USC Women Hold Their Edge in Southland Rivalry

The current story line in the UCLA-USC women’s basketball rivalry is close games. And it has been working in the Trojans’ favor.

The last four games between the teams have been decided by four points or fewer. And USC, after its 73-70 victory Saturday at the Sports Arena, has won three of them.

Camille LeNoir had a career-high 27 points and Eshaya Murphy scored 16 of her 20 points in the first half as USC, 13-5 overall and 7-2 in the Pacific 10 Conference, held off the Bruins despite making only one field goal in the game’s final 12 minutes 32 seconds.

LeNoir made 12 of 14 free throws in the game and was seven for eight in the final three minutes. That kept USC from completely giving back a 16-point second-half lead.

“I prepared for that all week,” LeNoir said, adding that assistant coach Derek Wynn had her shoot 50 free throws a day to prepare for such situations.

USC Coach Mark Trakh said he didn’t mind that the game turned into a free-throw contest -- the teams combined for 50 fouls and 64 free throws -- because it slowed the game’s pace.

“If you look at the athletes they have on the floor, with three probably future WNBA draft choices, you’ve got to make it an ugly game,” Trakh said. “It would be suicide to run, open the court and give them open-court opportunities.”

With the win, the Trojans will finish the first half of conference play no worse than second.

The Bruins, who got 21 points from Noelle Quinn and 19 from Nikki Blue, fell to 10-8, 5-4. They face a tough four-game stretch beginning with conference-leading Stanford on Friday.

“We’re excited to be going home,” UCLA Coach Kathy Olivier said. “It’s a great spot to be in; you’re playing against a team that can put you right back on the map. The one thing I’ll say about our group; they keep their heads up, they work extremely hard, and we’re going to plug away and figure out a game plan for Stanford.

“If we do what we did the last 15 minutes of today, we’re going to be fine.”

Even though they shot only 33.3% (21 for 63) and their leading scorer Lisa Willis had her worst game this season (six points on one for 11 from the field) before fouling out, the Bruins did whittle the Trojans’ 16-point lead down to two with 27 seconds to play.

Blue, who raced down the court with five seconds remaining and UCLA down by three, was able to get off a three-pointer at the buzzer, but the shot bounced off the backboard.

“I wasn’t exactly sure how much time I had at the end, and had to get off the best shot I could,” Blue said.

The attendance of 8,667 at the Sports Arena (although 6,749 tickets were actually sold) was a single-game record for USC women’s basketball.