Chastened Trojans to Play Cal Tonight : Morrison Follows Drill With Team Meeting After Stanford Loss

USC’s basketball players had the gaunt look of marathon runners as they prepared to board a bus for a Friday afternoon practice at Harmon Gym on the California campus.

They had reason to be tired. It was already a long day after an even longer night.

It all began at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, when USC played at Stanford. Two hours later, the Trojans were in their dressing room, licking their wounds after having been thrashed, 86-65, by the last-place team in the Pacific 10.

The only consolation in defeat was that USC didn’t lose its share of the Pac-10 lead. Arizona was upset by Oregon, so the Trojans and Wildcats were still in first place with 10-4 records, but the pack was closing in.

It has become a five-team race, with Oregon State, 9-4, and UCLA and Washington, each 9-5, suddenly revived as title contenders.

Coach Stan Morrison wasn’t about to let his USC players forget the game they had just lost, though. He had them back on the floor practicing for an hour in the quiet of an almost deserted arena.

The unscheduled practice ended at about 11:30 p.m., and the team finally boarded a bus for Berkeley, where it will play Cal tonight.

But the players didn’t get to go to bed when they reached the Berkeley Marina Hotel. Morrison had other plans.

He held a team meeting until approximately 1:30 a.m. Friday, discussing strategy for Cal.

Morrison had said after the Stanford loss that he would definitely have some lineup changes for Cal. After sleeping on it, he changed his mind.

“Based on last night, there isn’t a guy who deserves to start,” Morrison said Friday. “But I’m not sure that’s the thing to do. Do I bench (Derrick) Dowell, (Wayne) Carlander and (Clayton) Olivier? To pull one player out would be to point the finger at him. Maybe we should put the whole thing behind us.”

Morrison was bitterly disappointed by his team’s performance against Stanford, a team that UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard says plays “tricky, funny little basketball” as coached by Tom Davis.

Not so funny to the Trojans. Stanford has only three Pac-10 wins, two at USC’s expense.

“We’re in first place and we’re playing the worst basketball in the league right now,” said Ron Holmes, USC’s senior wingman. “We’ve got to get that eye of the tiger back.

“Stanford was just hungrier than we were. We’ve had opportunities to lock it up (the Pac-10 title), but we haven’t done it.”

USC could have opened a 2 1/2-game lead by beating Arizona last Saturday. But the Trojans lost. They could have had a one-game lead with four conferences games remaining by beating Stanford. They stumbled again.

Morrison said he couldn’t recall whether he had ever sent a team back onto the floor to practice after a game.

“But I’m not the first coach to do it,” he said. “We didn’t accomplish anything in the game except to embarrass ourselves. I didn’t want the players riding the bus to Berkeley feeling sorry for themselves. That wouldn’t do any good. I wanted them on the floor to figure out what happened.”

Morrison was so distressed after the game that he kept the USC dressing room door closed to reporters for half an hour. He didn’t even talk to his players. He just let them sit in silence until he ordered them back on the floor.

It’s traditional for the Trojans to have pizza after a game. Morrison turned the pizza man away, though.

“They didn’t need it,” Morrison said. “We didn’t work up enough of an appetite.”

Holmes and Olivier were not critical of Morrison’s postgame practice.

“We probably should have practiced,” Holmes said. “We didn’t expend enough energy in losing to Stanford by 20 points.”

Olivier: “We deserved it. We played bad and had to be punished.”

Carlander, a senior forward who has started every game since his freshman year, was noncommittal about the practice, just shrugging.

USC has been described as a blue-collar team, one that has had to work hard to climb to the top of the Pac-10. But Morrison said USC was out-hustled by Stanford in every department.

Asked whether USC has abandoned the work ethic, Carlander said: “I don’t know whether we’re not working as hard, or whether we have enough to work with.”

He would not elaborate on that.

Holmes and Carlander said that fatigue could possibly be a factor in USC’s recent slump, but neither could provide a definitive answer for the team’s lackluster play against Stanford.

Morrison was especially critical of his team’s defense, saying that the Trojans had not communicated nor gotten good position for rebounds, and had allowed Stanford high-percentage shots, including layups. The Cardinal shot 86.4% in the second half.

“I have a feeling we’ll bounce back,” Holmes said. “It’s embarrassing and reminiscent of last year (11-20). And we don’t want to go through that again.”

Trojan Notes Coach Stan Morrison said that reserve guard Glenn Smith definitely deserves to start, but Smith will be used as a sixth man against Cal tonight. Smith scored 20 points against Stanford, 16 in the second half, complementing Ron Holmes’ game-high 27, and was one of the few Trojans efficient on defense, according to Morrison. . . . Tonight’s game will be televised by Channel 11 at 7:30. . . . Cal has a 4-9 league record, 12-11 overall. USC struggled to beat Cal last month at the Sports Arena, 86-80. . . . Clayton Olivier didn’t take a shot against Stanford, but he’ll start tonight. “I seldom got the ball,” he said. Olivier is still bothered by a ruptured blood vessel in his right foot. Morrison, however, may go with a smaller lineup to offset Cal’s quickness.