USC Falls as Camby Injured : College basketball: Guards help fill void as No. 1 Massachusetts wins, 78-63.

After shocking No. 18 Missouri in the first round, USC found out that a Marcus Camby-less No. 1 Massachusetts team still had enough talent to defeat the Trojans, 78-63, Friday night in the semifinals of the Rainbow Classic at the Special Events Arena in Hawaii.

Massachusetts guards Edgar Padilla and Carmelo Travieso stepped up to combine for 36 points after Camby went down with a knee injury three minutes into the first half to lead the Minutemen (9-0).

Camby, whom NBA scouts consider college basketball’s top player, injured his right knee when teammate Dana Dingle crashed into him with 17:10 remaining in the first half and the Minutemen ahead, 4-2.

Camby lay on the court for four minutes before he was helped to the locker room only to return on crutches with 7:31 remaining in the half. Massachusetts Coach John Calipari said that Camby did not have any ligament damage and hopefully suffered only a badly bruised knee. Hospital tests were taken after the game.

“That was a tremendous letdown for us because our coaching staff had worked real hard to create tactics to contain Camby,” said USC’s Brandon Martin, who had 14 points. “It really bothered our big men because they had focused on playing against the player people think is the best.”

Instead of having an advantage against the Minutemen, who normally use only a seven-player rotation, USC (7-3) struggled to regain the emotion it had in defeating Missouri on Thursday night, while Massachusetts was determined to remain No. 1.

“We have a lot of players who do a lot of things for us,” said Travieso, who finished with 16 points. “As soon as [Camby] got hurt, everyone had to step up. We knew that USC was a talented and physical team and that we couldn’t just show up and beat them. We had to come out and play hard and show them we wanted it more.”

Behind Travieso’s 12 first-half points on four-of-seven shooting behind the three-point line, Massachusetts led at halftime, 32-23. The Minutemen also had strong versatile inside and outside play from forwards Donta Bright and Dana Dingle, who finished with 15 and nine points respectively.

“When [Camby] went out, I really got scared,” said USC Coach Charlie Parker, who outcoached Missouri’s Norm Stewart on Thursday. “I knew that we had planned our defense on stopping him and that our guys would have a letdown and their guys would pick up their play.

“The key was the fact that their guards hit clutch shots when the shot clock would be running down or would break our defense down enough and pass to open guys for easy layups.”

Offensively, USC’s inside game was unable to finish many open opportunities as Avondre Jones and Jaha Wilson combined to make only two of nine first-half shots for six points.

In the second half, the Trojans made several runs at Massachusetts when Padilla picked up his fourth foul and Travieso had to move over to point guard, but fell short because of their poor shooting and rebounding, two areas that have plagued them throughout the season.

“We tried to press them but in order to really do that, you need to score,” Parker said. “It’s tough to press when you are not scoring a lot of points. That’s something [full-court pressure defense] that we wanted to do a lot more of but just wasn’t able to do so.”

In replace of Camby, Inus Norville played 28 minutes and had nine points and eight rebounds and Tyrone Weeks added eight and four in 18 minutes.

Jones and Martin led USC, which shot 39.7% from the floor, with 14 points each, while Stais Boseman added 10. Jones had a team-high 10 rebounds.

USC will play in the third-place game against the loser of Syracuse and Rhode Island tonight at 7:30 (PST).