Trojans Put in Their Bid for an NIT Lot Number

The USC Trojans have done all they can do.

They finished the final weekend of Pacific 10 Conference play with a pair of victories. On Saturday, Jeff Trepagnier scored 20 points to lead USC to a spirited but workmanlike 82-63 victory over the Washington State Cougars before 3,350 at the Sports Arena.

Now USC hopes it can move on to the National Invitation Tournament. But the Trojans will not know their fate until sometime this evening. The NIT does not reveal its field until the NCAA tournament pairings are announced.

Washington State, whose senior forward Chris Crosby led all scorers with 22, just wants to move on to next season. The loss Saturday makes the Cougars (6-22) the fourth team in Pac-10 history to finish 1-17 in conference play. And the Cougars have done it twice.

USC (16-14) winds up sixth in the conference with a 9-9 record. Ironically, this season’s team finished higher in the conference and had a better record than last season’s team, which made the NIT field and lost to Wyoming in the first round.

“It’s out of our hands now,” said USC Coach Henry Bibby, whose team led the conference early with a 6-1 record but fell out of contention when starting center Sam Clancy went down with a broken right foot in January.

“We’ve done what we can do with it. I thought a deciding factor is getting Sam Clancy back, and winning a couple of games at the end of the season convincingly. Look at where we were when Sam went out. Now we have that player back; hopefully, that’s part of the attention we’ll get.”

With only 32 teams in the NIT, pickings are slim. And the Trojans’ case wasn’t helped by Long Beach State losing in the Big West tournament, or Arizona State being unable to upset Stanford Saturday. Those teams seem assured of receiving bids.

North Carolina, which did not have a typical Tar Heel season but beat the Trojans, also could wind up in the NIT, for the first time since 1974. North Carolina has a record 25 consecutive NCAA appearances.

Naturally, the Trojan players felt they had done enough to warrant an invitation.

“We’ve got to keep going on,” said David Bluthenthal, who had 18 points and a game-high 13 rebounds (nine offensive). “The goal this season was to get to postseason play. It looks to us like we should be headed there.”

Added Brandon Granville, who had 10 points and seven assists, “We think we’re in. That was pretty much the attitude in the locker room. But you never know what’s going to happen so we can’t worry about it. We won our last two games, but we just have to sit and wait.”

Brian Scalabrine, who had a quiet 10 points and four rebounds, wants to stick around as much as anyone.

“[Assistant Athletic Director] Daryl Gross said we do get in. You guys [the media] said we don’t. I’m hoping we get a call on Sunday and we keep on playing.

“I still have an unfinished taste in my mouth about the season. It’s over, but I still want to keep on playing. I can’t go away right now.”

Seeing how the Trojans concluded the weekend made Scalabrine lobby for the Pac-10 to resume the postseason tournament the conference ran from 1987-90.

“We know Stanford, Arizona and UCLA don’t want it because it could hurt them,” Scalabrine said. “But how could you not want one? How much money is being generated in these other conference tournaments?

“I can’t understand why we wouldn’t have a conference tournament when there are all kinds of advantages from it.”