Early Stanford Burst Buries USC : Pac-10: The Cardinal goes on a 17-0 run during the first half en route to a 78-62 victory, ending a 10-game slump.

Stanford is only a 40-minute drive on the freeway from Berkeley, but somewhere along the way, the USC basketball season went down the drain.

After playing perhaps their best game Thursday night in an overtime loss to a good California team, the Trojans were manhandled by lowly Stanford before 2,581 at Maples Pavilion on Saturday.

The Cardinal, which had lost a school-record 10 in a row, turned a 17-0 run during the first half into a 78-62 victory.

Stanford (7-17) had not won since Jan. 9, when it defeated Oregon, the worst team in the Pac-10, at Stanford. The Cardinal is 2-10 in league play.

“You never like to lose, but it is especially distasteful when the players don’t have a commitment,” Trojan Coach George Raveling said. “I didn’t see a commitment out there. We just never were competitive.”

The pattern for Stanford during its losing streak was to play it close for a half, then fade during the second half. In this one, the Cardinal started to stumble in the second half, but it didn’t make any difference. This game was decided during eight minutes of the first half.

Freshman forward Darren Allaway, who didn’t play in USC’s victory over the Cardinal last month at the Sports Arena, and Peter Dukes, who wasn’t a factor in that game, led the surge.

Allaway got the Cardinal off to a fast start and Dukes came off of the bench to make three three-point shots during the run that put Stanford in command.

After Rodney Chatman made his second three-pointer in a row for USC, the Trojans trailed by only 19-14, and there was plenty of time left in the first half.

But eight minutes elapsed before USC scored again. Meanwhile, Dukes, who had made barely one-fourth of his three-point attempts, made three in a row and the poorest-shooting team in the league opened a 36-14 lead. After a three-pointer by Phil Glenn with 3:48 to play in the half ended the Trojan slump, Stanford took a 40-17 lead. The Cardinal made 15 of its first 25 shots after shooting 41% in its first 23 games.

Although the Cardinal reverted to form the rest of the way, the Trojans (13-9, 6-7) never did. Dukes, who scored only two points during the second half, led Stanford with 15 points. Chatman, who scored 37 points against Cal, scored 18 to lead USC.

“I thought they did a fine job of stopping our inside game,” Raveling said. “We couldn’t do anything inside. It was a big win for them.

“Maybe it didn’t end our playoff hopes, but it certainly struck a blow to them. About the only good thing is that the players won’t need a pep talk for the Bruins next Thursday.”

Said Stanford Coach Mike Montgomery: “I didn’t know whether this day would ever come. I know USC was down after that heartbreaking loss (to Cal). But we are happy to have the victory.”