LOS ANGELES – Besides the obvious of snapping a six-game losing streak, USC’s men’s basketball team may have done something equally as beneficial Saturday night.
Their 82-54 rout of Oregon State gave them a chance to feel better about themselves for a change. The frustration, the bad body language, the tension that comes with what could still be a season-defining slump? All gone, at least for one night, replaced by the opportunity to take some deep breaths and actually enjoy a Saturday evening for the first time in a while.
“Basketball is supposed to be a competitive sport, (and) have some fun doing it,” USC coach Andy Enfield said. “And if you lose too much, you don’t have much fun.”
It hasn’t been fun for a while, with injuries – 45 man games lost to injury or illness through Saturday – leading to scrambled lineups, players coming back and trying to re-integrate themselves into the mix, and frustration that in turn led to sagging spirits and bad body language.
It absolutely was not fun Thursday night against Oregon: The Trojans lost 78-69 and Enfield questioned his players’ toughness afterward, “behind closed doors, out in the street and everything else,” he said.
A particular irritant: USC’s big men, 6-11 Arrinten Page, 6-11 Joshua Morgan and 7-1 Vincent Iwuchukwu, had three, five and four rebounds apiece. DJ Rodman, at 6-6, led all comers that night with seven.
“Bigs got to rebound, OK?” Enfield said Saturday night. ” You can’t have a good rebounding team (without) your bigs. The bigs got to start it off. Your guards, it’d be nice if your guards rebound too. But you know Drew Peterson led us in rebounding last year, 7½ a game. And Drew’s not on our team right now. So big guys need to rebound the ball.”
The bigs weren’t much better rebounders Saturday night. But Rodman, for whom hunting the ball off the glass is a family trait, rose to the occasion – pun intended – with 14. USC outrebounded Oregon State 44-24 with 20 offensive rebounds. Kijani Wright, at 6-9, had five. Morgan had four as did 6-10 Harrison Hornery, who didn’t even play against Oregon and finished with a game-high 14 poins in 14:40 of playing time.
“I just told (Rodman) before the game, we need double-digit rebounds, so can you get 10 or more?” Enfield said. “He said, ‘I got you, coach.’ “
Said Rodman: “I’m not a high volume scorer, as everyone knows. I take what’s given to me. But one place I could make a difference was rebounding. I feel like I’m a pretty good rebounder. I mean, I haven’t had ten rebounds in a long time. So, that’s all I was trying to do.”
Maybe one reason Enfield laid down the challenge to Rodman was that the Trojans were going small from the start, using a three-guard lineup of Boogie Ellis, Oziyah Sellers and Bronny James. Those three led the Trojans in minutes, and they provided some energy from the start of a game that the Bruins never trailed.
It was USC’s 11th different starting lineup this year, and it also had this wrinkle: Kobe Johnson, one of the team’s captains and a starter in 19 of the previous 21 games, not only didn’t start but didn’t get into the game until 4:57 remained in the first half. Enfield didn’t address the move but it seemed to be more strategic than anything, and Johnson wound up playing 14:06 with four points, a rebound, four assists and a steal.
Still sidelined is Isaiah Collier, who suffered a hand injury against Washington State on Jan. 10, game 1 of the losing streak, but Enfield expressed optimism – hope? – that Collier would be back soon from a hand injury, possibly this coming week at Cal and Stanford. At that point they’ll have to work him back into the mix, but they should be accustomed to the process by now.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of experience of integrating players back on our team this year, so I’m sure we’ll figure it out or try to figure it out,” Enfield said. “As coaches, you just sometimes you put lineups out there and it works and sometimes it doesn’t work as much. So it’s a little unpredictable, but we just want to get him back, get him out there. He’s a big part of our team. And, you know, we can’t be the team we thought we could be without our full team roster being healthy and gelling together.”
But there’s this: You don’t realize how important a victory is until you’ve gone a while without one. Saturday night’s rout, which enabled the walk-ons to get in for the final two minutes, ended three full weeks of frustration.
“I mean, USC doesn’t lose six games in a row,” Hornery said. “We don’t lose two in a row. So we had to break the streak. And the fans are disappointed. The school’s disappointed in us, so we had to come out and prove ourselves.
“It is a relief, obviously. I mean, it takes a toll on you mentally losing that many games in a row. And I know I’ve never I don’t think I’ve lost three games in a row in my career since living in the U.S.”
For the record, Hornery came here from Australia to attend high school. He attended Mater Dei, so I suspect that comment was not embellished.
This is a start, and no more than that, he added: “We’re not acting like this is our championship. We just need to get something going into March and going into (the) Pac 12 (tournament) and just try and make a point.”
But you’ve got to start somewhere.
“Hopefully this will give our guys some confidence, and make them feel good that they can play at this level if they do the right things,” Enfield said.
jalexander@scng.com
