Farmer Makes a Case for Recount

This has been a mess of a basketball season for USC. It has been a collision of goofs-ups and talent, of inconsistent greatness and intermittent awfulness.

Sometimes it seemed as if Coach Henry Bibby was tossing guys out of practice for tying their shoes wrong. Every day somebody didn’t study hard enough or pay enough attention to the day’s lesson or block out or run the offense or hit free throws.

And sometimes it seemed as if Bibby was losing his composure. He made it his personal crusade to list in detailed anger the shortcomings he saw in Pac-10 referees. He considered the noisy, boisterous, rowdy behavior of fans in Oregon as some sort of pointed display of Henry Bibby animosity. Apparently Ducks fans were mimes the rest of the year, pantomiming their raspberries at other teams.

All this anger that knots Bibby’s brow, has him twisting his jaunty suits into wrinkles and creases, must have rubbed off on the Trojans. While they always played hard, too often they played frustrated and scattered, energetic atoms bouncing off each other, off the opponents, running around and not accomplishing much.

There was a seven-game losing streak that started in February and bled into March. There was, on the final Saturday of the Pac-10 season, the need for USC to beat woeful Washington State to qualify for the Pac-10 tournament.

They did. The Trojans won. And then they won again Thursday night in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament, upsetting second-seeded Stanford with their superior energy and overflowing emotions.

And with Desmon Farmer.

Farmer has been the constant of these Trojans. He’s been tossed from practice, yes, but he has never showed disappointment in the discipline. Farmer, a junior from Flint, Mich., begins each game with a fierce scowl. His cheeks puff up with his hyperventilating breath. He slaps anybody near him as the last few seconds tick away and it becomes time to shed warmups and put on the mantle of USC leader.

Even though he is only 6 feet 4, Farmer will fight better than men six inches taller for rebounds. He will go inside, let his body be pushed and shoved and knocked around to score a lay-up.

During USC’s 79-62 victory over California in the tournament semifinals Friday, Farmer was thrown to the floor with a tackle courtesy of David Paris, who is 6-9 and, at 260 pounds, 35 pounds heavier than Farmer. Farmer accepted the intentional foul with a smile. He bounced right up, made one of two free throws and laughed out loud.

Thursday night against Stanford, Farmer had scored 24 points and was the best player on the floor. It was the perfect way for Farmer to stick out his tongue at the Pac-10 coaches.

Those coaches had left Farmer off the 10-man all-conference team even though Farmer was third in the conference in scoring and, quite possibly, first in hustle and desire.

Certainly Bibby makes enemies in the conference. Even if he’s right to be unimpressed with the referees, he sounds only bitter and whiny when he talks the topic to death. After losses. It is no way to become popular, ripping fans of another school.

But this is not Farmer’s fault. Is it Farmer’s headband the coaches don’t like or his emotive way of playing basketball, yelling at himself, his teammates, his opponents, bellowing with pain and pleasure equally? Because that’s wrong too, not appreciating how hard Farmer plays and how much he loves playing.

With 15:48 left Friday night against Cal, Farmer had already scored 21 points. But what got Farmer shouting in a loud, angry voice was that he had missed four free throws, more misses than he’d had in any game this season.

“Make a free throw,” Farmer screamed at the ceiling. This was after he had been fouled hard again by a man 20 pounds heavier and four inches taller than he was. After that, Farmer quit missing free throws. He didn’t quit throwing himself into the lane, didn’t quit getting hit or taking shots and making most of the big ones.

Any Pac-10 coach want his all-conference ballot back? Somebody should.

Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.