They Hate to Lose to This Team

It doesn’t take much to get under Rod Foster’s skin. Just hum a few bars of the USC fight song.

“I still get a twinge when I hear that,” said Foster, the former UCLA point guard who’s now an assistant basketball coach at Wright State in Dayton, Ohio. “If my co-workers want to get to me, all they have to do is start singing that song.”

Foster isn’t alone. Lots of former Bruin basketball players feel the same way, and they are absolutely convinced there is no way UCLA should ever lose to USC in basketball. Never mind the fact tonight’s game pits the No. 19 Trojans against the unranked Bruins.

“At UCLA, you have pressure to win almost every game,” said Ralph Jackson, who played for the Bruins from 1981 through ’84. “But the fact that it’s ‘SC and it’s right there in your town, that’s one game that you couldn’t lose. No matter who you lose to during the year, that’s one game that you wanted to win.”

The storied histories of USC football and UCLA basketball are well-documented, and those programs have a tendency to overshadow UCLA football and USC basketball. It’s easy for some people to ignore the fact the Trojans feature three players ranked in the top 10 in scoring in the Pacific 10 Conference--Sam Clancy (17.2 points a game), Brian Scalabrine (16.4) and David Bluthenthal (15.4).

Although USC has won 44% of its games against UCLA over the last 73 years, the Trojans have won only six of 37 at Pauley Pavilion, where tonight’s game will be played. The response of these USC players? Big deal.

“I like playing over there because of the environment,” point guard Brandon Granville said. “I like Pauley Pavilion. But as far as the mystique goes, that doesn’t hold too much with me at all.”

It’s not uncommon for USC players to wander over to Westwood for summer pickup games, so the place is pretty familiar. Many players from both schools have friends playing for the cross-town rival.

“[Former USC player] Wayne Carlander and I were drafted by the Clippers at the same time,” said Gary Maloncon, who played for UCLA in the early ‘80s. “He’d come to UCLA in the summer and we’d work out together all the time. But when it came to the regular season, we wanted to beat the pants off those guys and they wanted to do the same to us.”

That’s what makes Maloncon’s senior year so difficult for him to swallow. The Bruins lost to USC twice that season (1984-85)--once in double overtime, and once in quadruple overtime.

“The thing I remember most about that four-overtime game was just the emotion,” said Maloncon, whose team lost, 80-78, on its home court. “It was loud, and you could see all those pompoms waving. We were trying to talk on the court and you could barely hear each other.”

To relive the memory, all Maloncon has to do is slip a tape into his VCR. He has a library of UCLA tapes from that era.

“Those tapes are just sitting there waiting for my son to see them,” said Maloncon, a corporate accounts manager at UC Irvine. “Even now I say, ‘How in the heck did we lose to those guys?’ No matter what in life, I don’t look back--no coulda, woulda, shouldas--but I do look back on those games and wonder how those rascals beat us. I’m not proud of that. Those were death matches.”

Toby Bailey understands . . . sort of. But he played for UCLA in the mid-1990s and never suffered a loss to the Trojans. Still, he reserves a special spot in his heart for them.

“I just grew up never liking ‘SC,” said Bailey, who plays for the ABA’s Los Angeles Stars. “That fight song makes me sick. Those colors are ugly. They don’t even have a gym to call their own.”

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The Facts

UCLA vs. USC, series breakdown by decade:

1928-30: USC won: 6-3

1931-40: USC won: 33-4

1941-50: USC won: 23-17

1951-60: UCLA won: 23-11

1961-70: UCLA won: 23-6

1971-80: UCLA won: 19-1

1981-90: UCLA won: 13-7

1991-2000: UCLA won: 14-6

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UCLA leads overall series: 116-93

Last time USC swept season series: 1992

Last time UCLA swept season series: 1999

UCLA’s longest win streak: 17 (1964-69, 1971-79)

USC’s longest win streak: 42 (1932-43)

UCLA’s largest margin of victory: 37 (99-62, 1966)

USC’s largest margin of victory: 34 (60-26, 1940)