Latest USC Victory Breeds Confidence, Not Cockiness

Depending on whom you ask, USC’s sweep of the Arizona schools is either one giant step for the program or simply victories eight and nine.

USC completed the feat for the first time since the 1991-92 season by defeating Arizona State, 75-56, on Saturday at the Sports Arena, begging the question . . . are the Trojans that good?

“I can’t answer that,” said Stais Boseman, who scored 18 points and sparked a second-half run with two of his four steals in front of an announced crowd of 2,559. “Not until we get a road victory, until we go to McKale [Center] or Pauley [Pavilion] and get some big-time wins in some big-time places.”

USC Coach Henry Bibby, like Boseman, was not ready to call the feat a huge turning point but admitted it was “a big weekend.”

“To come back after the Arizona win and have this big win and play with that intensity at the end, a lot of credit has to go to our guys,” Bibby said.

And a lot of credit should go to Boseman in particular. He played all but three minutes in the two victories, which came for the most part without the services of Rodrick Rhodes.

Rhodes, who played only four minutes in Thursday’s upset of the No. 6 Wildcats, did not play Saturday because of a sprained knee. But that did not stop him from voicing his excitement over the team’s recent success.

“I’m not going to lie. [After beating Arizona,] I have started looking at the schedule, counting up the wins and looking ahead and saying ‘we can win this one, this one might be tough,’ ” he said. “We think we are an [NCAA] tournament team and we got a good shot to make it.”

The Trojans looked like a tournament team in the second half Saturday, particularly on defense, where they forced the bulk of Arizona State’s season-high 27 turnovers. USC also outrebounded the Sun Devils, 49-29, led by Jarvis Turner with 10.

“USC took good care of the ball in the second half and mixed its defenses up,” Sun Devil Coach Bill Frieder said. “We had problems against the press and got killed on the boards.”

That was most evident after Arizona State erased a 13-point Trojan lead to tie the score, 50-50, with 8:56 to play.

USC countered with a 12-0 run, all points supplied by a frontline of Jaha Wilson, David Crouse and Gary Williams. Wilson started it with a cutting layup after a pass from Turner. Williams scored the next five points on a layup and three free throws, and Crouse finished it with three free throws and a dunk.

It was then that the Trojans (9-5 overall, 4-2 Pacific 10 Conference) started to assert themselves inside and pick things up defensively. Boseman seemed to be everywhere, leading a charge that more than made up for a sluggish team offense (36% shooting, 20 turnovers).

“We came out in the second half and decided to make them work for the game,” Boseman said about the defense. “There are games when the jump shots and the free throws don’t go in, but you can go out every night and guard people and keep them to a low [shooting] percentage.”

Said Bibby: “It didn’t seem like the offense was going to get going, but the good thing was that [the Sun Devils] were not scoring. A lot of that, though, was we played good defense. I thought Stais, with a couple steals during that last spurt, got us going.”

Jeremy Veal led Arizona State (9-8, 1-4) with 18 points but Mike Batiste, who had an 18-point average, was held to only seven as Williams (12 points) denied him the ball through most of the game.

“I thought that was the key,” Bibby said of Williams’ defensive effort. “We wanted to front Batiste and not let him catch the basketball and that took him out of the play.”

USC pushed its record to 7-0 at the Sports Arena, and got two victories in a key four-game homestand. UCLA visits Thursday and No. 4 Cincinnati on Sunday.

“[Winning] is new to a lot of people,” Williams said. “What [defeating the Arizona schools] does is wake people up and let them see what we are all about.”

Said guard Ken Sims, who is in a slump but scored nine points: “We could get four wins here at home, and if we did that we should get in the rankings. And that is what we are trying to do here, to make a name for ourselves.”