Trojans Keep Lampley in Check This Time

When the Trojans beat California at Berkeley last month, Bear forward Sean Lampley ate up the USC defense for 29 points.

On Saturday the Trojans--particularly Sam Clancy--blocked several of Lampley’s shot attempts under the basket.

Keeping the Cal star forward locked up was crucial to the Trojan’s 74-69 victory. Lampley, a leading candidate for Pacific 10 Conference player of the year, had averaged 24.3 points in his last seven games.

The Trojans, who started out with Brian Scalabrine on the Bear senior forward, tried to confuse Lampley by making it appear they were double-teaming him whenever Lampley got the ball near the basket. In the second half, Clancy’s defense made Lampley’s game just passive.

“It seemed today he wasn’t that aggressive as far as wanting the ball,” Clancy said. “I saw film of other games where he was more aggressive. He didn’t seem to want to take over the game like he did the first time we played them.

“We knew the ball was going to him almost every time. But he didn’t seem to want it that much in the low post.”

Clancy had seven blocks in the game, giving him 129 in his career and passing Lorenzo Orr (128) as the team’s all-time leader.

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Clancy was the lone Trojan named to the Sporting News All Pac-10 team. Clancy was a first team selection, with Arizona’s Gilbert Arenas, Stanford’s Casey Jacobsen, UCLA’s Jason Kapono and Lampley, who was selected as player of the year.

Clancy was also named to the District 15 first team, chosen by the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches. Scalabrine was named to the District 15 second team.