M. basketball braces for Trojan squad
Crosstown rival focuses on penetrating Bruin defense
By Ross Bersot
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Charlie Parker began his second season at the helm of the
Southern California men’s basketball team with nowhere to go but
up.
USC finished the 1994-95 season with a miserable 10-game losing
streak and a final record of 7-21, including a 2-16 showing in the
Pacific 10. The end of the season also brought the end of
leading-scorer Lorenzo Orr’s eligibility, leaving the Trojans with
no dominant inside presence.
Hardly the coming-out party Parker hoped for, but considering he
was named interim head coach only three days before the beginning
of the season, after an automobile accident left seven-year head
coach George Raveling unable to fulfill his duties, the team he
inherited did not have much to celebrate.
Things started to look up for Parker and the USC program when
interim was removed from his title on March 24, and forward Rodrick
Rhodes announced he would transfer from Kentucky to be eligible for
the 1996-97 season.
Finally, the return of 6-foot-11-inch center Avondre Jones for
his second tour of duty following a year’s hiatus at Chaffey
College in Rancho Cucamonga, bolstered Parker’s prospect for a
successful 1995-96 season. Or at least a competitive one.
But how far will the Trojans climb?
USC (10-7, 3-3 Pac-10) comes to Pauley Pavilion tonight for a
7:30 p.m. matchup with the Bruins (12-4, 5-1) having already
tallied three more wins than all of last year. Jones trails only
UCLA’s Jelani McCoy for the conference lead in blocked shots, with
57, and already owns the school single-season record in that
category. The junior also averages 10.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per
game.
"Avondre is different; he’s much more focused," said Parker of
the new Jones. "He wants to be a player. Before, I don’t think he
was really sure if he wanted to be a basketball player. Not that he
wanted to be a rapper or a student or a lover or whatever, he just
wasn’t focused into being a basketball player.
"Now, I think he sees the value in being a basketball player,
not just for his potential to be a professional player, just to
fulfill all of his God-given talents, to utilize all of his
God-given talents. And I think he has worked very hard to try to be
the best player that he could possibly be."
Rounding out the Trojans’ three-guard lineup are junior forward
Jaha Wilson, and guards Brandon Martin, a senior, Stais Boseman, a
junior, and Cameron Murray, a sophomore. Wilson, last season’s
Pac-10 rebounding champion, once again leads the team in that
category with 8.1 per game, while Boseman has taken over as leading
scorer, with 16.4 points per game.
Murray, who started 24 games at point guard as the only true
freshman on last season’s Trojan squad, began the year at point,
but switched positions with Boseman in USC’s last game, an 80-67
win at Arizona State. Playing at shooting guard against the Sun
Devils, Murray responded with a season-high 20 points.
"Cameron had a lot of pressure on him, particularly offensively,
and he was thinking the game too much instead of just playing the
game," Parker said. "(The switch) enabled him to kind of free his
mind, where he didn’t have to worry about calling the plays,
getting the guys in position. Now all he has to do is run down the
court and set himself up and look for his shot or look to get the
ball inside. It’s really kind of taken a lot of burden off of
Cameron and allowed him to be a little bit more relaxed."
Boseman thrived in his first-ever start at the point, tying his
career-high with 25 points, and dishing out five assists.
"We realize the pressure now falls on Stais, but Stais is
probably a little bit more of an aggressive nature," Parker said.
"He strives off of being the focus point, whether it’s defensively
or offensively, and Stais tends to feed off of other people’s
reactions to him.
"If people, the crowd or the referees or the opponent players
are on him tight or are talking to him, talking trash to him and
things, this pumps him up. This makes him more aggressive and he
becomes even a better player. So I think the move, so far, has
worked out well for both players."
Parker is hoping that Boseman, Murray and Martin, who is second
on the team with 15.2 points per game, will be able to penetrate
the UCLA perimeter defense in the same fashion that Arizona
succeeded in doing when it beat the Bruins 88-79 last Saturday in
Tucson.
"Our philosophy against UCLA, or really against any team, is to
penetrate and what we call pitch, and that’s one thing I thought we
did pretty well against Arizona State," Parker said. "You can
penetrate either with the ball or you can penetrate with the
pass.
"Against UCLA, we’re looking to probably do more penetration
with the dribble, and that’s where Stais becomes very valuable. We
like for Stais to penetrate, Brandon Martin or Cameron Murray to
penetrate and then look for the perimeter players for the outside
shot.
"UCLA does a great job of what they call, ‘defense in the red
zone,’ and that’s inside the key. And they collapse very well
there, but at the same time, sometimes they leave the perimeter
open for outside shots. I think that’s where Arizona was able to
utilize their outside shooting and hit some of those long shots.
Well, the key becomes for us: Are out players going to be hot
enough at Pauley Pavilion to knock down those outside jumpers?"
Injured for the Trojans are senior guard Burt Harris, who has
been out since fall practice with a knee ailment, and senior
forward Tremayne Anchrum, who underwent arthroscopic surgery Jan. 5
and will not return for at least two weeks.
Rebounding from its first conference loss will be UCLA’s primary
task against the Trojans, who have proved a thorn in the Bruins’
side in the last several years. Despite sweeping USC en route to
the national championship last season, UCLA has lost six of the
last 11 contests to its cross-town rival and Bruin head coach Jim
Harrick sees a very different and much more challenging team in
this year’s Trojans.
"’SC is (a) good basketball team, a very good basketball team,"
Harrick said. "They weren’t nearly the team last year that they are
this year. They are getting better every week and they believe in
themselves."
FRED HE/Daily Bruin
UCLA’s Jelani McCoy leads the Pac-10 in shot blocking, with
60.
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