Another Critical Moment for Bibby

We basically had one guy come to play.

--Henry Bibby, Jan. 11.

The USC basketball team improved as the season progressed. You could hear it in the coach’s voice. You could figure it in his math.

We only had 1 1/2 guys playing tonight.

--Bibby, Jan. 18.

The Trojans improved not merely by fractions, but whole numbers, furiously calculating their way through the regular season, getting better by the place value.

We only had two guys come to play today.

--Bibby, Feb. 17.

The Trojans improved to the decimal point where, Friday afternoon at the First Union Center, their center was sitting one game from the Final Four.

Surrounded by the national media.

Being asked the key question:

“Has your coach ever said anything, well, um, nice about you?”

Brian Scalabrine paused. He rubbed his Bibby-inspired buzz cut (more on that later). He sighed.

“When he would say that only one guy came to play, I think sometimes that guy was me.”

*

The strangest thing about the tensest victory in USC basketball history was that, not coincidentally, it also was the calmest.

Nine times in the second half Thursday, Kentucky’s charge cut the lead to three points or fewer.

Nine times, USC shrugged, yawned, stuck out an arm and stopped it.

Their relaxed posture was defined by the Trojans when they were ahead by one point with 8:07 remaining. Jeff Trepagnier casually whipped a pass to David Bluthenthal, who casually sank a three-pointer.

Which set up the casual sinking of seven of eight late free throws to give the Trojans an 80-76 victory.

Which set up, on Friday, another key question:

“How could you be so loose?”

Simple, the Trojans said.

It wasn’t practice.

“Practices are long, Coach puts all the stress on you, points out everything you are doing wrong, you do a lot of running, and you wonder . . . “ Brandon Granville said.

And, because it wasn’t postgame.

“It’s hard to hear Coach say stuff about you,” Scalabrine said.

And, because it wasn’t the early season, or off-season, or any other time the Trojans sometimes struggle under the weight of their demanding teacher.

The Trojans say the most important game of their lives is not really a game, but an escape.

Duke, which plays USC tonight here for the East Regional championship, might find this approach amusing.

Duke should also take it seriously.

Said Granville, “We get into the game and it’s, like, we lighten up, we relax.”

Added Trepagnier, “He presses us so much in practice, the games are easy for us.”

Therein lies the method of one of the consistently maddest coaches in the business.

Bibby’s scribbling--he proved again Thursday he is one of the game’s top tacticians--is mere doodling compared to what the players say are his mind games.

“Except by now, most of us know what he’s doing,” Granville said with a smile.

Not that it made it any easier to watch.

This season, Bibby was angry that his team was not worthy of its national ranking, 23rd.

“We haven’t shown this year we are deserving of the ranking,” he said on Nov. 15.

No big deal, except the Trojans were being criticized three days before their first game.

And after that first game, a 15-point whipping of Bradley?

“I don’t think we played well,” Bibby said.

After two games, he was questioning their “killer instinct.”

Four months and 23 wins later, he was doing it again.

“I don’t have anybody on this team who will grab us by the scruff of our necks and won’t let us lose,” he said. “I have to be that person.”

And this was after they had made the Sweet 16.

Tough as he appears on the public stage, Bibby is twice as tough on the practice court and in the locker room, verbally pushing and prodding his team to be more like him.

Insiders say that at some point of the season, every player is scared of him. At another point, every player is mad at him.

But at this point, it appears, every player understands.

He is the stone-faced big brother toughening them up for the playground. He is the crotchety uncle toughening them up for the world.

Then he sends them out for the tipoff with a smile and a pat. You’ll notice he rarely yells at them individually during games. By then, the mental work is done.

They might not have good memories of the process. But they said Friday they will not forget the results.

“You get to this point and you see why he does it,” Granville said. “You realize all the great things you are going to take away from the school, how it’s going to make you a better person.”

Scalabrine shaved his red head in January because Bibby wanted everyone to give up something important for the team.

“He wanted my hair,” Scalabrine said.

Bibby has continued to ask players to sacrifice before every big game in the tournament.

Scalabrine said he has given up red meat, juice, being complacent and--toughest of all--talking to his girlfriend.

“I have not talked to my girlfriend in seven days, and that’s hard,” he said. “I don’t know what else I can give up.”

One thing he won’t surrender, he said, is his respect for the coach who has pushed him harder than he had ever been pushed.

“No matter what I do, I know I’m never going to be good enough for him,” he said of Bibby. “But I know that when I leave here, I will have done what’s best for me. I will be a better player and person, thanks to him.”

But what about Bibby? What has he given up?

“I told the players that I didn’t want their names on the slips of paper with their sacrifices, and it’s the same with me,” he said. “But I have given up many things too.”

The scowl apparently not being one of them.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.