USC Runs Into a Big East Roadblock : College basketball: Seton Hall proves too physical for Trojans, who can’t adjust and lose, 92-72.

USC got a feel for Big East Conference basketball Thursday night and has the bruises to prove it.

Seton Hall’s size and physical play was the difference in the Pirates’ 92-72 victory over the Trojans in the championship game of the Seton Hall/Meadowlands tournament before 9,825 at the Meadowlands Arena.

After playing their best game of the season in a comeback victory over Southern Methodist on Wednesday night, the Trojans ran out of gas in the second half against Seton Hall.

Freshman Donnell Williams scored a career-high 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and tournament most valuable player Adrian Griffin scored 18 to lead the Pirates, who held USC to its lowest score in six games.

“It’s tough for us to play back-to-back games because right now I don’t think that we’re capable mentally to handle it,” USC Coach Charlie Parker said. “They played us physically and we didn’t respond to it. We just didn’t have any legs left.”

Two USC players made the all-tournament team--Jaha Wilson, who had a team-high 18 points and 12 rebounds, and Lorenzo Orr, who had 12 points, six rebounds and five blocked shots.

“They’re a big team that played physical,” Wilson said. “They really didn’t do anything special. We had the shots, but unfortunately they didn’t go in for us. But we have the players. We just have to learn to adjust to certain situations.”

In its final game before starting Big East play next week, Seton Hall (9-2) was able to slow down the Trojans and force them into bad shots from their halfcourt offense. USC, which made 65.4% of its shots in the second half against SMU, shot only 38.1% from the field in the final 20 minutes against the Pirates.

“If USC had played more teams like us before, the game probably would have been different,” said Seton Hall point guard Danny Hurley, who had a game-high 13 assists and five steals. “We played really well and our physical style gave them problems. You could tell that their two inside people, Jaha and Lorenzo, got tired at the end of both halves.”

USC (5-5) got off to a slow start as the Pirates took a 10-point lead six minutes into the game. The Pirates led, 23-12, at the 10-minute mark before USC rallied behind Wilson’s 10 first-half points. After an 8-0 run, the Trojans led, 29-27, with 2:21 remaining in the half.

“USC showed us a lot of things that we’ve never seen before,” said Seton Hall Coach George Blaney. “But once we started to attack their pressure, we did very well.”

That’s what the Pirates did as they outscored USC, 26-8, over an eight-minute span stretching across both halves.

Seton Hall’s combination of inside power and outside shooting gave USC fits as the Trojans attempted a comeback for the second consecutive night. The closest USC could get was eight points before Seton Hall pulled away down the stretch.

“I feel that we can compete against anyone,” Parker said. “We’ve been in every game this season. Tonight, it was not our lack of defense that hurt us, but more of our lack of scoring.”

Trojan Notes

USC will begin Pacific 10 Conference play next Thursday at Oregon State and will play at Oregon on Saturday. In his second game back after being academically ineligible for the fall semester, Stais Boseman continued to impress with 12 points and three assists in 27 minutes against Seton Hall. The Trojans made only nine of 15 free throws; Seton Hall made 18 of 31 attempts. USC made only five of 25 three-point attempts, with Claude Green making three of six off the bench.