Galen loves ‘his’ arena

Louis Galen, the philanthropist who helped USC build its long-awaited basketball arena, said the Galen Center is “120% of what we thought it would be.”

The Trojans are averaging 7,366 fans for Pacific 10 Conference games at their new facility, a 38.7% increase over last season’s average of 5,309 fans for conference games at the Sports Arena. The smallest Pac-10 crowd this season -- 5,355 fans for the conference opener against Washington -- was larger than last season’s average crowd.

“Everyone’s just thrilled to death,” said Galen, who along with his wife, Helene, contributed $50 million for a facility that is expected to have a final price tag of about $130 million.

Though they cannot attend every game because they spend much of their time in Rancho Mirage, the Galens attended the Trojans’ most recent home game, against Oregon, and Louis Galen described the atmosphere as “really cooking.”

Galen said the only “negative surprise” was that television crews dictated the closing of the giant curtains at the north end of the arena during day games to prevent a glare off the picture windows, thus obscuring the view of the downtown L.A. skyline.

Any other gripes?

“I want to see some national championship flags up there,” Galen said.

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Senior guard Lodrick Stewart returned to practice Monday after a trying weekend in which he saw his great-grandfather buried in Aberdeen, Miss., but could not visit his mother because he was told she was too ill.

“That was heartbreaking, right there,” said Stewart, whose mother was hospitalized after suffering a nervous breakdown.

Stewart did get to visit with an 11-year-old brother he had not seen in 10 years and received celebrity treatment along with twin brother, Rodrick, a junior at Kansas.

“We went down there and we were like Michael Jordan,” said Stewart, who moved to Seattle with his brother and father when he was 11. “We’re the only people who made it out of there.”

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USC was ranked No. 22 in the latest Associated Press poll and No. 23 in the ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll, marking the first time this season the Trojans have been ranked in consecutive weeks. The last time USC was ranked by the AP and Duke was not was on Jan. 6, 1976.... The Trojans are alone in third place in the Pac-10 standings, but they’re closer to sixth place than to first. They trail first-place UCLA by two games but lead sixth-place Stanford by only one game.... USC trailed UCLA for a total of 8 minutes 32 seconds in the teams’ two meetings but lost both games.

ben.bolch@latimes.com