Trojans Get Caught in a Stagnation State

By Paul Gutierrez

Dec. 8, 2002 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

USC was rolling.

The young and rebuilding Trojans had ridden the wave of confusion their myriad of defenses elicited from Missouri to an 11-point second-half lead and seemed primed to pull off a Wooden Classic upset.

But then complacency, which led to a breakdown on defense, foul trouble and cold shooting, entered the Trojan mind-set and never left, enabling the 15th-ranked Tigers to rally for a 78-72 victory Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond.

“I was scared that would happen,” said USC sophomore shooting guard Errick Craven. “We’ve got a lot of new guys and you think with a big lead that [it’s over]. We were not playing the same way [after we got the lead]. Guys would hold the ball and we got stagnant.

“We held the ball to win the game instead of just playing. We were playing the time.”

Time, and the Tigers, caught up with the Trojans in front of 9,889.

And as a result, the Trojans (2-3) have a losing record for the first time since opening the 1999-2000 season 2-3 after falling to Duke in that year’s Wooden Classic.

But USC Coach Henry Bibby was not down on his team.

“I thought we played well,” he said. “I was pleased with the effort. If the effort is there and the kids are working hard, whatever happens in the game, happens.

“I mean, we were playing a team with two NBA players on it tonight and we had a chance to win.”

The Trojans seemed intimidated in the early going by Missouri, which advanced to the Elite Eight of last year’s NCAA tournament, and trailed, 12-4, six minutes into the game.

That’s when USC began showing flashes of the defensive dexterity that flummoxed Pacific 10 teams at the end of last season.

With looks of doubt beginning to appear on their opponents’ faces, the Trojans thrived on a steady diet of steals and Missouri turnovers, limiting the Tigers to one field goal over a 5:47 stretch.

With all three of their junior college transfers -- point guard Brandon Brooks, shooting guard/small forward Roy Smiley and center Jonathan Oliver -- on the floor, the Trojans led by nine points before settling for a 39-34 halftime lead.

An Oliver basket with 14:49 to play stretched the Trojans’ advantage to 11, 53-42, but all that did was set the stage for the Tigers’ comeback.

“They were shooting the ball and our minds just wandered,” said USC’s Derrick Craven, who had eight points, an assist and two turnovers in his first college start at point guard. “We stopped playing defense.”

Errick Craven said it was also a matter of the Tigers solving the Trojans’ defensive looks.

“In the second half, they started swinging the ball,” he said, “and we weren’t able to rotate fast enough, so we’d have our big men on their point guard. They picked up on that and that gave them the open threes.”

Missouri knocked down six three-pointers in the second half, to one for USC.

The Trojans also had trouble keeping centers Oliver, Kostas Charissis and Rory O’Neil on the floor. They were in constant foul trouble; O’Neil picked up his fourth foul in the final minute of the first half, and Charissis and Oliver fouled out, with 9:28 and 2:24 to play, respectively.

Such was USC’s lot against Missouri’s big man, junior Arthur Johnson, who had 24 points and 12 rebounds.

And at the same time Missouri (4-0) began warming up from the outside, USC went cold, its shot selection becoming suspect. In the second half the Trojans shot 31.6% from the field while Missouri was at 51.7%.

“Once they’d make a shot, we’d go down and put one up in a rush,” said junior guard Desmon Farmer, who led the Trojans with 16 points off the bench.

The Tigers started scoring in a rush against the suddenly unnerved Trojans and tied the score at 60-60 on a Johnson basket with nine minutes to play.

The Tigers went up by 67-63 on Rickey Paulding’s three-pointer with 6:03 remaining but the Trojans answered with a 6-0 run that ended with a Farmer basket at the 4:33 mark. The resulting 69-67 advantage was the last lead the Trojans would enjoy.

“We’re playing together,” Farmer said. “A lot of people thought we were selfish but I think tonight we showed we could play together.”

At least for 35 minutes.