Trojans Make Notre Dame 4th Victim in Row, 105-95

Maybe it’s time to start taking USC’s basketball team seriously.

The last-place team in the Pacific 10 Conference for three of the past four seasons, the revitalized Trojans are off to their best start since 1976, winning five of their first six games.

USC won its fourth in a row Wednesday night, defeating Notre Dame, 105-95, before 9,501 at the Joyce Athletic and Convocation Center. The 105 points were the most that the Irish, who trailed by 17 points at halftime and 21 nine minutes into the second half, have allowed at home in the 20 seasons Digger Phelps has been coach.

“To be perfectly honest with you, we probably played as well in all phases of the game as we have at any time this year,” USC Coach George Raveling said after the Trojans reached the 100-point mark for the second time this season.

And with games against Augusta, Harvard and Brooklyn coming up, the Trojans could have a seven-game winning streak going into their conference opener at sixth-ranked UCLA on Jan. 2.

Sophomore guard Harold Miner scored a season-high 35 points, two shy of his career best. It was the fifth time that Miner has scored 30 or more points in his two-year college career.

“I think Miner is one of the best players in the country,” Phelps said. “We recruited Harold. We really wanted him here, and you can see why. He’s going to be one of the greatest scorers the game has seen. He’s very unselfish and he has a quick release. Whenever we tried to make a run, he made the shots they needed in crunch time.”

Miner, who had 16 points in the first half, made 13 of 21 shots, including three three-point shots, grabbed a career-high nine rebounds and had two steals in 37 minutes.

“For the school this is a big win,” Miner said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve beaten Notre Dame in football or basketball. But it’s a long season, and we have to keep our feet on the ground and reach for the stars.”

USC sophomore guard Robert Pack tied his career high with 24 points. Pack made 10 of 12 free throws in the second half to help the Trojans hold off Notre Dame’s comeback.

While Miner and Pack were scoring from the outside, forward Ronnie Coleman did the work inside, scoring 15 points and grabbing nine rebounds.

USC built a 71-50 lead with 11:09 left, which helped to empty the arena, before theIrish rallied to cut the final margin to 10. In the second half, forward LaPhonso Ellis scored 19 of his 28 points and guard Elmer Bennett scored 20 of his career-high 27.

“Bennett was very disrespectful tonight because he didn’t realize what he was doing to an old man’s heart in the second half,” Raveling said. “He took the game over in the second half. Obviously, he didn’t understand the articles of surrender.”

But the Trojans, a poor free-throw shooting team, made 22 of 29 free throws in the second half, including 13 of 15 in the last three minutes. The Irish (2-7) have lost seven consecutive games and are off to their worst start since Phelps’ first season in 1971-72.

How desperate is Phelps?

So desperate that he has recruited two players off the Notre Dame football team--freshman quarterback B.J. Hawkins and freshman linebacker Oliver Gibson--who will join the basketball team after the Orange Bowl.

Raveling, who lost 78 of 116 games in his first four seasons at USC, says he knows what Phelps is going through.

“I’ve been down that road that they’re traveling before,” Raveling said. “Just as you have winning momentum, you have losing momentum and it’s difficult to change the course of things. But I believe that come January, the Irish are going to be fine.”

Trojan Notes

Forward Calvin Banks, who left the Trojans Monday for an indefinite period and was considering quitting after being removed from the starting lineup, has decided to return to the team. Banks didn’t play in USC’s 74-67 victory at Colorado State Saturday. “I know if I was a starter last year and all of a sudden I didn’t even get in a game, I’d be a little upset at the coach too,” USC Coach George Raveling said. . . . Swingman Keith Greeley didn’t make the trip because of tonsillitis. . . . The most points ever allowed by a Digger Phelps-coached team came when UCLA defeated Notre Dame, 114-56, at Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 22, 1971.