Business Suits USC in Win Over Beavers

Sam Clancy leaned back against a cinderblock wall outside the USC locker room at Gill Coliseum, tilted his head toward the ceiling and took a swig of orange juice, a satisfied, if not relieved, look on his face.

The 23rd-ranked Trojans had avoided a potential pitfall at Oregon State on Thursday night and defeated the Beavers, 64-51, to remain in a first-place tie in the Pacific 10 with Oregon, which will play host to USC on Saturday.

“We took care of business here,” the Trojan senior forward said. “Normally, I think we come up here and take [Oregon State] lightly. We really focused this time. Now we’ve got the biggest game of the year for first place on national television.”

Clancy finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, all on the defensive end, for his sixth consecutive double-double and league-leading 12th of the season.

Senior point guard Brandon Granville also had 17 points, with five assists, though his consecutive free-throw streak ended at 34 when he missed with 41.9 seconds to play..

“What streak?” Granville said with a smile. “It was fun while it lasted.

“But this was a big win. We weren’t taking this team for granted. I think we did a good job of making them worry about our press. That gets our energy going and that’s how we like to play.”

Granville had talked earlier in the week about causing chaos on the court via the full-court press and taking advantage.

It worked to near perfection in the Trojans’ win over Stanford last week and also flummoxed Oregon State, the league’s lowest-scoring team (64 points per conference game), which favors a slow, half-court game.

In front of 6,065, the Beavers jumped to an 11-10 lead seven minutes into the game before USC rode its press and a three-guard lineup--Granville, Errick Craven and Desmon Farmer, along with forwards Clancy and David Bluthenthal--to a 16-0 run over a six-minute span. A Clancy basket ended the spree with 4:45 remaining in the half and gave USC a 15-point lead, 26-11.

In fact, the Trojans limited the Beavers to two field goals over the final 13 minutes of the half and a Granville three-pointer from the top of the key gave USC a 31-16 halftime advantage..

“We knew how they play and we didn’t want to walk up the court and make every play tough,” Trojan Coach Henry Bibby said. “We wanted to get some easy baskets.

“We threw some different defenses at them, different presses, just to try to keep them off balance.”

USC stayed in control early in the second half, going up by a game-high 21 points, 45-24, on a Granville three-pointer at the 15:22 mark.

But, as can be the case with the Trojans and big leads, they got comfortable and the Beavers began making shots.

Oregon State crept back, eventually closing the deficit to single digits, 54-45, on a Joe See three-pointer with 4:24 to play.

“They played a little zone [defense] and we got a little lackadaisical,” Clancy said. “They went on a little run and I had to stop their momentum.”

And he did. On USC’s next trip down court, Clancy was fouled as he threw down a dunk.

Ricci, last week’s Pac-10 player of the week, finished with 11 points and seven rebounds while committing five turnovers in 33 foul-plagued minutes.

Clancy made the free throw to complete the three-point play and the Trojans’ lead never fell below 12 points the rest of the game.

USC (16-4 overall, 8-2 in Pac-10 play) may have been held 21.2 points below its conference scoring average, but the Trojans did shoot 51% from the field while getting 11 steals and causing 17 Beaver turnovers.

Oregon State (10-10, 3-7) shot 39.6% in losing to a nationally ranked team for the 12th consecutive time. The Beavers were led by junior guard Jimmie Haywood’s 14 points.

“You’re not going to press and not give up some layins and some open looks,” Bibby said.

“We know as a team that we just need to get through it and not give up too many easy baskets. When you have a comfortable lead, you can gamble a little bit more and we did.

“You always want to split on the road but now we’re getting greedy--we want two [wins].”