Washington Routs Trojans

Now that the football season has finally ended for USC, basketball has the attention of some of the Trojan faithful.

They’re certainly not expecting this youthful Trojan squad to win a national championship, as the football team did. But that doesn’t mean they want to keep seeing these kind of nights. A crowd of 2,633 in the Sports Arena on Thursday watched the 12th-ranked Washington Huskies rout USC, 84-59.

A 22-point night from Tre Simmons and 14 more by Mike Jensen helped Washington, 13-1 overall and 3-0 in the Pacific 10, win its ninth straight. But it was the Huskies’ defense that dictated the outcome, holding USC to 38.9% shooting and forcing 20 turnovers.

“Their pressure really bothered us and we couldn’t run our offense at all,” USC interim Coach Jim Saia said. “It’s a bad matchup for our team. We’re not as quick as they are, and without Errick [Craven], Gabe Pruitt is the only one who can attack off the dribble.

“To sum up the game, we couldn’t run our offense against their pressure. And I thought we could. But we’re not there yet as an execution-type team to go against that pressure.”

The loss was USC’s third in a row, evening its overall record to 7-7. USC also starts off 0-3 in conference for the first time since 1991, when it opened 0-4.

The 1991 team recovered well enough to go on to the NCAA tournament. At this rate, USC has its work cut out just to make the Pac-10 tournament.

“What I have to do is pick up the pieces and stay positive with these guys,” Saia said. “There’s still a lot of season to be played. By no means do we need to hang our heads.”

Freshman Nick Young led USC with 20 points, all of them coming in the second half. But that was the only good number for the Trojans, who missed 33 of 54 shots from the field and 19 of 32 free throws.

“Their style is wearing,” Young said of Washington. “They talk trash, they’re constantly moving, and you have to keep up and play hard D. They came out with the mind-set that we were weak, and I guess we didn’t show our real talent because they kept going.”

One of the benchmarks of the Huskies’ success has been their willingness to share the ball. Washington has been averaging 20.4 assists a game, the fourth-highest average in the nation.

But most of their best work has been done up in Seattle. Thursday was only the third road game for the Huskies. The road is where Washington suffered its only loss, at the hands of in-state rival Gonzaga.

It was the Trojans, however, who looked uncomfortable from the outset.

USC had five missed shots and six turnovers in the first 4 1/2 minutes, prompting a couple of early, irritated timeouts by Saia. Washington built a 10-0 lead during that stretch before Lodrick Stewart finally got the Trojans on track with a three-pointer and two fastbreak layups.

With the game momentarily back in a manageable fashion, USC looked for ways to use the Huskies’ defensive aggressiveness against them and get some better shot attempts. But Washington forced the Trojans out of that game plan by torching the three-point line, in particular Simmons and Will Conroy. By the 6:28 mark of the first half, Washington’s lead was 30-12 and a rout seemed imminent.

“The game isn’t always easy,” Simmons said. “But we’re a veteran team and they’re younger than us. So we had to play like a veteran team.”

By halftime the deficit was still large, 36-19. It was the second-lowest first half performance by the Trojans this season, barely edging out the 18 points they mustered against LaSalle.

Of course no team can look good with only seven field goals (out of 20 attempts) and 17 turnovers.

Things didn’t get much better in the final 20 minutes. Washington would lead by as many as 27 points (84-57) before Coach Lorenzo Romar emptied his bench, and USC never trailed by fewer than 16.