Thundering Heard Again

“Get out!”

The two most important words of the USC basketball season still rattle in Jerry Dupree’s head, stick in his chest, burn in his shoes.

It was two weeks ago. Dupree and teammate Gennaro Busterna had failed to attend an unmonitored Sunday afternoon shoot-around.

The next day at practice, when Coach Henry Bibby discovered their absence, he pointed to the door and raised his voice.

“Get out!”

Dupree quickly dressed and returned to his room, where he plopped on the bed and stared at the NBA posters on his wall.

Michael Jordan was scowling. Vince Carter was scolding. Allen Iverson was so disappointed.

“I laid there for the longest time, looking up at those guys, thinking, ‘Man, if that is where I want to go, I’ve got to step it up,’” Dupree said.

On Friday night against Oregon, he did more than just step, he flew, right up there on the wall next to his heroes.

Jerry Dupree is today a poster for what happens when, having tried everything else, a kid decides to try growing up.

A poster decorated in the Trojans’ 89-78 victory over the ninth-ranked Ducks in the Pacific 10 tournament semifinals.

A poster bordered in Dupree’s 12 points, four rebounds, three assists, two blocks, two steals and near-perfect shooting in only his fourth start of the season.

A poster containing two new words.

Instead of “Get out!” Bibby was commanding that Dupree “Get in!”

The long-armed, big-haired, heavily tattooed forward got in the heads of the Oregon shooters with his incessant waving and leaping. He was a distraction, a disruption, a delight.

“I’ve got to tell you, I see him out there and, that’s intimidating,” Brandon Granville said.

The bouncing sophomore transfer also got into the Oregon defense for eight points during a 24-5 run that clinched the victory. Typical of his style, his shots were described on the official statistic sheet with words like “flying,” “slam smasher” and “rainmaker.”

“He picked up his game on another level,” Sam Clancy said.

More than anything, the kid who admitted that he mentally quit for much of this season because he could not handle his coach’s toughness finally got in Bibby’s good graces.

“He was the difference in the game,” Bibby said.

This, after a little postgame kiss-up session, of course.

Said Dupree: “We felt [Oregon] took the championship from us, and took the coach of the year award away from Coach Bibby, and we wanted to get it back.”

Said Bibby: “OK, Jerry, you’re starting tomorrow.”

Don’t blame Dupree if he doesn’t believe it until his name is announced today against Arizona.

After sitting out last season to attend San Bernardino Valley College and become eligible to enroll at USC, the former Moreno Valley Valley View High star thought his dreams had been realized when he started the first three games this season as Jeff Trepagnier’s popular replacement.

The crowd loved his leaping ability. The media loved those seven tattoos.

The coach hated his work ethic.

Dupree was benched, and finished the regular season ranked eighth on the team in minutes.

Even when he played, though, he rarely played.

“I wouldn’t call it quitting,” he said. “But I quit in my mind. I couldn’t understand what Coach Bibby was trying to do.”

Translated, he couldn’t understand why Bibby plays no favorites, gives no advantages to a guy who leaps like Vince, doesn’t care who you are.

“He would tell me to work on my running and rebounding and working the floor,” Dupree recalled. “Then, after I did that, he would have me working on something else. There was always something else. I didn’t get it.”

This is the typical reaction of a new player in Bibby’s system.

Just as typical is Bibby’s response. “I’ve always said that if guys perform in practice, they’ll get an opportunity to play,” he said. “It’s just taken some of them a while to figure it out.”

If Friday was any indication, Dupree has finally done that.

So has Desmon Farmer, whose 15 first-half points kept the Trojans from being blown away by Oregon’s two 10-0 runs.

For the Trojans to stretch themselves through the first two weekends of the NCAA tournament, a possibility that grows with each inspirational win, they will need players like Dupree and Farmer.

Their three steady senior stars will need occasional fireworks crashing around them, occasional winds blowing behind them.

The savvy will need the energy. The experience will need the excitement.

“These guys are the MVP of the tournament,” Granville said.

Bibby knew this less than two hours before Friday’s game when he decided to add Dupree to the starting lineup.

He also knew this two weeks ago when he decided to toss him.

“Get out!”

Dupree still recalls the words as if he just heard them minutes ago.

“Nobody ever said that to me before,” he said quietly.

Two difficult Pac-10 tournament games, two splendid wins, people are saying lots of things nobody around the USC basketball program has heard before.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.