Bibby Very Pleased With Early Urgency

One of Henry Bibby’s biggest pet peeves is that it usually takes his upperclassmen a good portion of the season to start playing with urgency.

After four days of practice, the USC coach has no such complaints

Instead, the focus is on Bibby himself, what with the Trojans coming off consecutive losing seasons, Bibby beginning the penultimate year of his contract and the Galen Events Center scheduled to open in 2006.

“I’m not even thinking about that,” Bibby said at USC’s media day at Heritage Hall on Tuesday. “I don’t want to start talking about that. Let the pieces fall where they may. I’m not worried about it. I’m just having fun.

“Let’s put the emphasis on the kids. I’m excited about this season and coaching these kids this season.”

He should be.

USC has nine returning players, including six seniors, from a team that finished 13-15 overall, 8-10 in the Pacific 10 Conference. And the early showing of newcomers Dwayne Shackleford, a junior college All-American, and Los Angeles high school stars Gabe Pruitt and Nick Young have made the absence of Robert Swift, who was a lottery pick of the Seattle SuperSonics, palatable. And that’s even with Shackleford lost for up to five weeks because of a knee injury suffered on the first day of practice.

“There’s no question about it, all the seniors are excited about playing basketball,” said senior center Rory O’Neil. “It’s just growth, just a year more of maturing.

“This is the deepest team we’ve had since I’ve been here. Everybody has a chance to start or play some minutes. We’re all looking for that playing time.”

Last season, the Trojans deferred to Desmon Farmer, who led USC with a 19.4 scoring average and finished his star-crossed career as the school’s fourth all-time leading scorer.

“We had a bunch of guys who were trying to be the man last year,” Bibby said. “The guys now are not looking to be NBA players; they’re looking to be good college players.”

And looking to continue their recent dominance of crosstown rival UCLA, the Trojans having won five of the last six meetings.

“The attitudes are much better,” Bibby said. “The chemistry is better. The kids are settling in with each other this year. The Cravens [Derrick and Errick] and Stewarts [Lodrick and Rodrick] were going after each other a year ago because of that twin thing. That’s pretty much settled.”

What’s not settled, however, is the seeming lame-duck status of Bibby that has opposing coaches using his job status against USC in recruiting.

“As seniors, we don’t want to be the ones to cause coach to have problems,” said forward Gregg Guenther, who quit the football team this summer to concentrate on basketball. “We want to set our goals high.”

Sounds urgent enough.

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Senior forward Jeff McMillan, last season’s Pac-10 newcomer of the year after averaging 11.1 points and 8.6 rebounds, is working on conditioning after undergoing summer surgery on his left foot to correct three hammer toes.... Freshman forward Emanuel Willis took stitches in his arm after cutting it running into a door during practice.