If the rivalry between UCLA and USC wasn’t simmering
enough, Saturday’s contest at the Sports Arena had the added
spice of a personal challenge.
Trojan freshmen Nick Young and Gabriel Pruitt were quite
familiar with their Bruin counterparts, Jordan Farmar and Arron
Afflalo; Young and Farmar were high school rivals at Cleveland and
Taft High Schools respectively, while Afflalo and Pruitt played
together and against each other on different AAU squads.
Though the Trojans’ duo controlled the game until
halftime, it was Farmar and Afflalo who had the last laugh, coming
up with key plays down the stretch in UCLA’s 72-69 comeback
victory.
“To play within ourselves was the most important
thing,” Afflalo said. “Our intentions were to
win.”
“A lot of the “˜SC players were talking, just making
the same comments like “˜we’re better freshmen,”
UCLA senior Dijon Thompson said. “But they (Afflalo and
Farmar) kept their composure, and fought until the end.”
While Farmar and Afflalo receive the most praise as part of one
of the best freshman classes in the country, Young and Pruitt took
it upon themselves to prove to anyone watching that they were just
as good, if not better.
The USC pair torched UCLA, especially in the first half. Young
scored 17 points on 6 of 7 shooting, and Pruitt added 11 points,
hitting two 3-pointers as USC took an 18-point lead into
halftime.
“I think we (proved our point),” Young said.
“Me and (Pruitt) were talking about this the other day, that
we had to come out and play and show everyone. We’ve been the
underdogs the whole season, so we had to come out and prove
it.”
Meanwhile, neither Farmar nor Afflalo had made a single basket
by halftime. Where Young and Pruitt looked poised and in control,
Farmar and Afflalo appeared anxious and uncomfortable playing
against the Trojans’ zone defense. However, Afflalo and
Farmar regrouped at halftime and made a concerted effort not to get
caught up in a personal agenda.
“They were beating us and they were trying to make it
obvious that they were the better duo,” Afflalo said.
“Not to say that they did, but we could have taken extra
shots to try to outdo them, but that’s not our
intention.”
Fortunes changed for both teams in the second half, and as UCLA
rallied, USC’s talented freshmen couldn’t keep up.
Afflalo hit three 3-pointers in a 94-second span that enabled the
Bruins to build their biggest lead of the game.
“They got fatigued, and I wanted to give them a break in
the first half,” USC coach Jim Saia said. “I was hoping
our bench would give us some good minutes, but we didn’t get
anything from our bench.”
Though Young finished the night with 22 points and Pruitt
pitched in 19, the rest of the team only scored 28 points.
But despite dominating on the box score, it was Farmar and
Afflalo that walked away with the victory, UCLA’s first over
the Trojans since 2002.
“(Young’s) and my performance proves we’re
just as good as them,” Pruitt said. “But I can’t
take anything away from them. They’re a great freshman class,
we’re all buddies.”
“I can’t wait to play them again. I know we feel
like we owe them something, and they know that we really beat
ourselves tonight.”