Suddenly, an Elite Program

Henry Bibby won three consecutive NCAA national championships as UCLA’s point guard.

He won an NBA title as a New York Knick rookie.

And as his coaching career was gaining its legs, Bibby took the Tulsa Fast Breakers to a Continental Basketball Assn. championship.

But nothing, the USC coach says, compares to the feelings he had last spring when he guided the Trojans to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament.

“I haven’t experienced, either playing or coaching, an experience like last year,” a reflective Bibby said. “It was like the greatest moment I ever had in basketball. The closeness, the relationships you get, the satisfaction of watching it grow, that’s what’s exciting about it.”

Starting the 2001-02 college basketball season, there’s a new enthusiasm and excitement enveloping Heritage Hall.

The Trojans’ three seniors--Sam Clancy, David Bluthenthal and Brandon Granville--have been approached on campus since the first day of the fall semester, fellow students telling them that USC is fast becoming a basketball school, what with the football team struggling in the early going.

Pretty heady stuff for a college that has won eight national championships in football, though none since 1978, and boasts four Heisman Trophy winners.

“We can, like, taste it, you know?” Bluthenthal said.

“There’s definitely a different atmosphere on campus,” Granville said.

And Clancy said, “People are waiting for a winning team to come around and that team is us. We’re gaining respect around the school and the country.

“We’re the hunters no longer. We’re the hunted.”

Such things happen when you foray deeply into the Big Dance in its current format. Oh sure, USC made a pair of Final Four appearances in the tournament’s dark ages, 1940 and 1954. But never before had the Trojans won three successive games during March Madness as they did last season in beating Oklahoma State, Boston College and Kentucky.

That success has fostered higher hopes among a growing fan base, and respect is beginning to rear its head nationally.

The Trojans are ranked 24th in the coaches’ preseason poll, 20th in the Associated Press media poll and will be ranked 14th by Sports Illustrated.

“Expectations are high and they should be because that’s where we want to go,” Bibby said. “We set a level of play where we want to go. My goal is to get back there but it will take a lot of work and sacrifice. A lot of things have to fall into place.”

USC has the three senior starters and seven lettermen back from a team that went 24-10 last season, equaling a school record for victories in a season.

Add to the mix sophomore shooting guard Desmon Farmer, who started 16 times as a freshman, and junior center Kostas Charissis, who has started 14 games for USC but will begin the season serving a three-game suspension, and the Trojans essentially have five returning starters.

USC’s newcomers are athletic as well as skilled.

Sophomore junior college transfer Jerry Dupree will play as a shot-blocking swingman and freshmen Rory O’Neil, a 6-foot-11 center, and Nick Curtis, a 6-8 forward, will add to the Trojans’ rebounding totals. Twin guards Errick and Derrick Craven, freshmen from Torrance Bishop Montgomery High, will get playing time, Errick possibly starting when Bibby goes to a three-guard lineup.

Offensively, USC wants to run and with Clancy the main threat down low, the Trojans will also have to convert from the perimeter when opposing defenses close down on him.

On the other side of the ball, Bibby said, the Trojans will run more than 10 defenses.

But USC’s fortunes ride upon the shoulders of its seniors.

Bibby has been hard on them during preseason practices. He didn’t start Bluthenthal in either exhibition game, saying he hadn’t played well enough in practice to warrant starting, and he sat both Bluthenthal and Clancy in the second exhibition after Bluthenthal skipped a sociology class and Clancy missed a team meeting.

“The seniors haven’t been good,” Bibby said early in workouts. “There’s a coolness about them. They have to realize that last year was last year.”

Bluthenthal said Monday that he’s ready.

“I had to do a little soul-searching, and start practicing harder.”

Bibby theorized that with the gap in talent closing between the starters and newcomers, maybe his seniors haven’t been sloughing off after all, that the underclassmen are that good. That would be a good problem to have.

Either way, Bibby said, he now has the talent to go deeper on the bench. That brought a smile to the face of Granville, who averaged 34.4 minutes last year and relishes getting a breather.

“[The bench is] looking deeper and deeper every day with the new guys playing as well as they have,” he said. “Coach is going to have to put them on the floor. He can’t keep them on the bench.

“But game to game, I’m sure that’s going to change because you can’t replace experience and I think that’s something me, Sam and Dave bring to the team.” Indeed. Bibby said if he were to make a mistake, he’d err on the side of sticking with his veterans too long in games. After all, they’re the ones who gave him the ride of his basketball life last March.

“Last season was like a taste of honey,” Bibby said. “The players saw all the hoopla. Now, they want to do it again. It was like the light turned on.

“The Elite Eight put us on the map. Every recruit saw us. It’s gotten us into recruits’ homes. It brought us out of the dark ages.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

USC at a Glance

Last season: 24-10 overall, 11-7 Pacific 10 Conference.

Finish: Tied for fourth in conference, advanced to the East Regional final of the NCAA tournament as a No. 6-seeded team, beating Oklahoma State, Boston College and Kentucky before falling to eventual national champion Duke.

Coach: Henry Bibby, sixth season, 81-67.

Who’s gone: Brian Scalabrine, Jeff Trepagnier, Jarvis Turner, Nate Hair, Tyler Murphy. Coaches Silvey Dominguez and David Miller.

Who’s new: Guards Derrick and Errick Craven, forwards Nick Curtis and Jerry Dupree and center Rory O’Neil.

Projected starters: Forwards David Bluthenthal (13.5 points, 6.8 rebounds) and Sam Clancy (17.3 points, 7.5 rebounds), guards Errick Craven (19.9 points, 6.8 rebounds at Torrance Bishop Montgomery High), Desmon Farmer (6.4 points, 2.8 rebounds) and Brandon Granville (12.4 points, 6.1 assists).

Keys to season: Bibby being able to go deeper on his bench and trusting his new assistants. The Trojan coach was impressed with his newcomers as he went 10 deep in exhibition games. The ability and availability of competent reserves means Granville, iron man that he is, must not be on the court for more than 35 minutes a game. Also, Bibby has restructured his coaching staff with new assistants Kurtis Townsend, who last worked at Michigan, and Eric Brown, from Cal State Northridge, joining second-year assistant coach Damon Archibald.

Outlook: The No. 20 Trojans have been enigmatic in the preseason with Bibby trying to light a fire under his seniors. USC still is riding high after its run to the Elite Eight and has the talent to win the preseason NIT and enter Pac-10 play unscathed at 12-0. But given the fact that the starting lineup did not play together in the exhibitions (Granville missed the first game because of a mouth injury and Bluthenthal and Clancy sat out the second on suspension), no one would be that surprised if the Trojans lose tonight to Wyoming. Besides, it would give USC almost two more weeks of practice until its next game.