USC Listens to Its Focus Group

ANCHORAGE â€”  Two games into a season already headed in the wrong direction, Dwayne Shackleford decided it was time to speak up.

So, after USC completed a film session Thursday evening, the senior guard asked his teammates to stick around for what he called “a focus meeting.�

Over the next hour, players talked about what it was going to take to generate the concentration and intensity that had been missing during an 0-2 start.

What the Trojans formulated was, for at least one afternoon, a winning blueprint. On Friday, they defeated Eastern Washington, 69-51, in a consolation-round game of the Great Alaska Shootout at Sullivan Arena.

“We’ve got a lot of talent, we’re young, but we just wanted to have everybody on the same page,� Shackleford said.

“I won’t say guys didn’t want to work hard or want to win, but we had to figure out how we wanted to do it.�

USC Coach Tim Floyd did his part by jostling his starting lineup. Floyd replaced Abdoulaye N’diaye and Lodrick Stewart with Jeremy Barr and RouSean Cromwell, and the Trojans responded with a crisply played first half in which they used 12-1 and 18-2 runs to build a 36-18 lead.

USC (1-2) made a concerted effort to work the ball inside, with swingman Nick Young, who had a career-high 25 points plus eight rebounds, repeatedly weaving through the paint and big men Barr and N’diaye making an impact on offense for the first time.

Barr finished with nine points, and N’diaye had eight points, three blocks and three rebounds.

“I thought our guys played with great purpose,� Floyd said after his first college coaching victory in almost seven years. “They passed the ball, shared it, they moved the ball, and we didn’t have as much dribbling as we did the other night.�

The Trojans will play Alaska Anchorage, a 72-64 winner over Southern Illinois on Friday, today in the fourth-place game.

Floyd said his new starting lineup was composed of the winners of practice drills in which players were pitted one on one for 90 seconds.

“We matched up one guy ... against another guy and went with that approach,� said Floyd, who said he had used the same tactic at his previous college coaching stops.

He declined to say whether he would stick with the same five players today.

USC bolted to a 7-0 lead on a free throw and dunk by Barr, a steal and layup by Gabe Pruitt, who had 13 points, and a pull-up jump shot in the lane by Young. After the Eagles (1-2) pulled to within 14-11 on a steal and layup by Nick Livi, a Pruitt three-pointer from the wing sparked an 18-2 Trojan run that put the game out of reach.

Young made 11 of 18 shots while playing smarter basketball than he had in the first two games.

“Coach [Floyd] told me I was playing sloppy the other day, so I had to get it under control and post up a little more,� Young said. “I just listened to Coach and things started [coming] together.�

Things also went more smoothly for N’diaye, the 6-foot-11 center who had as many fouls (five) as points (two) and rebounds (three) combined in his first two games at the Division I level.

N’diaye, a junior college transfer, shrugged off an early foul by making a jump hook and later taking a feed inside from Stewart and dunking.

His performance was among several pleasant surprises on a day when the Trojans’ effort was obvious.

“We came out and stuck together no matter what and looked like a team,� said Shackleford, who did not score but had two rebounds and two assists in 13 minutes. “I’m proud of the guys.�