Trojans Throw Wrench in Schedule

Brother, can you spare a day?

That’s essentially what UCLA asked USC before the season, hoping to reschedule Thursday’s Bruin-Trojan game for Wednesday, which would have given UCLA an extra day to get to Chicago for next Saturday’s game at DePaul. But USC declined the request.

So, the Bruins will have less than 48 hours to travel halfway across the country and get in a workout, before squaring off against the Blue Demons at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 10.

After they play at USC at the Sports Arena Thursday night, the Bruins will make a beeline for the airport and catch a red-eye flight that touches down in Chicago early Friday morning. They have scheduled a light practice for later in the day.

“To this point, we’d always been able to move the game to Wednesday,” UCLA Coach Steve Lavin said. “But this year, for some reason, it changed. I’m not sure what all the details were.”

USC spokesman Tim Tessalone said, “We’ve accommodated them in the past, but it’s our home game and, from our end of it, we’d rather have an extra day to prepare for UCLA.”

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The Bruins got a taste of bumper-to-bumper Bay Area traffic Thursday, wading through two hours of it to get from their hotel on the peninsula to Berkeley, which is across the bay. They spent an hour inching along the San Mateo Bridge, which takes about 10 minutes to cross when there is no traffic.

The team arrived at Haas Pavilion about 5:30 p.m., which was fine for its 7:30 tip-off but didn’t afford the players much shoot-around time.

“It was bad scheduling as far as hotels,” point guard Earl Watson said. “It’s like if we were to play Arizona State and stay in Tucson. It’s not too bright. We need to stay closer to the schools we’re playing, basically.”

TODAY

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* Site--Maples Pavilion, Palo Alto.

* Radio--KXTA (1150).

* Records--UCLA 12-6, 6-2; Stanford 20-0, 8-0.

* Update--The Bruins unraveled at California, forcing many shots and shooting 36.8% from the field. They will emphasize working the ball around for higher-percentage shots, no simple task against the nation’s top-ranked team. Stanford leads the Pacific 10 Conference in scoring offense and defense. Not everything is going smoothly for the Cardinal. Backup shooting guard Julius Barnes, Stanford’s most athletic perimeter player, is suffering from two sprained ankles, didn’t play Thursday against USC and is doubtful for today’s game. He’s a key component to his team’s press-breaking capabilities. Guard Ryan Mendez has been battling flu but is expected to play.