875 Watch as USC Remains Unbeaten in Basketball

During Saturday’s USC-Notre Dame football game at the Coliseum, there were several announcements that anyone with football tickets would be admitted free to Saturday night’s basketball game between USC and Howard University.

But most of the 93,829 who packed the Coliseum apparently preferred fighting the postgame traffic jam to watching the Trojans’ basketball team because only 875 were at the Sports Arena for the basketball game.

And who can blame them?

The Trojans have had a lock on last place in the Pacific 10 for the past 3 seasons and were coming off the worst season in school history.

However, the Trojans (2-0) are off to their best start in 9 seasons, after routing Howard, 71-49.

“To be honest with you, we really thought this would be a lot tougher game than it turned out to be,” Trojan Coach George Raveling said. “I don’t mean this as a putdown to Delaware, but going into the opening 2 games we thought that Delaware would be a little easier game and Howard a little tougher game and it was kind of the reverse.”

Raveling is trying to rebuild the Trojans’ self esteem. Last season, USC lost its confidence after losing more games than any other team in school history.

“I’m very concerned about our self esteem,” Raveling said. “I use the sandwich concept--start with something positive, put something negative in the middle and end with something positive.”

Raveling was pleased with USC’s defense, which smothered Howard. Cold-shooting Howard shot poorly, hitting 16 of 60 shots (29.6%).

“The biggest thing we talked about was trying to make some adjustments defensively from the Delaware game,” Raveling said. “I don’t think we played very good post defense in the Delaware game, but we did a lot better job on defense tonight.”

USC’s offense also was smoother than in Friday’s 74-68 victory over Delaware, when the Trojans seemed out of sync much of the time.

Forward Chris Moore led the Trojans with 17 points, and guard Anthony Pendleton added 14 points and forward Ronnie Coleman had 13.

Pendleton said this season’s team has a lot better chemistry than last season’s.

“I think it all started this summer when we started playing in Brazil (where the Trojans went 7-2 against pro teams),” Pendleton said. “We got a chance to play with each other a lot more and we got to know each other better. In previous summers players would go their separate ways, but this past summer it wasn’t like that.”

Howard Coach A. B. Williamson was impressed with the Trojans.

“I think they’re an excellent defensive team. But our youth and inexperience showed tonight,” he said. “We failed to execute offensively against their man-to-man pressure. Coach Raveling and his team deserve a lot of credit for the defensive pressure they applied and the way they attacked the boards.

“I’m a little embarrassed by our play, but we’re very young and inexperienced.”

Forward Guy Owens was Howard’s lone bright spot, scoring a career-high 26 points.

Guard Chuck Smalley, the Bison’s leading returning scorer, was scoreless because he got into foul trouble.

USC Notes

The Trojans play Portland at the Sports Arena Monday night at 7:30 and end the season-opening home stand against United States International University Tuesday night. . . . Howard plays at Cal State Dominguez Hills Monday night. . . . Coach George Raveling didn’t allow his team to watch Saturday’s USC-Notre Dame football game, but most of the players didn’t seem to mind. “It was good that SC was going for the national championship, but we had some business to take care of, too,” guard Anthony Pendleton said.