Another Tall Order Confronts USC

Another day, another game against another conference favorite with a talented front line.

Such is No. 20 USC’s lot in the preseason National Invitation Tournament. Two days after beating Mountain West Conference favorite Wyoming, 68-55, the Trojans hit the road for today’s 7 p.m. second-round game at Fresno State, the Western Athletic Conference front-runners.

The winner gets a Thanksgiving week pass to New York City and Madison Square Garden for the tournament’s final two rounds.

Fresno State (1-0) beat Montana State, 92-70, Tuesday night as 6-foot-10, 260-pound senior center Melvin Ely had a career-high 29 points with six rebounds and eight blocked shots in 27 minutes.

Junior small forward Chris Jefferies also had a career night with 25 points against the Bobcats.

It adds up to another early-season test down low for USC senior power forward Sam Clancy.

“Definitely, I’m always looking for a challenge,” he said. “If I want to be considered one of the best players in the country, you have to play against the best and that means Fresno State. They’re a good team and we’ve got to go in there ready to play. We can’t just say we beat Wyoming and live on that.

“We’ve got a challenge on our hands but I think we’re up for it.”

Fresno State, beginning its seventh season under Coach Jerry Tarkanian, is also coming off a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.

The Bulldogs beat California in the first round last season and was looked upon in some corners as a potential Top 10 team entering this year. But point guard Tito Maddox, the WAC freshman of the year out of Compton High, was kicked off the team by the university in late summer after involvement with an agent for the second time in a year.

Then, Tarkanian lost junior college transfer Chris Sandy when the NCAA deemed unsatisfactory his academic progress. Fresno State lost an initial appeal and has filed a second appeal. In the meantime, the Bulldogs are starting junior Travis DeManby, a natural shooting guard, at the point and backing him up with freshman Matt Mitchell.

“I just hope we play well,” Tarkanian said. “We’re really up in the air right now. I really don’t know what to expect.”

Tarkanian said USC is more athletic than his run-and-gun, pressure defense-oriented Bulldogs.

“I was shocked by the way [USC] beat Wyoming,” he said. “Wyoming was supposed to be good and they just kicked their butt.

“[USC] just has so many weapons and [Jerry] Dupree gives them another dimension. And they’ve got Sam Clancy at power forward and nobody’s better than him. At the end of the season last year I though he was the best player in the country.”

Tarkanian may know a lot about the Trojans but USC Coach Henry Bibby is playing it coy on his Bulldog knowledge, having not seen any up-to-date film of Fresno State and its imposing front line.

“It can’t be any bigger than what we faced [against Wyoming] so I’m not too concerned about that,” Bibby said. “We’ve just got to figure out how we’re going to play them and what we’re going to do there.”

Clancy said the Trojans must keep it simple.

“We’ve just got to stick to our game plan,” he said. “We can’t worry about [adapting to] them too much. We’ve got to know their tendencies and what they like to do but we can’t get too involved in what they do and get away from what we do.”

Which means playing suffocating defense.

“I think we’re going to switch it up like we did [against Wyoming],” USC senior point guard Brandon Granville said. “I think that’s kind of our trademark, throwing a lot of junk defenses at teams, getting them confused. By the time they figure out what we’re doing on one set of plays, we’ve already switched it up and we’re doing something else.”

TONIGHT

at Fresno State, 7

Site--Selland Arena.

Radio--KMPC (1540).

Records--USC 1-0, Fresno State 1-0.

Update--Wednesday was the first day of the early signing period and Coach Henry Bibby said no letters of intent had arrived yet. USC leads the all-time series against Fresno State, 2-1, but lost the last meeting, in the 1994 postseason NIT. Before that, the schools last played in 1928 and 1929. ... Fresno State, 24-10 in 2000-2001, has won 17 consecutive home games.