USC Goes Down Fighting in a 70-64 Loss to Huskies

In this corner, wearing purple and gold and playing for the Pacific 10 Conference title and a 20-win season, the Washington Huskies.

In the other corner, contenders a year ago but now under .500 and playing mostly for pride in the eyes of their coach, the underdog USC Trojans.

The result, not surprisingly, was a 70-64 win for Washington Saturday before a Sports Arena crowd of 4,138, but not before both sides could get in a few shots in a second-half scuffle.

It started with some minor pushing and shoving in the first 20 minutes, and that may have carried over from the Jan. 11 meeting between the teams at Seattle, according to Washington’s Shag Williams, one of the headliners on Saturday’s card. But it escalated just two minutes into the second half as Williams and Trojan forward Derrick Dowell exchanged words face to face.

About 10 seconds later, both players were on the floor after getting tangled up going for a rebound, and then Williams bounced up and started walking toward Dowell. From there, the husky Washington forward--he weighed in at 6-4 and 203 pounds at the start of the season--must have felt as of he were in some kind of tag-team match as Dowell, 5-11 guard Larry Friend and freshman Bo Kimble had run-ins with him.

No scoring punches were landed, but the Trojans at least proved that they weren’t planning to lose any pride along with losing a game.

“If the refs are going to let that kind of stuff go,” Dowell said, they should forget about playing basketball and let people get out there and box.”

Williams and Dowell were ejected, costing the Trojans the No. 5 scorer (17.1 points) and No. 2 rebounder (9.1) in the conference. Williams had been scoring 9.9 points a game.

Moreover, USC lost another decision by the referees in the main event--the game--and that had Coach Stan Morrison a little upset. He claimed that there is a jump-ball situation after a double-ejection, and that would have given the Trojans possession with Washington holding a 38-37 lead.

“I will openly criticize the officials for not taking care of that point,” he said.

From then on, the referees cracked down and called 13 fouls in the first five minutes of the second half, and there were no more incidents.

“There was no good fight,” Morrison said. “I’ve seen better pillow fights. I don’t think it merited both players going out.”

Said Friend: “We knew it was going to physical game going in, but we weren’t going to back down. The last time we were up there, they pushed us around pretty good. . . . Now they know if they can dish it out, they had better be able to take it.”

The win, coupled with Arizona losing to Stanford at Palo Alto, put Washington (14-9 overall and 7-3 in conference) back in first place in the Pac-10. It also broke a two-game losing streak, including Thursday’s overtime loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.

Center Chris Welp led the way with a career-high 28 points and also had 9 rebounds and 4 blocked shots. He scored six of the Huskies’ first eight points as Rod Keller of the Trojans tried fronting him, obviously with little success. But in the second half, Welp got only 12 points on 4-of-10 shooting from the field as Morrison kept sending in fresh players to try and muscle the seven-footer.

Washington led by just three points, 63-60, with 56 seconds remaining in the game but got some clutch shooting from the free-throw line from guard Greg Hill (who finished with 15 points), Clay Damon (his only 2 points of the contest) and Paul Fortier (14 points and 8 rebounds).

Forward Tom Lewis led USC with 21 points, 12 of in the first half on sharp jump shooting, and Kimble added 13.

“I love the effort we have given the last two games,” Morrison said. “It’s a winning effort because they’re winners.”

Trojan Notes

USC has now lost three straight and plays road games next week against Arizona State (Thursday) and Arizona (Saturday). . . . Washington’s Shag Williams: “One of the refs told me before the game that he wasn’t going to call a lot of fouls. He said he didn’t want it to be like a high school game, so he told us to play hard and rough. I guess we were just a little too physical.” . . . Added Coach Andy Russo: “We’re not a dirty team. I commend USC for playing so darn hard after the run they have had recently and also our kids after the tough game the other night (against Washington State). They just went at it tooth and nail.” . . . In scoring 15 points, junior guard Greg Hill, a graduate of Dorsey High and El Camino College, made 4 of 7 shots from the field and 7 of 8 from the free-throw line. . . . USC committed only 10 turnovers, compared to 33 in the game at Seattle, where the Huskies won, 91-75. Trojan point guard Larry Friend played 36 of the game’s 40 minutes and did not have a turnover.