Sitting in their locker room at halftime, the Bruins probably
didn’t hear USC football coach Pete Carroll triumphantly
ringing the Victory Bell at center court.
But they and their fans probably still hear the ringing from the
Rose Bowl end zones last November. Or from the yellow seats of
Section 316 at Pauley Pavilion a month ago.
Or, perhaps most resonant, the roar of 10,147 at the Sports
Arena when junior Jon Crispin’s shot caromed wildly off the
backboard and the Trojans downed UCLA 86-85 Wednesday night to
clinch a USC football and basketball winning sweep for the first
time since 1940-1941.
“With the game on the line, the team either steps up or
falls down on defense,” senior Ray Young said. “We fell
down.”
Like in three of the previous four games, the Bruins (4-14, 2-8
Pac-10) were in the game until the final deflating tenth of a
second disappeared from the clock.
Leading 85-84 with 46 seconds left, UCLA ran the shot clock down
to one. Junior T.J. Cummings got a good look from just inside the
three-point arc, but it rimmed out, and USC (9-9, 5-5) dashed past
the Bruin defense. Trojan Errick Craven drew a foul from sophomore
Ryan Walcott, who was playing in place of the injured Cedric
Bozeman.
Craven hit both free throws to give the Trojans a one-point
lead.
With just over four seconds left on the clock, USC called a full
and then a 30-second time-out.
“Coach (Henry) Bibby didn’t say anything
special,” USC’s Derrick Craven said. “He just
said to play defense.”
Had Bibby barked out instructions to key on a Bruin shooter, he
might have mentioned senior Jason Kapono or sophomore Dijon
Thompson, who shot 11 for 18 for a career-high 25 points.
But Kapono was inbounding the ball and Thompson was locked up by
two USC players. That left only Crispin, who had shot the ball just
twice in four minutes of play. The transfer from Penn State took
the ball, dribbled it straight up the middle and threw up a
leaning, seemingly forced shot from behind the top of the key.
“He had more time than he realized,” UCLA head coach
Steve Lavin said. “We wanted to get the ball deeper into the
paint. We had Jason and Dijon trailing and T.J. in the
corner.”
It was the kind of improbable shot that, like a walk-on
quarterback leading a team to upset victory, can immortalize a
player in this most heated of rivalries.
Instead, all it did was show up as one of 35 missed shots in a
box score that hasn’t shown the Bruins winning in over a
month. Â
“Every time I shoot, I think it’s going in,”
Crispin said. “I should have pulled up straight, but I
usually practice and make those shots.
“I’d do anything to get that shot back, and if I
did, I’d make something happen.”
The Bruins actually outshot USC 49.3 to 42 percent despite
Kapono only putting up eight shot attempts. The Trojans clamped
down on UCLA’s all-time three-point basket leader, limiting
him to only two baskets from beyond the arc.
“We wanted him to have to work hard to get good
shots,” Bibby said. “We wanted others to beat us if we
were going to lose.”
Bibby probably didn’t expect Walcott to be one of the
“others” beating his Trojans up until the final four
seconds. Coming off the bench for the third straight game, the
sophomore stepped in after Bozeman’s strained right shoulder
wouldn’t hold up in the second half.
He hit two three-pointers and snagged a key baseline steal late
in the game, and the Bruins didn’t appear to miss a beat.
“Ryan picked up where he left off last year in the NCAA
Tournament,” Lavin said.
Prior to talking about Walcott, the embattled Lavin spoke of how
good he thought this team of nine freshmen and sophomores would be
next year.
But with the Bruins choking on sediment somewhere below rock
bottom, nine straight losses and all, the bell may toll for Lavin
before he can see if he’s right.