USC Run Could Take Bibby Out of Town

Contrary to the preachings of the nerd who runs your office pool, the lucky number for the USC basketball team this month is not a Sweet 16 or an Elite Eight or even a Final Four.

It’s a Fabulous Five.

That’s the number of years on the standard secure college basketball coaching contract.

That’s two more years than USC Coach Henry Bibby has on his contract.

That means the Trojans are playing with fire.

Today at Arco Arena marks not only the beginning of what could be his finest USC moments, but also his final USC moments.

Trojan officials, who took a chance on Bibby six years ago when nobody would touch him, say they will take care of him.

Bibby, who says he is forever grateful for that chance, says he has no worries.

Those close to both parties say an extension is in the works and will be signed after the season.

Everybody is happy. Everybody loves everybody. Occasionally, Bibby even smiles.

But now come an event that changes coaching careers at the drop of a Cinderella.

In today’s first round, I have USC beating NC Wilmington.

In Saturday’s second round, I have USC beating Indiana.

As of Wednesday morning, I have left the third round blank.

That is when the Trojans could play top-ranked Duke.

The same team they scared last season before losing by 10 points in a regional final played on one day’s rest.

A team they could be playing, this time, on four days’ rest.

A team that they will have played three times in three years, making the Blue Devils no more intimidating than a red-faced Bibby.

The Trojans are one of the few teams in the tournament that can beat Duke. And do you know what happens to Henry Bibby if they beat Duke?

Florida State happens.

The Seminoles, looking for a coach, could promise lots of money and more chances to play, well, Duke.

Or, DePaul happens.

The Blue Demons, also looking for a coach, would love to have a former NBA star recruiting the Chicago playgrounds.

Or, maybe a top NBA top assistant coaching job happens, returning Bibby to his first love.

Lots of things could happen to Bibby if the Trojans beat Duke.

Heck, lots of thing could happen if they make the Sweet 16 for consecutive years and even get close to Duke.

None of those things are good for USC.

They need to lock up their coach before some March-mad booster at some distant college decides to unlock his safe.

Said Daryl Gross, associate athletic director: “We’re elated with Henry Bibby.”

Said Bibby: “I love it here, and don’t plan on going anywhere.”

Can we get that on paper?

In six years, Henry Bibby has become like that curmudgeonly gas station attendant working in the middle of the desert.

Losing him would be difficult.

Finding a replacement would be harder.

Imagine trying to hire a top coach for a basketball team with no on-campus gym, with no championships, at a school known for football, located down the road from UCLA.

Even in the best of years, a bad situation.

The sort which Bibby loves.

“This is my element, man,” he said. “Struggling. Building something. Being the underdog.”

Is there a better fit anywhere?

The hard-luck coach pounds his hard-luck players into believing they can own the city.

They struggle, he throws them out of practice, they improve. They get blase, he makes them shoot at 6 a.m. on their day off, and now they really improve.

Then one day you are watching once-gawky Brian Scalabrine take the floor for the New Jersey Nets and you’re thinking, where did he learn that?

The next day you are watching once-hesitant Sam Clancy soar to Pac-10 Player of the Year honors and you’re wondering, how did that happen?

Then, this week, a time when you have traditionally filled the top of this sports section with stories about UCLA, you find yourself sitting in a press room at a regional with USC instead.

The first time anyone at the newspaper can remember when the beginning of March belonged to the Trojans.

Henry Bibby is like that. He sneaks up on you.

He couldn’t do that across town. He couldn’t do that amid the huge expectations of a new town.

In the world of Trojan basketball, he can do that forever. His scowl and their shadow were made for each other.

“Mike [Garrett] took a lot of criticism for hiring Henry, but we believed in it,” said Gross.

Criticism? Gross is assuming anybody was even paying attention.

It was 1996, and Charlie Parker had just been canned, and Bibby was given the job for the last nine games, and remember what he did?

Of course, you don’t. It was the year after UCLA’s national championship. Nobody in town was watching Henry Bibby.

If they were, they would have seen him suspending his center, and watching his point guard quit, and benching guys as if he just signed a lifetime deal.

The contract, of course, was for only those nine games.

All of which he lost.

Just in time for Garrett to make him the permanent boss.

Criticism? If anybody was paying attention, they would have called for the disbanding of the program.

Here was a guy who had been publicly disowned by his basketball-star son Mike. A guy who had left his last college job a decade earlier under the cloud of a recruiting scandal. A guy who didn’t care that his players thought he was a tyrant and the media thought he was a jerk.

Meet your new coach.

“I will never forget that Mike Garrett gave me a chance, and loyalty to that means more to me than money,” said Bibby, who reportedly makes around $500,000, ranking him around the upper-middle of the Pac-10. “Everybody might say I’m full of bull, but I’m loyal to him for that chance.”

It was, most certainly, a last chance.

But, six years later, he has turned it into the opportunity of a lifetime.

Not to mention, lost most of the baggage.

Trouble with his son? Henry and Mike, a guard with the Sacramento Kings, now talk regularly, a fact which has been acknowledged by both parties.

“It’s like night and day,” said Henry. “It’s tremendous. I really missed it.”

Recruiting scandal? The Trojan program has been clean and attractive.

“I heard all the stuff about Coach Bibby, but now, lots of my buddies from other Pac-10 teams are coming up to me and saying, ‘Man, I’d like to play for you guys,’” said forward Jerry Dupree. “They see that we get the job done.”

Tough on his players?

Well, yeah, the former Bruin is still a bear. But his players are buying it, even ones like Desmon Farmer, the Midwesterner benched in front of family and friends during a game at Bradley in Peoria, Ill., this year.

“Coach told me what he was doing, and why he was doing it,” Farmer said. “I didn’t like it, but it’s the past, and I learned from it. We’re cool.”

Many thought the most amazing thing about USC basketball last spring was not that Sam Clancy stayed, but that Henry Bibby stayed.

There was an opening at Nevada-Las Vegas, another perfect fit, but nobody from there called him.

“They needed a guy with a nice image and no past,” said a source, referring to the Rebels’ hiring of Charlie Spoonhour.

With a second consecutive impressive tournament run, renovated Henry Bibby will be viewed as that sort of guy.

The Trojans have too much invested to fold now.

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