UCLA fans make it a sellout

Will the first capacity crowd in the history of the Galen Center go down as a sellout for USC or UCLA?

While the cross-town rivalry game Saturday is officially sold out, there has been speculation that Bruins fans have gobbled up sizable chunks of tickets considering the Trojans’ spotty attendance record in their new building.

USC has averaged only 4,026 spectators for home games in the 10,258-seat facility. A school spokesman said Wednesday that the ticket office was unsure how many tickets were bought by UCLA fans because of the anonymity of Internet purchases. UCLA’s official ticket allotment was only 500.

“I heard they bought about 6,000 tickets,” Trojans junior swingman Nick Young said. “It’s just funny how UCLA can come over and do such a thing like that, buy so many tickets, and when we go over to Pauley Pavilion we barely see cardinal and gold.”

The crowd is expected to include about 2,000 USC students, who obtained their tickets through a lottery system.

“It’s going to be half and half,” Trojans senior guard Lodrick Stewart said of the overall fan distribution, “but we’ve got some die-hard fans that are going to be loud. I want their fans to be loud. It’s going to bring us up and play harder. We’re going to be fired up for this game.”

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USC will retire at halftime Saturday the jersey number of Basketball Hall of Fame member Bill Sharman as part of a renewed effort to honor former Trojans.

“We feel like it’s been a long time coming,” Coach Tim Floyd said. He’s “one of the great names in basketball for decades.”

Sharman, 80, played at USC from 1947 to 1950 and won four NBA titles with the Boston Celtics before embarking on a coaching career in which he guided the Lakers to the 1972 NBA title.

USC plans to honor other former greats at halftime of every remaining home game, including Paul Westphal against Arizona on Jan. 18 and Harold Miner, the school’s all-time leading scorer, against California on Feb. 24.

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The Trojans plan to wear their gold jerseys Saturday for only the second time this season. USC logged its biggest victories last season -- over North Carolina, Arizona and UCLA -- wearing the gold jerseys but also lost to South Carolina in this season’s opener while wearing them.

ben.bolch@latimes.com