A Fitting Opportunity and a Search for Fitness

Chris Gobrecht, hired in May as the USC women’s basketball coach, took a quick look at the roster and saw seven players returning from an NCAA tournament team, two of them starters.

So at first she felt good about the team’s prospects.

But six months later, she feels more like she’s coaching an orthopedic ward team--and the season hasn’t even started.

Twenty years after playing for USC, Gobrecht has returned to her alma mater after a one-year coaching stint at Florida State. Before that she spent 11 years at Washington, where twice she was Pacific 10 coach of the year.

After she settled into her office in Heritage Hall, one by one, her players started getting hurt. In order:

* Jodi Parriott, a 6 foot 2 junior forward, was bothered by knee pain last season and it continued to mid-summer. She had surgery to remove dead bone and won’t join the team until January.

* Adrain Williams, a 6-4 junior, broke a small bone in her foot in July, wore a cast for six weeks, then had a pin inserted. She missed almost all of the preseason, then sprained an ankle in her third practice.

* Erica Mashia, a 5-7 sophomore, was one of the Pac-10’s top freshman guards two years ago. Then she began experiencing hip pain. It developed into a degenerative bone condition and she has been told to give up basketball.

* Kristin Clark, a 5-7 junior point guard, was accidentally elbowed by identical twin sister Kim at practice last week. Kristin has a broken nose and must wear a plastic mask for two weeks. She already was playing with a broken toe.

In addition, sophomore guard Kiyoko Miller was suspended for both preseason games for breaking a team rule.

“We have problems, but USC will overcome them,” Gobrecht said.

“We’ll be looking for ways to win. We get Parriott back in January. Obviously, we’ll be a much better team late in the season than at the outset.

“But there is some good in all this. Some kids who would normally be on the bench have had to suddenly think of themselves as contributors.”

Gobrecht says frontcourt depth is a concern, but believes her backcourt is solid.

Last season Clark established herself as one of the Pac-10’s most explosive players. She has sprint speed and an at-times deadly three-point shot.