Flat Trojans Get Flattened by Arizona : USC: Raveling says his players don’t have heads in the game as Wildcats shut down Miner and breeze, 95-70.

After celebrating its win over UCLA for a week, USC’s basketball team returned to its normal mode Thursday against Arizona. Just seven days after their biggest win of the season, the Trojans suffered their biggest loss.

The No. 22 Wildcats crushed the Trojans, 95-70, before a sellout crowd of 13,621 fans at McKale Center.

“It was just one of those nights when we just couldn’t do anything right,” USC Coach George Raveling said. “We just didn’t seem to show a lot of spunk and intensity.

“They played an excellent game, but we were a big contributor to it. It was a total breakdown tonight. I can’t think of a game this year where we were as poor in all facets of the game as we were tonight.

“It just looked like we had no interest in playing. It’s like we were still celebrating a win a week ago that’s history. I just don’t have any way to explain why we played as poorly as we did.

“This is like a bad dream. We’ve just got to go to sleep and forget about it and get ready to beat Arizona State (Saturday) and get a split out of this road trip.”

Arizona used a box-and-one defense to shut down USC guard Harold Miner. Averaging 28 points in his last three games, the freshman was held to 13 points as he missed eight of 12 shots from the floor. Arizona guard Matt Muehlebach checked Miner with help from Wayne Womack and forward Jud Buechler.

Arizona’s defense seemed to bother Miner. But Raveling suggested that Arizona’s defense on Miner wasn’t the key to the game.

“I don’t think shutting down Miner was a big factor at all,” Raveling said. “Whoever turned the lights off in our head is the person we should talk to because we left our best piece of equipment back at the motel--our heads. I should have sent the manager back to the motel at halftime to check the rooms.

“If we think that Miner’s going to go through four years and people aren’t going to get after him defensively, then we’re naive,” Raveling said. “I thought Harold showed great poise out there with the exception of a couple of shots.

“I think you’d be foolish to suggest that they won because they shut Miner down. If he had gotten 26 tonight and we didn’t play with any more gusto than we played with tonight, we would have still gotten beat by the same score. The only difference was that he would have had 26 points.”

While Arizona took away Miner, the Trojans’ primary outside scoring threat, the Wildcats’ front line also dominated USC’s front line.

Buechler scored 19 points and had 12 rebounds and five assists and forward Brian Williams added 18 points and 10 rebounds. Center Ed Stokes had 12 points and four rebounds as Arizona outrebounded USC, 41-23. Buechler, Williams and Stokes combined to hit 22 of 30 field goals.

‘Our big guys have really been playing well lately,” Buechler said. “Brian Williams is really starting to click, and when we have big strong guys like that we can just go to them.”

USC forward Ronnie Coleman had only one rebound and 17 points, and center Chris Munk had no points and no rebounds in 23 minutes.

Having already lost guard Harvey Mason with a knee injury, Arizona lost guard Matt Othick, who sprained his left ankle with 4:16 remaining in the game. Othick had sprained his right ankle in practice Monday but he played anyway, starting in place of Mason. Othick had 12 points and five assists before he was carried off the court.

Othick said he probably won’t play in Saturday’s game against UCLA, but Arizona trainer Steve Condon was optimistic.

“I don’t think it’s real serious,” Condon said. “We hope to have him back Saturday, but it’s a day-to-day thing.”

This one was over early.

USC opened a 5-0 lead, but Arizona outscored the Trojans, 16-2, over the next 12 minutes to take command. USC was held scoreless for the first five minutes of Arizona’s spurt.

Leading at halftime, 41-31, Arizona outscored USC, 21-9, in the first 8 1/2 minutes of the second half to put the game away.

Trojan Notes

Arizona guard Harvey Mason, who injured his right knee Tuesday, underwent surgery Wednesday. Although it was feared that Mason would be out the rest of the season, the injury wasn’t as severe as was first thought and he may return in two weeks. He suffered torn cartilage and a partially torn ligament. Mason attended the game in street clothes. . . . Arizona is 15-4 overall and 9-3 in the Pac-10, while USC fell to 7-11 and 2-9. Arizona has won 43 consecutive home games.