Raveling’s Defense Is Longshot That Fails : Beavers Riddle USC’s Zone En Route to a 64-55 Victory at Corvallis

After scouting Oregon State’s basketball team, USC Coach George Raveling thought the best way to defend against them was to force the Beavers to shoot outside.

Raveling’s strategy failed as Oregon State’s snipers cut down the Trojans, 64-55, in a Pacific 10 game Thursday night before 9,785 fans at Gill Coliseum.

Shooting over the Trojans’ zone, Beaver guard Gary Payton made 5 3-point shots and finished with 19 points. Guard Eric Knox hit 3 3-point shots and scored 13 points.

“I wasn’t surprised by the play of Knox and Payton,” Raveling said. “They’re both really good shooters. Essentially, they beat us by themselves.

“We gambled by giving a little bit on the outside shooting, hoping we’d catch them on an off night and steal the game. It was a calculated risk. In the games they’ve lost, they haven’t hit their outside shots.”

Oregon State made its outside shots against USC. After making only 13 3-point shots in their first 11 games, the Beavers hit 8 of 13 3-pointers against the Trojans.

“Everybody has tried to get us to shoot outside this season,” Payton said. “Now that we’re starting to hit them, I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

Payton, perhaps the best point guard in the Pac-10, did a superb job of running Oregon State’s offense. He handed out 10 assists and made 4 steals.

Point guard is a problem position with USC.

Disappointed with the play of Duane Cooper, Raveling started Rich Grande in his place. Cooper had started every game this season.

“I wasn’t pleased with Cooper’s play in Hawaii,” Raveling said “He went through 3 games and had 1 assist and 8 turnovers. I felt we needed a change.”

Grande wasn’t much better.

On USC’s first two possessions, Payton stole the ball from Grande. Cooper quickly replaced him, and they wound up splitting time.

Grande had a team-high 4 turnovers as USC did a poor job of handling the Beaver defensive pressure. The Trojans had 19 turnovers in all.

“I think the game can best be summed up by saying we did a poor job of handling the ball against pressure,” Raveling said “That to me was the whole difference in the game.”

USC’s offense never got into sync as the Trojans set a season low for points scored.

Guard Anthony Pendleton and forward Ronnie Coleman were the only Trojans who played well. Pendleton had 17 points and Coleman 15.

USC is 7-6 overall and 0-2 in the Pac-10. Oregon State is 8-3 and 1-2.

After using the same lineup throughout the season, the Trojans had two new starters against the Beavers.

In addition to Grande, Calvin Banks took over for Chris Moore at forward.

The revamped Trojans jumped out to a 19-12 lead midway through the first half before collapsing.

USC went scoreless for 6:05 as Oregon State took control of the game with a 12-2 blitz. Payton accounted for 9 points in the spurt.

After playing so poorly in the first half, USC was fortunate to trail by only 35-28 at halftime.

“I can’t say we were that sharp,” Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller said. “We went back to too many of our old habits. We have to be more consistent.”

Trojan Notes

USC guard Andy Olivarez was suspended for disciplinary reasons and didn’t make the trip. . . . The Trojans play at Oregon Saturday night and Oregon State plays host to UCLA Sunday afternoon in a game that will be shown on national cable TV.