Trojans’ Pac-10 Title Hopes Take a Hit With Embarrassing 83-64 Loss at Cal

With USC seemingly hitting its late-season stride, Trojan Coach Henry Bibby talked about how his team was beginning to smell victory. He said nothing, however, about the odor the 20th-ranked Trojans would emit at California Saturday afternoon.

USC stunk up the joint, playing one of its worst games of the season and falling to the Golden Bears, 83-64, in front of 12,000 at Haas Pavilion.

This less than 48 hours after the Trojans played perhaps their best game of the year in pounding Stanford by 19 points.

So what happened?

“We didn’t make shots,” Bibby said. “We missed layups and you’ve got to make the easy ones. I think we tried to do it ourselves instead of as a team. We don’t need any heroes.”

California, though, played the perfect villain to the Trojans, who fell out of a first-place tie in the Pacific 10 Conference with the loss.

USC is 19-7 overall and 11-5 in the Pac-10, while California, which swept USC for the fourth time in five years, improved to 20-6, 11-5.

Oregon took sole possession of first place with a 90-84 victory over Washington on Saturday. The Ducks are a game ahead of USC, Arizona and Cal, with games at USC and UCLA remaining. Stanford and UCLA are tied for fifth.

Against the Golden Bears,, USC looked lost offensively against a much-taller opponent. The Trojans shot 33.8% from the field, their second-worst percentage in Pac-10 play and third-worst all season.

USC’s trio of senior starters struggled, with power forward Sam Clancy’s run of 11 consecutive double-doubles coming to an end. He had 11 points and six rebounds. Small forward David Bluthenthal had eight points on three-for-10 shooting. Point guard Brandon Granville finished with 12 points and eight assists but four turnovers.

“They collapsed down on Sam a lot and when we missed shots, maybe we started playing too fast,” Granville said. “I think we had guys trying to lead by example, but we should have been more patient.”

The Bears, who beat USC on a last-second three-pointer at the Sports Arena last month, didn’t need any miracle baskets this time around.

Not with 6-foot-11 freshman Jamal Sampson harassing the 6-foot-7 Clancy into a four-for-16 shooting performance.

“He made it a little tough for me,” Clancy said. “He’s so big with those long arms, and it was hard for me to get off good shots.”

Sampson scored only seven points, but he had 10 rebounds, four blocks and a steal in 28 minutes.

“He’s so big, but he likes to pull out and hit jumpers,” Sampson said of Clancy. “You have to play him like a guard.”

Said Cal Coach Ben Braun: “It was our defense that let us win this game. But give a lot of credit to Jamal Sampson. I think this game demonstrated how hard it can be to stop him from getting to the basket.

“I think Jamal felt responsible for holding people down as this team’s defensive center.”

A first-half scoreless stretch of 8 minutes 15 seconds helped doom the Trojans as well.

A Granville three-point play tied the score, 24-24, with 10:52 remaining in the first half. But USC would miss its next 14 shots while the Bears denied entrance passes to the post and embarked on an 18-4 run.

A buzzer-beating Clancy three-pointer from the right wing seemed to give the Trojans life entering halftime, the second three-pointer of Clancy’s career pulling them within 42-31.

But Cal scored the first five points of the second half before USC began showing some semblance of offensive continuity. Granville sandwiched two three-pointers around a Bluthenthal basket, and after Errick Craven converted a fastbreak layup at the 15:13 mark, the Trojans were within seven, 48-41.

But they would get no closer as they blew a three-on-one opportunity when Craven and Dupree crossed signals on the break and Granville threw the ball into the USC bench.

A basket would have kept the Trojans within seven with more than 12 minutes to play.

“That just summed up the game,” Craven said. “It was just horrible.”

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Taking Care of Business

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