Trojans May Ask Santa for Some Stilts

With a 5-foot-9 starting point guard and no one taller than 6-9 on the roster, USC will soon be looking up at the massive front lines of Pacific 10 Conference teams such as Stanford and Washington.

“We’re going to go up against bigger teams, but our philosophy will still be to try and get the ball inside,” USC center Brian Scalabrine said.

That philosophy worked against American of Washington, D.C., in a 74-59 victory this week, but no one on that team was more than 6-9 either. It may be a little tougher to find room in the lane against the Cardinal’s 7-foot center, Tim Young, and the Huskies’ 7-foot center, Todd MacCulloch. UCLA has two 6-10 post players in Dan Gadzuric and Jerome Moiso.

Faced with such competition, look for the Trojans to use a lineup that features 6-3 Quincy Wilder at point guard and moves 6-8 Jarvis Turner, 6-7 David Bluthenthal or 6-6 Shannon Swillis to small forward. Along with freshman Sam Clancy, who is 6-7 and 240 pounds, that puts considerably more beef around the basket.

“That’s the depth we have on this team,” Coach Henry Bibby said. “Nothing super great but a lot of depth that can come in and put pieces together for us.”

As Scalabrine explained, scoring inside “may be a little harder [against bigger teams], but we’ve still got to try.”