an intense cross-town rival. Pittsburgh and Northern Arizona, his heading coaching stops before UCLA, are the only games in their towns.

Same for UC Santa Barbara, where he served as an assistant for 11 years, although Howland recalls heat emanating from Orange County.

“When I was at UCSB, our rival was UC Irvine, and in many ways, it was like this one,” he said. “We had the same standards academically, that type of thing. That’s how we felt at the time, anyway.”

Suffice to say he doesn’t quite get it yet.

And suffice to say UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero does. He expects that Howland will soon enough.

“This will be his first taste of it,” Guerrero said.

Anybody who attended either rivalry game last season got a mouthful. USC won, 80-75, at Pauley Pavilion and 86-85 at the Sports Arena -- a game that ended with Trojan Jerry Dupree riding on a teammate’s back while the band blared “Conquest.”

“It was hard to walk off the floor,” UCLA guard Cedric Bozeman said.

Those were grand moments to be a Trojan.

They’ve been few and far between, though. UCLA has a 119-96 edge overall.

Don MacLean, the all-time Bruin leading scorer and current radio color commentator, still gets irritated at the mention of the 1992 games, both won by USC. He was a senior and UCLA dominated almost everyone else, going 28-5.

USC guard “Harold Miner was flying through the air, that’s all I remember,” he said.

“For the coaches, it’s just another game. The rivalry is hardest for the players because they have to deal with other students at school.”

And students feel now as they did then. “They hate SC,” Bozeman said. “And at SC, they hate us.”

So it’s no great revelation that the disdain spills onto the court. It’s up to veteran players to fill in newcomers before tip-off.

“This is for who owns the city,” USC senior Desmon Farmer said. “You want the bragging rights for the summer. When you walk around, you get to smile at them.”

Added Trojan junior Nick Curtis: “Me personally, I’ve just got a dislike in my heart.”

Players who grew up in the Southland feel the rivalry most intensely. Some changed allegiances when they enrolled. Curtis rooted for UCLA while growing up in Oxnard. USC junior Gregg Guenther’s mother attended UCLA. Trojans Errick and Derrick Craven played against Bruins Dijon Thompson and Bozeman in high school.

Ill feelings linger for players who weren’t recruited by one school and ended up at the other. Historically, that has mostly been players passed over by UCLA who enrolled at USC.

“When UCLA gets involved with kids, it’s like Kentucky, it’s like Duke getting involved with kids,” Bibby said. “It’s where most kids want to play basketball.”

Although the Trojans have a strong recruiting class coming in, they lost out on three standout local high school players -- Jordan Farmar of Woodland Hills Taft, Josh Shipp of Los Angeles Fairfax and Aaron Afflalo of Compton Centennial -- signed by Howland.

“Those are three kids we tried to get,” Bibby said. “They are in the top 50 players in the country. He’s done a great job there already in that aspect.”

Howland said he has no idea whether beating USC will give him a recruiting edge. He’s not thinking that far ahead. “We need to get into the win column,” he said.

USC forward Jeff McMillan is a transfer from Fordham, so his fellow Trojans have tried to convey the rivalry’s intensity.

“They tell me about it, but to me it’s just another game, another opportunity to win,” McMillan said.

Now there’s an attitude a coach can appreciate.

Times staff writer Paul Gutierrez contributed to this report.