USC Unable to Finish Strong

It’s too early to panic, but not too early to be concerned.

The new year is not off to a good start for USC, which spent a lost weekend in the Great Northwest. On Sunday it was Oregon State that rallied past the Trojans, pulling away for a 74-64 win at Gill Coliseum.

The victory improved Oregon State to 10-3 overall, and gave the Beavers their first 2-0 start in the Pacific 10 Conference since 1993.

USC dropped to 7-6 and 0-2, and interim Coach Jim Saia saw plenty of warning signs in the loss.

“We’re just not mentally tough enough to win down the stretch yet,” Saia said. “We made too many mistakes, got out of our offensive structure ... the game plan was great. We had a good first half, then hit a dry spell. And they got tougher. Oregon State wanted it more than us.”

It was a game seemingly to the Trojans’ liking -- plenty of physical play, a slower tempo and relatively few spurts.

In the end though, the Trojans were done in by the smallest player on the court: Jason Fontenet, generously listed at 5 feet 10.

The junior guard scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half. And a cluster of them came during the Beavers’ 16-4 run midway through the second half that turned the game decisively in their favor.

Fontenet began the run with a 15-foot jumper, then followed with a three-point basket to give Oregon State the lead for good, 50-49, with 10:13 left to play. Fontenet went on to add another three-pointer, a 17-footer and a fastbreak layup after a steal.

Just like that Oregon State was ahead, 63-54.

“He took over the game. Period,” Saia said of Fontenet.

Oregon State Coach Jay John agreed.

“It was obviously the turning point in the game when Jason got hot,” John said. “He made play-calling real easy ... that and [defensive pressure] were major things at a time when there was a combination of us starting to score and then being able to defend. Before that we were trading baskets.”

David Lucas led Oregon State with 17 points.

Rory O’Neil had 17 for USC, and Lodrick Stewart had 14. But that wasn’t enough to get USC past its 21 turnovers and 10 Oregon State steals.

And things don’t get any easier the next two weeks. USC will play host to the Washington schools this week, then travel to Arizona to face the Sun Devils and Wildcats.

If USC isn’t careful, they could be in deep trouble before the Pac-10 season is halfway finished.

“We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves,” O’Neil said. “We’ve just to keep playing, keep our heads up. And [the seniors] have to keep the freshmen’s confidence up between games. They’re good players; we have to tell them that.”

In the first half the Trojans had the defensive energy that Saia said he felt was missing for a couple of games.

The lone Oregon State player to thrive early was Croatian forward Sasa Cuic, who was as good from the three-point line as he was on the inside, scoring 12 points in the first half, including two three-pointers. (He finished with 16 points.) The rest of the Beavers were eight for 19 from the field (including one of six from three-point range) in the first half.

Meanwhile the Trojans earned their 35-31 halftime lead on the production of Stewart and O’Neil, each of whom scored 11.

USC hung tough for nearly 10 minutes in the second half, and still had a 49-45 lead when Fontenet became the spark that fired up the Beavers.

“We couldn’t get any stops and they wound up shooting 48% for the game,” Saia said. “A lot of it was mental errors ... and our guys may have panicked offensively and stopped running our offense.”