USC Story: Another Close Pac-10 Defeat : Basketball: Trojans fall to 0-3 in the league with 84-80 overtime loss to Arizona State. Injured Coleman doesn’t play.

TEMPE, Ariz. â€”  Finally up against a Pacific 10 Conference opponent that wasn’t ranked among the nation’s top 10, USC found out about three hours before Sunday’s game against Arizona State that they would have to play without injured forward Ronnie Coleman.

After losing to UCLA and Arizona with a full complement of players, the Trojans weren’t quite up to the challenge of beating Arizona State without their leading rebounder, No. 2 scorer and most dangerous inside threat.

With Coleman on the bench after spraining his right ankle against Arizona, USC lost in overtime, 84-80, before 9,178 at the University Activity Center, but gained respect from Arizona State Coach Bill Frieder.

“I know they’re 0-3 (in the league), but they started out a pretty tough way,� Frieder said of the Trojans, who were the only Pac-10 team to open the conference season with three consecutive road games. “They’re going to return home, win some games and be a threat against anybody they play.�

USC was in position to beat both Arizona and Arizona State, but after losing at Arizona Thursday night, 87-85, when Phil Glenn’s three-point shot rimmed the basket with 15 seconds left, they lost at Arizona State after Rodney Chatman’s potential game-tying three-point attempt glanced off the rim with about four seconds remaining in overtime.

The Trojans led in regulation, 75-73, before Arizona State’s Dwayne Fontana took an inbounds pass on the right wing, drove to the basket and scored on a reverse layup with six seconds left.

“Obviously, you’ve got to be gravely disappointed when you come in and lose two games like we did,� USC Coach George Raveling said. “Both games, we had a reasonable chance to win.�

In neither game, however, did the Trojans put the ball into the hands of Harold Miner with the game on the line.

Miner, who led the Trojans with 33 points on 12-of-22 shooting, pulled USC to within 81-80 with 51 seconds left in overtime with a three-point shot from the right corner.

But he never got the ball again.

After Arizona State’s Tarence Wheeler missed the second of two free throws with the Sun Devils leading, 82-80, and 22 seconds left, USC’s Keith Greeley couldn’t control the rebound, knocking the ball out of bounds.

A free throw by Lynn Collins made it 83-80 with 10 seconds left before USC called time out with seven seconds left to set up a shot.

“If Harold got wide open, we were going to let him take it, but we figured they would put all of their attention on Harold and we felt that one of the other guards would end up being wide open, which he was,� Raveling said of Chatman. “He just didn’t made the shot.�

Said Chatman, a reserve guard who hadn’t attempted a three-point shot to that point: “It was supposed to be a triple screen for Harold in the corner, but we realized quickly that Harold wasn’t going to be open, so I knew that either me or Phil (Glenn) would have to shoot it.�

Chatman’s shot from the right wing wasn’t close.

“When I shot it, Isaac (Austin) clipped my hand,� Chatman said of the Sun Devils’ 6-foot-10 center, who had 25 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. “I knew my follow-through wasn’t good enough to get it there.�

Arizona State’s Jamal Faulkner took the rebound, was fouled by Glenn and made a free throw with two seconds left to provide the final margin.

USC, which fell to 8-4 overall, wasted another brilliant effort by Miner in a competitive game that featured 17 ties and 20 lead changes. The Trojans never led by more than five points, nor trailed by more than six.

Miner was double-teamed every time he got the ball.

“Miner’s phenomenal,� Frieder said. “You know he’s going to get the ball, you know he’s going to take you one-on-one or one-on-two and he still finds a way to get it and still finds a way to shoot it in.

“We did as good a job as we could possibly do against a guy like Miner, and he was just sensational in the second half.�

Miner scored 24 points after halftime, five in overtime.

“I realized I was going to have to do a lot,� he said. “They double-teamed me a lot, and it was hard to get going at the start, but I got into a groove and tried to pick up the slack from Ronnie’s absence.�

Miner did all he could, but it wasn’t quite enough.

Trojan Notes

Arizona State is 11-3 and 2-2. . . . Yamen Sanders, who started in place of Ronnie Coleman, had nine points and 11 rebounds in 43 minutes. . . . Harold Miner played all 45 minutes.

The basket by Dwayne Fontana that sent the game into overtime gave him his only two points. Said USC Coach George Raveling: “I would guess that Fontana was probably the most surprised person in the world to get a layup. I told the kids, ‘It’s mind-boggling that in a critical situation like that, we would let a guy drive from the high baseline all the way in without anybody rotating to help.’ �

Said Raveling of his decision to rest Coleman, who had started in 84 consecutive games for the Trojans and had never sat out in 99 games at USC: “I thought it was in Ronnie’s best interest that he not play and risk (further) injury. I’m not going to put Ronnie in a position of being injured worse or do anything that would hurt his career.�