Lewis Injured as USC Defeats Creighton, 59-54 : Freshman Twists His Ankle Early in the Game, but Kimble Fills In Admirably

No matter how bad things get, USC Coach Stan Morrison still manages to see the bright side.

On Saturday afternoon, Morrison’s Trojan basketball team got a sluggish 59-54 win over Creighton in front of 3,512 fans in the Sports Arena, lost leading scorer Tom Lewis to an ankle injury and saw an 11-point lead evaporate to two.

But listen to Morrison.

“We made progress, believe it or not,” he said. “We didn’t shoot well; bad shooting distorts what you do on the floor.

“One of our goals was to have good player movement in the zone. We had good penetration and we moved people and the ball. We’re continuing to get better on defense and we’re communicating better.”

The loss of Lewis, no matter how temporary, is cause for concern, however.

Lewis had been averaging 18 points for the Trojans but, less than five minutes into the game, he twisted his right ankle.

“I was going for a loose ball,” Lewis said. “I’ve twisted this ankle before, in the summer. It’s my bad ankle.”

Lewis came out of the game to have the ankle retaped, then went back in. Minutes later, he was taken out for good.

“I could walk on it and run on it a little bit,” said Lewis, whose ankle will be X-rayed Monday. Team officials say that it appears to be a “bad sprain.”

Morrison agreed that Lewis may have underestimated the extent of his injury at first.

“He really twisted it,” Morrison said. “He really wanted to play, obviously. He wasn’t moving in our zone. After he went in, I noticed that. We have some time before our next game and we’ll just pray it isn’t serious.”

What is serious for the Trojans is who will pick up the scoring slack if Lewis is lost for an extended period. USC (5-5) has a week before its next game.

In the interim, another freshman picked up where Lewis left off. Greg Kimble led USC with 16 points in 22 minutes of play. The 6-4 guard came into the game averaging nine points per game.

“That (Lewis’ injury) let Kimble play and he hurt us.” Creighton Coach Tony Barone said. “The loss didn’t hurt them because it allowed Kimble to play and he played well.”

The Bluejays (4-4) played well, too, especially Kenny Evans. The 6-4 senior missed much of last season because of a disciplinary suspension but came into the game as the leading scorer for the Bluejays. Evans has a game-high 26 points and added seven rebounds.

“Kenny Evans played another outstanding game,” Barone said. “He played his heart out. It’s too bad he missed those free throws.”

The free throws in question came at a crucial juncture. With USC ahead, 54-53 with two minutes left in the game, Larry Friend fouled Evans. Evans missed the front end of a one-and-one. Forty-three seconds later, Derrick Dowell fouled Evans. Evans, again, missed the free throw.

USC controlled the ball for the rest of the game for the win.

The only less-than-cheery comment Morrison had to make was in regard to the low-scoring game and its relation to the newly installed 45-second shot clock. This is the first year the Pac-10 has used the clock.

“It’s really good that we have the 45-second clock,” Morrison said sarcastically. “It speeds things up and makes for high-scoring games. I’ve always said the 45-second clock was going to bring the score down and this was an example of that.”