Trojans Need Someplace to Feel at Home

USC was hot, Mike Montgomery was hotter, the baggy Trojans were running spheres around the button-down Cardinal.

Five minutes into USC’s game with fourth-ranked Stanford on Thursday, the Trojans led, 8-2. The Stanford coach had been assessed a technical foul for whining. The band was blaring. The song leaders were jumping.

And the Sports Arena was sleeping.

The several thousand fans there were cheering, but thousands of empty seats sapped those cheers of their energy.

At a point in a game when a sprinting underdog could use a little tail wind, the air was dead.

At a time when a team needed its building, the time was about 5:30 p.m.

It’s never easy being a USC basketball player. This was never clearer than Thursday, when the hustling, well-coached Trojans lost a game in which they had every chance, and no chance.

The final score was Stanford 72, USC 55.

The final verdict came from a fan rationalizing his smile to his buddy while leaving the quickly emptying arena.

“Hey, I thought they would get beat by 30,” he said happily.

It is precisely that sort of attitude that needs to be changed for the program’s reputation to change.

Thursday was a good time for one step forward.

The Trojans were 10-3. They had already won more games than last year. Their last two wins included one with an 18-point comeback, and one stolen with six points in the final seconds.

What better way to prove themselves then by playing competitively against a smart, veteran potential Final Four team that could clinch the Pac-10 title before Valentine’s Day?

This is before the Trojans took what is commonly known as two steps back.

“We have the talent and capability to win, but we don’t know how to do it as good as they do,” lamented Adam Spanich, last week’s three-point hero who made only one of four bombs. “They fight through things. We don’t yet know how to fight through things.”

Not that they don’t have plenty of practice.

Even before tip-off, the Trojans were battling their history.

The game began at 5 p.m. because Fox Sports decided this would be a locally televised game, and didn’t want it to interfere with that big nationally televised game at 7:30 p.m.

The UCLA-California game, of course.

Something like an 8-2 lead over a ranked opponent would shake the beams at Pauley. In fact, it did exactly that recently against Arizona.

But here, Thursday, too many fans were still stuck in traffic.

By the time everyone was in their seats, Elias Ayuso caused a legitimate roar with a three-point basket.

But it occurred with 7:44 remaining in the game.

Cutting the Stanford lead to 16.

“It’s a weird place,” Stanford’s David Moseley said of the Sports Arena. “I really don’t know if it has the college atmosphere.”

Moseley’s mind wandered to Saturday’s showdown with the Bruins.

“At UCLA, you are like, ‘Yeah, this is Pauley, this is college,’ ” he said. “Here, it’s just like two teams on a court.”

Stanford used to have trouble filling its building. But this year, every home game is sold out, thanks to that important combination of many expectations and few seats.

Maples Pavilion holds 7,391.

The Sports Arena holds twice that.

“College basketball is great in a small building where you can just feel the energy from the fans, and build on it,” Moseley said. “You can’t do that here.”

Stanford, of course, would have beaten USC on Thursday if they were playing them in the lobby of Heritage Hall.

Stanford was bigger, older, better. For all its preseason flash, USC is still a growing team that may need a few more 46-foot bombs to make the tournament.

But Moseley was not the first visiting player to leave here wondering about the possibilities.

“They play as hard as any team in the Pac-10,” he said. “But maybe if they had a little more fans, maybe if this was a harder place to play. . . .”

Oh, it can be a hard place to play, all right.

Just ask USC’s Brian Scalabrine, who offered an explanation that he emphasized was not an excuse.

“It’s a little hard to play here because we don’t practice here all the time,” he said.

Oh yeah, that.

The Trojans, who have an on-campus gym, only practice at the Sports Arena when the Clippers put down the floor.

In the last three months, you can guess how many nights the Clippers have put down the floor.

“It seems like we have only been here during shoot-arounds on the day of the game,” Scalabrine said. “So when you take the floor, it feels like a road game.

“In terms of just the court, we don’t really have a home court advantage.”

They will, one day.

The guess here is, plans for an on-campus arena could be finally announced some time this year, and not a day too soon.

It would be more than a playing surface.

It would level the playing surface.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com