USC Faces a Rugged Climb Today

USC blew a shot at standing alone atop the Pacific 10 Conference standings with Thursday night’s improbable and last-second overtime loss to California.

But the Trojans, who are in a first-place tie with Oregon at 6-2, have a shot at redemption today against No. 17 Stanford, which is half a game behind at 5-2.

“When you’re at the top of the mountain, everybody’s shooting for you,” USC Coach Henry Bibby said. “You’re visible for everybody and everybody’s coming for you. We’re giving people a reason to play against us.

“So your best game has to come up every night.”

The No. 23-ranked Trojans acknowledge they have to put Thursday’s heartbreaker behind them or risk being run out of the Sports Arena by the Cardinal.

“You can’t lose two at home,” USC senior Brandon Granville said. “The urgency is there. It puts a little pressure on us that we’ve got to go out and win [today], but that’s what this league’s about.”

Last week the Trojans were blown out at Arizona but rebounded two days later with a win at Arizona State.

“I can get over the big loss to Arizona without a problem,” Granville said. “I can move on and accept just having one of those nights. But [Thursday] night’s tough. It may be a little tougher to get over.”

Granville was at the flashpoint of USC’s stunning loss to Cal.

Nursing a 91-89 lead in overtime, the Trojans were trying to run down the clock as Granville was trapped along the right sideline at midcourt and stripped by A.J. Diggs with 14.6 seconds remaining.

Granville and Diggs fell to the floor and a held-ball was called. The possession arrow pointed to California.

“[Diggs and Shantay Legans] both came out at me and I was going to go and try to get away from the double team and [Diggs] cut me off,” Granville said. “And I didn’t want to go backcourt, so I kind of spun off and back and lost my balance. I got bumped a little bit and as I was falling I was trying to call timeout, but they got the jump ball.”

With Granville guarding him, Legans then made a three-pointer from 23 feet out with two seconds remaining, giving the Golden Bears the 92-91 victory.

USC had squandered a 10-point lead, 64-54, with 10 minutes to play in regulation and led by four, 91-87, with 30 seconds to play in overtime.

USC freshman guard Errick Craven said the Trojans simply lost focus.

“I think that’s our main problem: When we come to a close game like that and we have the lead, sometimes we stop playing,” Craven said. “We play not to lose instead of to win.

“We weren’t pushing as much, we weren’t as aggressive. We were just holding the ball and they were just making the plays, so they had more momentum at the end.”

Cal had been making a league-worst 29.6% of its three-point attempts. The Golden Bears, however, set a school record against USC with 15 three-pointers, making 53.6% (15 of 28).

“There’s nothing we could do about that game,” Bibby said. “There are 15, 20 plays in the game that would have turned the game around to our favor. It wasn’t meant to be last night. The game wasn’t meant for us.

“I’ve never played against a team in my whole career of coaching, and I’ve coached a thousand-plus games, I’ve never seen a team shoot the basketball so deep outside and make them consistently. I’ve never seen that.”

So how do the Trojans pick themselves up for Stanford with such a quick turnaround?

“You kick what happened out the window and you start over again,” Bibby said.

That may be easier said than done, especially because USC was outrebounded by Cal, 37-33, and the Trojans had only seven offensive rebounds.

They came into the game averaging a league-best 15.1 offensive rebounds and none of Trojan senior power forward Sam Clancy’s 11 rebounds came on the offensive end.

Stanford, meanwhile, began the week leading the Pac-10 in rebounding margin (+9.2) and defensive rebounds (27.9).

“They’re very athletic, they’re very quick,” Bibby said. “[Julius] Barnes, [Josh] Childress and [Casey] Jacobsen are so good. And you’ve got [Curtis] Borchardt inside to block shots and take you outside. It’s a very good basketball team.

“I don’t think they’ve reached their potential yet. I think it’s a team that could explode any time with the people they have.”