Vucevic sparks upset win

Thanks to sanctions, USC’s football team is hibernating this bowl season, leaving the men’s basketball team at the school in a spotlight that usually arrives a month from now.

Helping observe this atypical attention were the No. 19-ranked Texas Longhorns, who visited the Galen Center on Sunday night along with a season-best crowd of 4,127.

And from start to finish, the Trojans owned the moment, leading wire to wire against the Longhorns to win, 73-56.

“Throughout the week, Coach [Kevin] O’Neill really stressed defense and toughness to us, and he demanded that if we’re going to do anything, we’re going to be tough,” said senior forward Alex Stepheson, who had 14 points and 11 rebounds.

That the Trojans (5-4) were, suffocating and frustrating Texas (6-2) to end a skid at two games and pay back the Longhorns for a 19-point beating last season in Austin, Texas.

“We got outplayed in every area of the game,” Texas Coach Rick Barnes said.

The win ends USC’s role in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series, which ceases this season. USC had a 2-4 record in the series.

But even with the backdrop of a large pro-Texas contingent that boomed the Longhorns’ “Texas Fight” chant with ease, USC gave the visitors all the fight they wanted, and then some.

The Trojans jumped to a 10-point lead 3 minutes 28 seconds before halftime when junior forward Nikola Vucevic made consecutive three-point shots.

By intermission, Vucevic had matched his scoring average (16.0), and he and his teammates bolted to a 13-1 run to start the second half and take a 20-point lead with 14:50 left.

Texas twice cut that lead to 10 points, but USC’s defense held and limited the Longhorns to a season low in points.

“To me, it’s kind of a pleasant surprise we played with the kind of intensity and focus we played with on both ends tonight,” O’Neill said.

In the second half, Texas made only eight of 32 shots, and missed nine of 10 three-point shots, giving USC its first win against a ranked opponent since it beat No. 20 Nevada Las Vegas last season.

In 11 games against ranked nonconference opponents, the Pacific 10 Conference has two wins, similar to its 3-13 mark in that category last season that partly explained why only two of its teams advanced to the NCAA tournament.

But with one of those wins, USC now has a marquee line on its resume for the tournament selection committee to consider.

“It’s a huge win for us,” Vucevic said. “Great for our confidence.”

About 25 NBA scouts were in attendance, most of them to see Texas’ annual crop of talent, but Vucevic overshadowed them all, scoring a career-high 24 points on nine-for-17 shooting. He had nine rebounds.

Stepheson teamed with Vucevic to control the middle.

“We’re going to be an inside team first,” O’Neill said. “We have to be. That’s where our two most experienced players are.”

The Trojans won the rebounding battle, 36-30.

Reserve guard J’Covan Brown led Texas with 17 points, and although it was Texas’ first true road game, former Compton Dominguez star guard Jordan Hamilton should have felt at home, playing in front of friends and family only about two miles away from the house in which he grew up.

But the sophomore guard, who began the game leading Texas in scoring (21.7), finished with only 12 points in his first trip to Los Angeles in a Texas uniform.

“I just tried to make him work for every shot he got,” said guard Marcus Simmons, who hounded Hamilton.

The crowd chanted “overrated” with 1:17 left as USC’s lead stood at 71-56, and later gave the Trojans a standing ovation.

It’s the momentum USC needs before playing host to Northern Arizona (6-2) on Saturday, a modest appetizer compared with the trips to Kansas (7-0) and Tennessee (6-0) that follow.

baxter.holmes@latimes.com

--

USC next

vs. Northern Arizona, Saturday at the Galen Center, 7:30 p.m., FS West: The Lumberjacks (6-2), who return four starters from last season’s 14-14 team, will play host to Texas-Pan American on Wednesday. Four Northern Arizona players average in double figures in scoring. USC won the only previous meeting, in 1990.

-- Baxter Holmes