For the Record, Morrison Would Settle for .500

Stan Morrison will be seeking his 200th victory as a college basketball coach and a milestone 100th win as USC’s coach today at the Sports Arena.

Those are nice even numbers, but just a plain old win is Morrison’s goal, since that would bring his Trojans to .500 in the Pacific 10 race and keep them in contact with the leaders.

USC, 2-3 in the conference and 7-7 overall, will play Arizona State, 1-3 and 7-7, a team that has been weakened by the loss of forward Chris Sandle.

Sandle, the team’s leading scorer, has been academically disqualified from the university, according to a school spokesman. In harsher terms, he has flunked out.

Steve Patterson, the former UCLA center who now coaches the Sun Devils, also recently dismissed reserve center Jon Taylor from the team for disciplinary reasons. Ron Singleton, an accurate shooting guard, became academically ineligible at the start of the season.

Arizona State still has talent. After all, the Sun Devils were picked to finish second in the conference in a preseason Pac-10 coaches’ poll. But that was based on a full complement of players.

USC, the defending conference co-champion, served notice Thursday night that it wasn’t going to fade into the second division without a fight by beating Arizona, 63-62, and knocking the Wildcats out of a tie for first place with Oregon State. It was a stirring comeback, since the Trojans had trailed, 57-47, with 7 minutes 10 seconds remaining.

The Trojans made their run with four freshmen--Tom Lewis, Bo Kimble, Hank Gathers and Rich Grande--along with veteran Derrick Dowell.

Morrison will open with three of those freshmen today, with Grande coming off the bench to relieve senior point guard Larry Friend.

Asked earlier in the week if some feelings might be ruffled by promoting freshmen over veterans, Morrison said: “I will only play the freshmen if they are more productive than the others. I’m not concerned about hurting anyone’s feelings. They better worry about my feelings. Right now, I don’t feel real good.”

Trojan Notes The USC women’s basketball team (14-2) will play Arizona State (7-4) in a Pac West game today at 12:30 p.m. at the Sports Arena. The men’s game will start at 3 and will be televised on Channel 2. . . . UCLA beat Arizona State, 86-75, Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. . . . Derrick Dowell will sing the national anthem before the start of tonight’s game between the Clippers and the Utah Jazz at the Sports Arena. . . . Tom Lewis is averaging 19 points a game, which puts him ahead of the USC freshman-record scoring pace of Cliff Robinson, who averaged 18.4 in 1978.