Trojan Seniors Seize Night

Brian Scalabrine joined his former USC teammates for breakfast at the team hotel here Thursday morning and the second-round NBA draft choice brought his personal brand of carpe diem to the Trojan table.

Scalabrine, the 35th pick last summer by the New Jersey Nets, talked about seizing the day and how the current crop of Trojans should be making the most of their limited remaining college days.

The Trojans, specifically the three senior starters, got the message.

Behind the play of point guard Brandon Granville, power forward Sam Clancy and small forward David Bluthenthal, USC pounded Washington, 87-65, in the Trojans’ Pacific 10 Conference opener in front of 6,318 at Bank of America Arena.

Granville had a career-high 27 points, including four three-pointers, Clancy had a season high-tying 25 points and five rebounds and Bluthenthal had 14 points and nine rebounds.

They scored 42 of USC’s 48 first-half points as the Trojans took a 16-point lead into intermission.

“I thought they stepped up,” USC Coach Henry Bibby said. “When they play, they’re pretty good.

“Those are the three guys that are going to have to carry us. Sometimes, we get maybe one, one and a half of those guys to play. But all three played for us tonight and that was a big difference.”

With Washington’s football team in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl, it was alumni night for the Husky basketball team, whose pep band and cheerleading squads were comprised of former members reliving their glory days.

But not even the likes of one-time Huskies James Edwards and Detlef Schrempf could have helped Washington on this night. Not when USC finally put together two halves of solid basketball and rode its defense to the blowout.

The Trojans used a stifling full-court press to set the tone.

USC (9-2 overall, 1-0 in the Pac-10) forced a season-high 25 turnovers and had 10 steals, four by Granville.

USC shot 54.5% from the field, 46.2% (six of 13) from three-point range.

Washington (6-5, 0-2) made 40% of its shots, 35.3% (six of 17) from three-point territory.

The Trojans’ 87 points were a season high, as were the 36 field goals and 22 assists.

USC freshman guard Errick Craven added 12 points, four rebounds and three assists in 21 minutes.

Erroll Knight came of the bench for Washington to lead the Huskies with 13 points.

USC had looked for passion and consistency in its nonconference schedule and found it in the second half of its last nonconference game, against Loyola Marymount, when the Trojans came back from 15 points down to win by 14.

“I’ve just been waiting for a game where we played 40 minutes with the intensity we played with tonight,” said Clancy, who showed no ill effects after tweaking his back in a Christmas day practice.

“We came out and really put it on them.”

Granville agreed.

“We wanted to keep it going from the second half of the LMU game with a lot of fire and a lot of emotion,” said Granville, who made consecutive three-pointers late in the first half after Washington had cut a 16-point lead to 11.

“We’ve got to have that killer instinct because we were letting teams get back in the game earlier [in nonconference play] and teams in the Pac-10 are too good to do that.”

Said Washington Coach Bob Bender: “[Granville] was getting his shots in all kinds of ways tonight. We lost track of him in the zone and he was hitting the open shot. We tried to defend inside and we were ineffective against him.”

Scalabrine was a big help.

“We talked about the league and things I wish I had known then that I know now,” said Scalabrine, who broke his right foot in the Nets’ final exhibition game and has been on the injured list since, allowing him to come home for the holidays to nearby Enumclaw, Wash.

“It’s important to understand that every day is important and I told them that No. 1, they should stay away from the daily grind and just enjoy playing basketball.”

Blowout wins in conference openers will put a smile on everyone’s face.