Close losses could pay dividends

Peeking through the tears and vacant stares of a USC locker room fraught with disappointment late Tuesday night was a sense of optimism.

Losses against Kansas and Memphis in December aren’t so bad, the sentiment held, if they result in victories over, say, UCLA and Arizona come January and beyond.

“We’re a young team and we feel like we have a high ceiling to improve and get better as the season goes along,” Trojans freshman guard O.J. Mayo said after No. 24 USC fell in overtime, 62-58, to No. 2 Memphis in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“I think we have an opportunity to do some special things as long as we continue to work hard and get better.”

For stretches against the Tigers, the Trojans looked more like a nearly finished product than a work in progress, especially considering they were little more than 48 hours removed from a somewhat sloppy showing against No. 3 Kansas.

USC Coach Tim Floyd had targeted four areas for improvement after the Jayhawks defeat, and it seemed the Trojans got the message on at least three. One game after being outrebounded by 12, USC outrebounded a bigger Memphis team by six; one game after making 55.6% of their free throws, the Trojans made 82.6%; and one game after taking what seemed like an endless procession of bad shots, USC’s motion offense appeared far more fluid.

The only enduring bugaboo was turnovers. The Trojans committed 21 in 45 minutes against Memphis, including a flurry of unforced errors early in the second half. There was a traveling violation by freshman forward Davon Jefferson, consecutive turnovers by sophomore forward Taj Gibson and back-to-back bad passes in transition by sophomore guard Daniel Hackett -- mistakes that proved costly when Hackett missed the second of two free throws with 5.9 seconds left in regulation.

“We played foolish at the start of the second half,” Floyd said. “We had so many opportunities with such great stops for about five minutes. We were in the open floor, couldn’t play on the open floor and turned it over.

“I guess six out of our first seven possessions [were turnovers], and that was really the ballgame.”

Still, there were plenty of positives heading into what appears to be a relatively cushy stretch of the schedule, with an exhibition against Fresno Pacific on Saturday followed by games against Delaware State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Riverside.

The Trojans unveiled a triangle-and-two defense that held Memphis stars Chris Douglas-Roberts (10 points) and Derrick Rose (nine) well below their season averages. There were also plenty of did-you-see-that moves by Jefferson, the most spectacular coming on a reverse dunk off an alley-oop pass from Mayo that prompted Jefferson to salute his teammate on his way back down the court.

“We lost, so it doesn’t really matter what I did,” Jefferson said after recording his first career double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Maybe not now. But check back with the Trojans in a few months after the hurt of consecutive four-point losses to top-five teams subsides and the potential they showed against Kansas and Memphis has a chance to take hold.

“We just played down to the wire against two top-five teams,” Hackett said. “I think that says a lot about our willingness to fight.”

Said Floyd: “We’re going to get better from this. We played the most challenging schedule in the country at this point. I do think what we’ve done to this point is going to help us and we’re going to grow from it.”

ben.bolch@latimes.com