USC Beats Cal, and the Cellar Is Crowded

It isn’t often that the USC basketball team routs an opponent, nor is it accustomed to sweeping a series.

But the Trojans accomplished both feats Thursday night at the Sports Arena, where they beat California, 63-46, before 2,311 fans.

Now, with one regular season game left, the race is tightening at the bottom of the Pacific 10 Conference.

Three teams--USC, Cal and Washington--are tied for eighth place in the conference with 5-12 records. Another way of looking at it is that the three teams are bunched together in last place.

In any event, the Trojans, behind forwards Chris Moore and Ronnie Coleman and guard Andy Olivarez, moved away from the Bears in the second half.

USC had a modest 28-23 lead at halftime and then went on a 16-4 run early in the second half to put the Bears away.

The Trojans had beaten Cal, 58-56, in double overtime in Berkeley way back in December.

Cal has been an injury plagued team, losing star forward Leonard Taylor at the outset of the season with a foot injury. The latest casualty is forward Matt Beeuwsaert, who was unable to play Thursday night due to a sprained arch. He is Cal’s leading scorer, averaging 13.9 points a game.

So California Coach Lou Campanelli started four freshmen and a sophomore against USC and they weren’t up to the task.

The Trojans, who have squandered big and small leads alike this season, didn’t falter against the Bears.

USC led by only 30-27 in the opening minutes of the second half before Moore and Coleman took charge. They combined for 11 of their team’s 16 points in the decisive run and Cal couldn’t counter.

Olivarez then buried the Bears by hitting consecutive three-point shots, and when Coleman scored from the baseline, the Trojans led, 59-39, with 2:38 remaining.

Moore scored 19 points on 8 of 11 shooting. Coleman, a freshman, got 17 points, making 6 of 8 shots, and Olivarez finished with 15 points. He converted 4 of 10 3-point shots.

USC (7-19) will now try to avert its third straight last-place finish and fourth in the past five years when it meets Stanford Saturday afternoon at the Sports Arena.

The Bears and Trojans came into the game as the worst shooting teams in the league, 42.9% and 42.6%, respectively.

USC, however, shot 47.8% Thursday night, while Cal was a cold 34.6%. The Bears are 0-16 in games in which they’ve shot 43% or less. That would figure.

“The game came down to defense,” Moore said. “We played aggressive defense, the way the coach (George Raveling) likes us to play. After the pre-game speech he gave us, there was no way we could lose.”

Raveling made some adjustments at halftime, saying that he believed the Trojans could go inside more without much trouble.

“I told (guard) Rich Grande that we had to get Coleman into the offense,” Raveling said. “He went about eight minutes at one one point without a shot. I’ve learned something from Temple. They’re not afraid to put the weight of their offense on a freshman (Mark Macon).

“If this were midseason, we’d build our offense around Coleman.

The Trojans were coming off a 71-47 loss to Washington in Seattle Sunday, playing, perhaps, their worst game of the season.

Now USC is trying to go into the Pac-10 tournament next Thursday in Tucson as possibly the eighth-seeded team.

It’s a modest step, but an important one at this juncture of the season for Raveling’s team.

Moreover, by beating Cal, USC avoided the stigma of tying the 1977 team with the worst record (6-20) in the school’s history.

California is 8-18 overall, and Campanelli is simply running out of players.

“Not to make excuses, but we just don’t have the personnel right now to match up with many teams,” he said. “Without Beeuwsaert we don’t have an inside threat and it’s very easy for a defense to deny the perimeter.”

Even though Stanford is coming off a 91-69 loss to UCLA Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion, the Cardinal has been troublesome for the Trojans in recent years.

USC hasn’t beaten Stanford (18-10, 10-7) since the 1983-84 season.

“We’ll just try to get another win and go into the Pac-10 tournament with an up beat,” Raveling said. “We’ve got an opportunity to do something at USC that hasn’t been accomplished in a long time and that’s beat Stanford.

“Brad Winslow (senior guard) raised his hand in our postgame meeting and said, ‘If they have to carry me out with exhaustion, I want to beat Stanford.’ I’ll start Winslow against Stanford because I always start the seniors the last game of the season.”