It Looks Like Just a Game : Long Beach and USC Women Would Rather Play Than Fight Now

The days are gone when thoughts of a USC-Long Beach women’s basketball game would conjure images of shoving matches and shouted insults. There was seemingly more attention paid to whom knocked down who than to how well the team was doing.

Instead, this trans-freeway rivalry has mellowed. As the Long Beach program has established itself as being the equal of USC’s, the 49ers have shrugged the chip off their shoulders and the Trojans have gained some humility.

When the teams meet tonight at 7:30 in the Sports Arena it will likely be a well-played, intense, clean game. Some players said they felt the change the moment Cheryl Miller of USC and Cindy Brown of Long Beach graduated. The longstanding animosity between those star players often set the tone for the game; an in-your-face, undisciplined, individual effort that gave little thought to how the team was doing.

Paula Pyers, a senior guard for USC, has seen the before and after of the rivalry.

“It used to be a real individual game,” Pyers said. “It used to be Cindy Brown versus Cheryl Miller. That’s over. Now it’s a team effort. There’s more respect. We have Cherie Nelson and they have Penny Toler, but there’s more. I think this is one of the more interesting rivalries in the country. And it’s changing. There’s more respect between the teams. It’s not going to be like going to war.”

The records are nearly identical. Long Beach is 14-5 and 11-0 in the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. USC is 14-5 and 8-2 in the Pacific 10. The 49ers, who began the season at No. 4, have slipped to 12th. The Trojans, who were not ranked in the preseason polls, have climbed to 15th.

It will be the only time the teams meet this season, and, if statistics count for anything, the site will be a factor.

USC played in the Long Beach tournament in December and its 95-53 loss to Auburn was the Trojan’s worst loss in seven years. When USC beat Toledo in the consolation game, it was the first time Coach Linda Sharp had won any game in the Long Beach gym in her 10 years at USC.

Long Beach has an equally bad record at USC’s gym. The last time the 49ers won at USC was in 1980, Joan Bonvicini’s first year as Long Beach coach. The 49ers have lost seven in a row at USC since then.

With the departure of Miller and Brown, the tenor of the games have changed. A USC-Long Beach game used to be a bitter, ugly game, more battle than sport. Players involved in tonight’s game say those days are over.

“For years, the games were always fighting, fighting,” said Carol Brandt, a senior forward at Long Beach. “We’re here to play basketball. We’re not in the ring with Mike Tyson. We were giving women’s basketball a bad name. Now, we are all concerned about that.”

Brandt said a change occurred when players from the teams began to cross the rivalry barriers and play together in the summer. “We’re friends with them,” she said of USC’s players. “We spent the whole summer together. It’s different now. We are close, we’re spending time with each other. That’s where the respect comes in. It carries on to the floor. We don’t think about kicking their butts--it’s basketball. You knock someone down and you pick her up. You say you’re sorry. It doesn’t turn into a bench-clearing thing.”

Sharp sighs at the thought of those years and those games. In Miller, she had a superstar she tried to keep in control, but Miller was a great player precisely because of her intensity.

“I think the media hyped up the Cindy Brown and Cheryl Miller matchups. Before that, it was LaTaunya Pollard and the McGees. This game has always been an individual matchup. But, now, I think we are certainly going to see more of a team game.”

The game will put the 49ers’ swift running style and sticky pressure defense against a Trojan team that is a step-slower and only now beginning to embrace its defensive assignments.

“I’ve seen improvement in our patience,” Sharp said. “In our last game we had two assists. Last night (in the USC win over UCLA last Thursday) we had 23. This team has really come on in the last few weeks.”

Sharp said her plan will key on the USC guards and their ability to control the Long Beach guards, notably Toler.

Toler reinjured her left knee in January and missed three games. She came back and seemed to have little trouble with it, then, three days ago, Toler began to complain of pain. The problem has been diagnosed as tendinitis. Bonvicini said Toler will not start, but she will see quite a bit of playing time.

Despite this setback, the 49ers are ready, Bonvicini said. “This is the biggest rivalry in the West and one of the best in the country,” she said. “It will be a good game, whatever happens.”