USC Would Be Happy to Tie for 7th in Pac-10

It isn’t the goal USC Coach George Raveling had in mind at the outset of the season, but now his basketball team would gladly settle for a tie for seventh place in the final Pacific 10 Conference basketball standings.

That’s a possibility if USC beats Stanford today (Channel 2, 3 p.m.) at the Sports Arena, and California and Washington lose to UCLA and Arizona, respectively, as expected.

The Trojans, Bears and Huskies are tied for eighth place, each with a 5-12 conference record.

Washington State and Arizona State are one notch above the eighth-place teams, each with a 6-11 record. They will resolve their deadlock in a game Sunday at Tempe, Ariz.

Then, a tiebreaking formula (if necessary) will be used to determine the 1-through-10 seedings in the Pac-10 tournament that will begin Thursday in Tucson.

But the Trojans (7-19 overall) don’t figure to beat the Cardinal (18-10 and 10-7). USC has lost eight straight games to Stanford, the most recent an 88-62 thrashing last December at Palo Alto.

Stanford is coming off a 91-69 loss to UCLA Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. The Cardinal hasn’t beaten the Bruins in Los Angeles since 1952.