Roommates for Improvement

With the team struggling early in the season, USC Coach Henry Bibby shook up the Trojans, who were 1-1 and shooting 11% (two of 18) from beyond the three-point stripe.

Shortly after a loss to Fresno State in the Preseason National Invitation Tournament on Nov. 15, Bibby announced after a practice that there would be a roommate switch.

“I had no idea what he was talking about,” junior guard Robert Hutchinson said. “I thought he was just joking about switching rooms. Looks like it worked, though.”

The surprised players went along with Bibby’s plan.

Initially, Hutchinson roomed with sophomore Jerry Dupree while seniors Brandon Granville and Gennaro Busterna shared a place, as did seniors David Bluthenthal and Sam Clancy.

Bibby’s decree paired Clancy and Granville, Bluthenthal and Hutchinson, and Busterna and Dupree.

Since the switch, the Trojans have won 12 of 13 games and are 5-0 in Pacific 10 Conference play.

“I don’t know what to expect from Coach sometimes,” Granville said. “I’ve been here four years and pretty much seen it all, so I wasn’t really surprised. But Bibby’s the head man, and he does what he wants to.”

Bluthenthal agreed.

“Bibby’s a character,” he said. “He can be superstitious, at times, even though he doesn’t like to admit it.”

Bluthenthal admitted that the move probably helped him focus.

“I don’t play as many video games as I did,” he said. “Sam has PlayStation 2, so I was always playing that. Now I spend more time in the gym working out instead of playing video games.”

So Clancy was a bad influence?

“He wasn’t being a bad influence,” Bluthenthal said with a sly grin. “He just had video games.”

Clancy, meanwhile, downplayed the switch as a possible catalyst for the Trojans’ recent run, in which they’ve won nine consecutive games and appear on the verge of rejoining the rankings for the first time since moving day. USC, coming off an 81-77 victory over No. 11 UCLA, plays at No. 20 Arizona on Thursday.

“I don’t think it does [correlate],” Clancy said. “We would have finally come around. I don’t think the roommate change had too much to do with it. It is a little interesting, but we couldn’t have played bad the whole season.

“I like my new roommate ... better because of the way we set the apartment up.”