Morrison Says USC’s Loss to Texas May Be Just What Doctor Ordered

USC basketball Coach Stan Morrison sat in front of a banner identifying the L.A. Optimist Club Monday at his noon media luncheon.

Appropriately, he took a positive approach to a negative situation, his team’s 71-70 nonconference loss to Texas Sunday at Austin.

“In retrospect, the scheduling of Texas was the best piece of scheduling I’ve done in six years at USC,” Morrison said. “People would have been talking about the UCLA game (USC’s four-overtime victory Thursday night) all week. The Texas game provided a buffer that allowed us to get back to reality and get our minds on the job at hand--winning the Pac-10 conference.”

USC, 12-4 in the conference and 18-8 overall, can win the Pacific 10 title outright by beating Oregon (8-8) and Oregon State (11-5) Thursday night and Saturday afternoon at the Sports Arena.

If they split those games, the Trojans will at least tie for the conference championship.

UCLA (10-6) could help USC by beating Oregon State Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins have already been helpful by virtually eliminating Arizona (11-6).

Other help could come from California and Stanford in their games with Washington, the other contender at 11-5, this weekend.

USC, of course, would rather take care of the matter, by sweeping. Morrison said that would be difficult.

OSU Coach Ralph Miller is now starting 6-foot-7 forward Tyrone Miller to complement 6-9 A.C. Green, the Pac-10 player of the year in 1984, and 6-9 Steve Woodside.

The Trojans are trying to get into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1982 and it’s believed that the Pac-10 will get as many as four teams in, now that the tournament has been expanded to 64 teams.

Only one team, however, will be the official Pac-10 representative, and, in that context, USC’s nonconference game with Texas may not have been meaningless. If one or more teams tie for the title, there is a tie-breaking formula to determine which will represent the Pac-10.

The advantage of being the conference representative in the tournament is that the team so designated would most likely be seeded into the West Regional instead of being sent to another site.

The first tie-breaker is head-to-head competition. USC has already split with Washington and has beaten Oregon State.

The second consideration is best overall record. Washington is 18-8, like USC, and Oregon State is 20-6. The Huskies and Beavers actually have better overall records, but they played games in Hawaii, which aren’t counted in determining best overall record.

In the third tie-breaker, the team which has not competed in the NCAA tournament for the longest time is deemed the conference representative. That would be USC.