One-Point Loss Rankles Bibby

After watching Brian Scalabrine’s desperation 15-foot shot roll out of the basket as the buzzer sounded, USC basketball Coach Henry Bibby knew he would not sleep well Friday night.

Some losses eat at coaches more than others. And Bibby was going to be consumed by the 84-83 overtime defeat No. 24 Mississippi hung on No. 13 USC in the semifinals of the Yahoo! Sports Invitational before 1,109 at the Cannon Activities Center.

One-point losses can trigger endless scenarios in a coach’s mind of what his team could have done differently to win.

“That was one of the worst losses you could have,” Bibby said. “That was a game we had won. It was just a matter of playing it out. You keep going to the free throw line and building the score. It should have been a 10-point game for us.”

It was a five-point game in favor of the Trojans with a minute to play and they had their best free-throw shooter, David Bluthenthal, at the line. It appeared USC, which led, 76-71, after overcoming a nine-point deficit late in the second half, was going to escape again.

But Bluthenthal missed both shots. Fifteen seconds later with USC ahead, 76-73, Nate Hair threw a bad pass for a turnover. With 27 seconds to play and USC ahead, 78-76, Hair could have redeemed himself, but he missed two free throws.

Rebel forward Aaron Harper’s desperation shot in the lane with 12 seconds to play banked in to tie the score. And Rahim Lockhart made sure the game went into overtime by blocking Scalabrine’s 10-footer.

Scalabrine led all scorers with 27 points. Lockhart had 16 for Mississippi.

The loss ended USC’s 10-game winning streak, dating to last season, and gave them an 8-1 record. Mississippi improved to 11-0.

“I don’t know how the kids will look at it,” Bibby said. “They were down; some of the guys were really hurt by the loss. We tried to get them back up again. That’s the only drawback; have they recovered from it?

“I hope they realize you can’t wait until the second half to start playing. And you have to come back strong [Saturday] against BYU. The game last night is over. There’s nothing we can do about it but learn from it and know what to do next time.”