USC Calls This Loss Unfair

To hear USC tell it, it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

So the Trojans sang a familiar refrain after falling to Stanford, 80-72, in front of 7,391 at Maples Pavilion on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s the same thing it was at Cal in the second half,” USC Coach Henry Bibby said, recalling Thursday’s loss to the Golden Bears in which the Trojans attempted one free throw to Cal’s nine in the last six-plus minutes.

“[Stanford] shoots 25 free throws in the second half and we shoot four. The fouls were 28 to 14 [for the game]. Is that fair? I thought we competed and played well. It’s incredible. But that’s what you suck up and say, ‘Is this fair?’ to the kids.”

Stanford had only two field goals in the last 10-plus minutes but made 20 of 22 free throws to hold off the Trojans, who trailed almost the entire game.

For the game, Stanford shot 34 free throws, making 28. USC shot 12 and made nine.

“I thought the calls were ridiculous,” said USC sophomore shooting guard Errick Craven, who had 11 points on four-for-12 shooting and five steals in 27 minutes before fouling out.

“It kind of threw me off because I was worried about calls.”

Now the Trojans, who have lost four of their last five games, have to worry about their record, which is 7-8 overall, 3-4 in the Pacific 10 Conference after getting swept on the Bay Area trip.

Taken aback by how athletic Stanford was -- the Trojans ran the half-court-oriented Cardinal into the ground three times last season, and Stanford managed only 52 points against UCLA on Thursday -- USC was the team playing catch-up.

It was the Cardinal (14-5, 5-2) that utilized a suffocating man-to-man defense while the Trojans sat back in zone defenses to open the game.

Runs of 10-2 and 15-2 against the disoriented Trojans gave the Cardinal its biggest lead of the game, 25-14, just over eight minutes into the game.

Then a switch to full-court pressure helped the Trojans -- who forced 16 turnovers and had 14 steals but committed 14 turnovers -- begin a slow climb back.

Sophomore center Rory O’Neil finally got the Trojans even when he made a three-pointer from the top of the key with 4:51 to play to tie it, 62-62.

Then the USC foul parade picked up steam while the Trojans went cold, managing only one field goal and a free throw over the next 3:54. Stanford, meanwhile, went to the line 12 times after O’Neil tied the score (intentional fouling by USC in the final minute gave Stanford six more free throws).

“We’ve got to realize that we’re not going to get calls on the road,” said O’Neil, who finished with 14 points, three rebounds, three turnovers and two blocks in 39 minutes. “So we can’t worry about the referees.”

Avoiding defensive breakdowns that allowed the opposing point guard, senior Julius Barnes, to go for 17 first-half points on his way to a game-high 27 also would have helped. So would avoiding offensive collapses late, a fact pointed out by junior guard Desmon Farmer.

“We feel we had a lot of bad calls, but we can’t just blame the refs,” said Farmer, who led USC with 23 points and six rebounds. “It was the refs and us. Our execution wasn’t really there at the end. Griping about the calls threw our focus off the game.”

It also threw the Trojans below .500 in conference for the first time since the 1999-2000 season.

And Bibby, who earlier in Pac-10 play said that the league’s officials weren’t making enough foul calls to limit physical play, maintained his position that his team has been unfairly marked and penalized since his arrival as coach in 1996.

“It’s happened every year I’ve been here,” he said. “It’s just that ‘SC doesn’t get any respect, that we’re not supposed to win here.

“[The officials] don’t care. They just call the game and they get out of here. I’m not saying we never foul, but do we foul that much more than [opponents] do?”