USC Hits a Bad Spot on the Road

USC’s basketball team, which had been experiencing mostly highs this season, hit a low point in a 92-78 loss to Oregon State Saturday at Gill Coliseum.

The loss dropped 13th-ranked USC from a first-place tie with UCLA in the Pacific 10. The Trojans had won their previous nine games, their longest conference winning streak in 52 years.

“What we have to try to do is get this game behind us as quickly as possible and get our vision forward,” USC Coach George Raveling said. “I don’t think we can afford the luxury of trying to overanalyze why we got beat by Oregon State. It was a day when they were the better basketball team.

“We’ve had so much good fortune this season that it was probably time for some bad things to happen to us.”

One of those bad things was USC’s inability to stop Oregon State center Scott Haskin, who scored a personal-best 33 points.

Haskin, a 6-foot-11, 235-pound junior, scored 23 points during the second half as the Beavers, who trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half, outscored the Trojans, 52-37, during the second half.

“I said weeks ago that Scott Haskin was the most underrated big man on the West Coast, and he didn’t do anything today to make me look bad,” Raveling said. “He played an outstanding game. We just couldn’t find the answer to defense him.”

Haskin made 12 of 16 shots from the field, including his last 10, and nine of 10 free throws. He also had 10 rebounds.

“I want to credit the guards because the guards hit me when I’m open, and they make my job so easy,” Haskin said.

Vulnerable inside because of their three-guard alignment, the Trojans were unable to stop Haskin from making close-range shots. USC center Yamen Sanders, who was matched against Haskin, fouled out, and forward Mark Boyd finished with four fouls. Guard Duane Cooper also fouled out.

“We kept standing behind him and he kept shooting over us,” Boyd said of Haskin. “He’s an excellent player who uses his body well, and we just weren’t playing him right.”

Guard Harold Miner scored 30 points and had a season-high 12 rebounds. Miner said the loss shouldn’t affect the Trojans.

“As a team, we have so much confidence that we feel we can bounce back,” Miner said. “We always seem to find some positive out of a negative, and I think this will be the same.”

USC, which had played poorly in winning its last two games, had its worst game since opening the Pac-10 season with a 39-point loss at Arizona.

USC (17-4, 9-2) collapsed in particular in the final two minutes of the first half as Oregon State (12-12, 4-7) went on a 9-0 run. Guard Kevin Harris, who had a personal-best 13 points, had seven points during the run as the Beavers cut their deficit to 41-40 at halftime.

Leading, 64-61, with 10 minutes remaining, Oregon State then made a 19-6 run to take control of the game.

“It’s just an unexplainable game,” Raveling said. “We’ve won some games we should have lost. So I think the saga continues, ‘How do you explain the Trojans?’ If there’s one thing that’s been consistent about us, it’s that you can’t figure us out.”

Trojan Notes

Oregon State, which had shot less than 50% in its previous five games, shot 52.8%. USC shot 47.3% and committed 21 turnovers. . . . USC guard Harold Miner drew a technical foul with 16 minutes left in the game for arguing with the officials after they called a foul on him after blocking a shot by guard Kevin Harris. . . . Oregon State reserve guard Kareem Anderson had a personal-best 17 points in 37 minutes.