Busterna’s Best Is Not Enough

David Bluthenthal, Sam Clancy and Brandon Granville exchanged knowing glances and pregame chest bumps during warmups Wednesday night.

The USC senior starters knew it was their last chance at pulling out a win at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, where the Trojans had not won since 1993.

They also knew that they had a shot at pulling off a season sweep of the Bruins for the first time since 1992.

But they didn’t know that the Trojans’ forgotten fourth senior, seldom-used Gennaro Busterna, would play a major part in nearly leading USC to victory.

Busterna, who had not scored a point in his USC career until going for 10 in six minutes of USC’s 17-point loss at Arizona on Jan. 17, had a career-high 12 points in the Trojans’ 67-65 last-second loss to UCLA.

Busterna, a junior college transfer from McCook College in Nebraska, camped out in the left corner all night and had three three-pointers on four of nine shooting from the field, three of eight from beyond the three-point stripe, in a career-high 21 minutes.

“I felt great, pretty pumped,” Busterna said. “They told me to just play my game and that’s what I did.

“I can always go back and say it would have been better if we had won. But it hurts, it hurts real bad.”

USC Coach Henry Bibby inserted Busterna when UCLA packed it in down low with a 2-3 zone defense.

“He averaged 25 points in junior college so we’ve always known he can score,” Bibby said.

“We wanted to open up the zone with some outside shooters and he’s one of our best outside shooters.”

USC, which is 3-4 in Pacific 10 Conference play since opening up 5-0, is growing weary of losing games on last-second, desperation three-point baskets.

The Trojans were beaten by Pepperdine, 78-77, on Dec. 6 at the Forum when Craig Lewis banked in a shot and California’s Shantay Legans’ 25-footer on Jan. 24 at the Sports Arena beat USC in overtime, 92-91.

UCLA guard Billy Knight’s 21-footer from the right wing with time expiring, after a nasty scrum under the basket, was the third shot through the Trojans’ collective hearts.

“I thought it was going in, with our luck,” USC freshman guard Errick Craven said, “It was terrible.

“Somebody just doesn’t like SC.”

Said Clancy, who had his eighth consecutive double-double with 24 points and 14 rebounds in a game-high 40 minutes: “There was only one guy open on the court [Knight] and he got it.”

Henry Bibby said he had a “great look” at Knight’s game-winner.

“It’s discouraging to lose but it’s encouraging to see the way your kids were hanging in there.”