usc beats unlv

SoCalHoops College News

Trojans Appear To Be For Real;
Hang On To Beat UNLV--(Nov. 21, 1998)

Despite 27 total turnovers, 6 from Brandon Granville and a whopping 8 from Brian Scalabrine, the Trojans managed to hang on to win against UNLV at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. USC looked like two different teams: For the first 15 minutes, they looked like candidates for a national championship (sorry to sound like Bill Walton. . . note, we said they "looked like", not that they will be. . .) as they broke out to a 21-3 lead, reminiscent of last Tuesday's thrashing of San Diego State. During that first portion of the game, the Trojans scrambled, ran the fast break, grabbed rebounds, and generally shot the lights out. And it seemed that UNLV couldn't do anything right. But you gotta admire Bayno and the Rebels, who never panicked, and by the end of the half, they had pulled to within 10, 36-26. In the second half the Rebels managed to cut the Trojan lead to as few as three, but the Rebels were never able to take the lead, and ultimately lost 71-68.

Brandon Granville, despite the inordinate number of turnovers, played very well, and we were also impressed with the 5 minutes that Kevin Augustine had, and he managed to lend a calming influence when Brandon seemed to be a bit on the edge of control and the game was getting out of hand. Augustine managed only one shot and an assist, but he's a veteran and as the season goes on, we'll see him more and more.

Granville had 15 points, a very impressive performance for a freshman, shooting 3-5 from the field and 8-9 from the line, mostly shooting free-throws at the end of the game when UNLV was forced to foul. Brandon had 7 assists two steals, and those 6 turnovers we already mentioned, and he might have had more but Scalabrine helped him out there.

Scalabrine, we are convinced, will be one of the candidates for player of the year in the Pac-10. A bit foul prone last night in the first half, he's the most active big guy we've seen so far this year, and that includes Madsen, Sauer, either of the Collinses, Gadzuric or Moiso. Like Jerome, he can shoot the ball either from the top of the key or down low, and he's also very fast, and several times he actually led the fast break. He's got a decent handle, and unlike UNLV's guy Kaspars Kambala, he rarely brings the ball down to the floor before putting it up. Scalabrine shot an amazing, near-perfect 6-7 from the field, including some nice fall away jumpers, but his free-throw shooting was terrible. His rebounding was very impressive as well, and he got second, third and fourth efforts, with 2 offensive boards and 7 defensive. This guy can play, and he handled Kambala very well limiting the Rebels big guy to only 3 points in 19 minutes of play.

Elias Ayuso played the two for most of the game, 35 minutes, and he had 16 points for the effort, a game high for the Trojans. He was everywhere, mostly shooting inside, but he also went 3-5 from behind the three-point line and started the shooting spree early in the game which broke it open for the Trojans as they sprinted to an early 23-3 lead.

Bibby played a zone for most of the night, daring the UNLV guys to shoot over it, and for the most part they did, missing most of their shots, only hitting .324 from the field to USC's .510. UNLV took 37 three point shots and only made 8 of them, and if there's a reason they lost, it's because they refused to go to work inside. When they did, with Marion or Simmons driving the gaps in the zone, it was usually effective, but for some reason, Bill Bayno just didn't see it, and as he admitted after the game, "I was just out-coached. They zoned us all night, and we never really adjusted."

Wilder played respectably, getting only 4 points, and Trepagnier did some nice things, but niether of them got a ton of time in the game compared to Granvilled, Scalabrine and Ayuso. Trepagnier was most impressive early in the first half, with just a huge tomahawk dunk which put the cap on the embarrassment which the Rebels must have been feeling in front of 16,348 home fans who had come to witness a team which had been ranked as high as number 25 in a couple of preseason polls. Trepagnier is very athletic, played great defense on Marion and Epps, and we don't understand why Bayno only played Epps for 2 minutes early in the game and then we never saw him again.

Adam Spanich also showed just how streaky a shooter he can be. In the first half, he couldn't hit anything, throwing up brick after brick, going 0-4 from the field. But in the second half, he made three straight shots, and he's got to be one of the quickest catch-and-shoot guys around, and he ended up making two threes and a two-pointer and ended up with 8 points in 19 minutes of play. Sam Clancy played like two different guys also, sometimes good, and sometimes just awful, and he only had 2 points, shooting 1-3 from the field, but he was a monster on the boards, grabbing 7 defensive rebounds, and he had the only blocked shot of the night for the Trojans. He's big, lumbering, and needs to get up and down the floor quicker, and be a bit more active.

And speaking of needing to be more active, Greg Lakey will have to find out where his accellerator pedal is, because he's doing way too much standing around on offense, and tends to look like he's getting a bit lost, and the coaches obviously noticed the same thing, because they only kept him in for 5 minutes, during which time he managed to lose the ball and turn it over twice. Greg needs to move more on offensive without the ball, get himself open and find a way to be more active on the floor, otherwise his minutes will continue to be limited. Jarvis Turner is another player who started well, and then just seemed to disappear, and with the subbing pattern that didn't get him back into the game until late in the second half, he was never able to reestablish any rythym, and committed two quick fouls just when UNLV was starting to close the gap in the middle of the second quarter, and had he not fouled out, he would have continued to hurt the Trojans. He did get 4 rebounds, 4 points on 2-5 shooting from the field (both in the first half), and missed two free-throws. He had one steal which led to a fast break early in the game, but the fouling just killed his game last night.

Shannon Swillis really didn't do anything worthy of attention last night, playing for 5 minutes, and missing the only shot he took and getting just one rebound. Seymour Daffeh, a walk on, didn't play (and we're not sure he made the trip because we didn't see him), and curiously, Bibby didn't play David Bluthenthal at all, and either David wasn't feeling well, or Bibby just didn't see a spot for him to be productive last night. We saw him sitting on the bench, but frankly don't know why he didn't play.

This was just a huge win for USC, and a lot of people will now say that they are for real. Likewise, a lot of folks will be scratching their heads and wondering about UNLV. Greedy Daniels played very good defensively on Brandon Granville for most of the night, forcing most of his turnovers, but offensively, he only shot 4-12 and finished with 11 points. Inside, Kambala was just nowhere, getting frustrated and unable to finish against Scalabrine. Brian Keefe, who hustled his butt off, and nearly brought UNLV back into the game with his 15 points and Shawn Marion's 14, brought too little too late to really help and shooting 1-4 from three-point range didn't help.

UNLV has great ball rotation, and they can swing the ball as well as anyone, with Keefe, Dickel and Daniels on the perimeter. Their biggest problem though was poor shooting and an inability to penetrate the zone. They will recover, but last night had to be a huge embarrassment for a team that many were touting as one of the better teams on the west coast.

We continue to be amazed at the ability of the Trojans, and recognizing that it will only get tougher for them as each of their opponents improve, it's going to be fun to watch them against even tougher competition.

The Trojans next take on Long Beach State on Tuesday, November 24 at the Sports Arena. Game time is 7:30 p.m. We'll see what happens with the 49'ers later tonight as they take on Pepperdine at the Pyramid at 7:00 p.m. See you there.

USC (71) at UNLV (68) 
11/20/98

Southern California (71)
                POS MIN  FG-FGA  FT-FTA  3P-3PA ORB-TRB AS ST BL TO PF  TP
Trepagnier,Jeff   F  21   3- 6    0- 1    1- 1    0- 3   2  1  0  0  2   7
Turner,Jarvis     F  14   2- 5    0- 2    0- 0    0- 4   0  1  0  1  5   4
Scalabrine,Brian  C  35   6- 7    3- 7    0- 0    2- 9   2  1  0  8  3  15
Granville,Brandon G  29   3- 5    8- 9    1- 3    0- 6   7  2  0  6  2  15
Ayuso,Elias       G  35   5- 9    3- 5    3- 5    0- 2   1  1  0  2  3  16
Wilder,Quincy        14   2- 4    0- 0    0- 0    0- 1   1  0  0  5  0   4
Augustine,Kevin       5   0- 1    0- 0    0- 0    0- 0   1  0  0  0  0   0
Spanich,Adam         19   3- 7    0- 0    2- 6    0- 1   1  0  0  1  0   8
Swillis,Shannon       5   0- 1    0- 0    0- 0    0- 1   0  0  0  1  0   0
Lakey,Greg            5   0- 1    0- 0    0- 0    0- 0   0  0  0  2  0   0
Clancy,Sam           18   1- 3    0- 0    0- 0    1- 7   0  1  1  1  2   2
TOTALS              200  25-49   14-24    7-15    5-39  15  7  1 27 17  71
           FG %: .510  FT %: .583  Three %: .467  Team Rebs: 5
UNLV (68)
                POS MIN  FG-FGA  FT-FTA  3P-3PA ORB-TRB AS ST BL TO PF  TP
Simmons,Kevin     F  30   4- 7    2- 2    1- 3    1- 5   0  3  0  3  3  11
Marion,Shawn      F  29   5-13    3- 3    1- 4    6-10   4  2  1  1  3  14
Kambala,Kaspars   C  19   0- 0    3- 4    0- 0    2- 4   0  0  0  4  1   3
Keefe,Brian       G  32   5-15    2- 2    3- 9    0- 1   0  2  0  3  4  15
Dickel,Mark       G  34   4-14    2- 3    1-10    0- 3   6  2  0  0  2  11
Herod,Desmond        12   1- 5    1- 2    0- 2    0- 0   0  1  1  0  0   3
Stewart,Donovan      12   0- 4    0- 0    0- 2    2- 7   2  0  1  1  2   0
Richardson,Chris      1   0- 0    0- 0    0- 0    0- 0   0  0  0  0  0   0
Daniels,Greedy       29   4-12    1- 3    2- 7    1- 4   6  3  0  6  3  11
Epps,Isiah            2   0- 1    0- 0    0- 0    2- 2   0  0  0  0  3   0
TOTALS              200  23-71   14-19    8-37   17-40  18 13  3 18 21  68
           FG %: .324  FT %: .737  Three %: .216  Team Rebs: 4
Southern California       36 35 --  71
UNLV                      26 42 --  68