Going for another: March 2008

Sunday, March 16, 2008

It's March Madness!

And the Trojans are matched up against the Kansas State Wildcats of the Big 12 Conference. What happened to the BCS schools being matched up against mid-majors in the first round of the NCAA tourney? Two years running, though it's hard to argue with the results from last year, where USC played three BCS schools, including Texas and player of the year Kevin Durant and top seeded North Carolina. This year, the Trojans open up with player of the year candidate, freshman Michael Beasley:

One of his teammates, redshirt freshman Bill Walker, shown below, is one of O.J. Mayo's good friends.

Here are the Wildcat team stats from ESPN.com:
Name - Position - Points - Rebounds - Assists

Michael Beasley	F	26.5	12.4	1.2
Bill Walker	F	15.8	6.4	2.0
Jacob Pullen	G	9.8	1.4	3.2
Clent Stewart	G	7.0	3.1	3.2
Blake Young	G	6.1	3.5	1.9
Fred Brown	G	4.2	1.3	0.7
Andre Gilbert	F	4.2	2.6	1.7
Dominique Sutton	F	3.2	2.5	0.6
Ron Anderson	F	3.1	3.5	0.5
Darren Kent	F	2.5	2.4	1.3
Luis Colon	F	1.2	1.1	0.2
James Franklin	G	0.6	0.7	0.6
Chris Merriewether	G	0.6	0.9	0.8

which knowing USC Coach Tim Floyd, we'll be seeing a lot of triangle & 2 defense on Thursday, with G Daniel Hackett probably getting the tougher draw in Beasley with Mayo defending Walker. Hackett had a similar assignment last year against Texas, where he "held" Durant to a "quiet" 30 points, but Beasley may be a harder matchup for the Italian Stallion, who is only 6-5 whereas Beasley checks in at 6-10. If Hackett can do the same job against Beasley as he did on Durant, SC should have a lot of success, especially since Kansas State doesn't have a lot of options outside of Beasley and Walker. Beasley is adept from 3-point range, shooting at a 39% clip, and he also leads the team in rebounding. This should be the most obvious use of the triangle & 2 for Floyd, so he might change up the defense considering that the Wildcats have a few days to prepare for it.

On offense, it's all about balance. Mayo can't score over 30 points if the Trojans want to be successful, as USC needs contributions from Davon Jefferson, Taj Gibson, Dwight Lewis, and any effort off the bench. Gibson can't lay an egg in this one, he needs at least 15 points and 8 rebounds to be a force, though he should expect double teams down low. Here's where Jefferson steps in. He can't hang out at the three point line, instead he needs to establish himself down low to give USC two options in the post and keep the double teams off of Gibson. If Lewis can continue his drives into the paint and hit the occasional jumper, he'll be doing his part. Hackett should concentrate on defending Beasley. And any effort off the bench, whether it be key minutes from Angelo Johnson spelling Hackett or Lewis, and Keith Wilkinson giving Gibson and Jefferson a quick breather while hitting outside shots and grabbing defensive rebounds, will be a plus. USC can't win if only four guys are contributing, no matter how Mayo is performing. If all seven guys can help out, SC should win this one and move on to the second round.

It's all about how the teams finished. USC finished the season winning 6 of their last 7 before their loss to UCLA in the Pac-10 tourney, and went 12-5 in their last 17 games. Kansas State finished 3-6 to end the regular season. All season long, the Wildcats were pretty inconsistent, going from a high of upsetting Kansas on January 30th to dropping the next game to lowly Missouri. Here's a comparison of the two teams:

Kansas State (20-11, 10-6 Big 12)
Key wins: Oklahoma, Kansas (Big 12 Champs), Texas A&M
Key losses: George Mason (Colonial Champs), Oregon, Notre Dame, Xavier, Missouri, Texas

USC (21-11, 11-7 Pac-10)
Key wins: San Diego (WCC Champs), Oklahoma, UCLA (Pac-10 Champs, #1 seed), Stanford
Key losses: Mercer, Kansas (Big 12 Champs, #1 seed), Memphis (C-USA Champs, #1 seed), UCLA (Pac-10 Champs, #1 seed)

Anyway... maybe more later... but my pick to win it all? UCLA, ugh...

Saturday, March 15, 2008

USC fans suck...

First time at a USC-UCLA basketball game yesterday for the Pac-10 tournament semi-finals at Staples Center. Have to say, USC fans are TERRIBLE compared to UCLA fans. I first noticed this trend at a USC-UCLA baseball game a couple of weeks back, where their fans were fired up for the game, which was even more impressive since the game was at Dedeaux Field, the Trojans home field. Anyway, at a "neutral" Staples Center, USC fans were outnumbered 65-30, with the last 5 probably being Wazzu or Stanford fans for the following game. But even with the modest number of fans, it was hard to tell we were even there. UCLA fans, I'll give it up to you guys, you were into the game. Even in the first half, where USC dominated, you still did the eight-clap and UCLA spellout while the band played Sons of Westwood and the other song you stole from Cal. Meanwhile, we Trojan fans sat on our hands, cheering once for big plays while our band refused to play Fight On. It sucked.

SoCal Spellout

We Are SC!

Now I'm no spirit leader, but a response to the Bruin eight-clap would have been more SoCal spellouts or a We Are SC chant, even though that's supposed to be reserved for when we're leading at the end of games, but in an environment like last night, in a neutral arena, we needed to be heard. Every time UCLA fans finished their eight-clap, USC fans should have been right there with a Socal spellout or We Are SC chants. Instead, our lame ass response is to add "sucks" whenever the Bruin fans yelled UCLA. Pretty embarrassing. I think we did the SoCal spellout twice all night. Brutal. Screw saving "We are SC" for the end of games, if the team needs a rallying cry, that's it! The band yells "Go SC" all game long, and "U-S-C" is too short, but "We are SC" is perfect. That's what the SC faithful should have done instead of saying "sucks" after Bruin fans said UCLA. I hate Trojan fans...

It's not completely our fault though, as the USC band needs to play Fight On more often. I think they played it three times all game, once when the team came onto the court before the game, once when they came back from halftime, and when there were a few minutes left in the game. Weak sauce. I think the Bruin band played the Cal fight song several times, especially during their key 15-2 run to start the second half, The Trojan band response to our eight point lead in the first half? "All Right Now"? WEAK. If the band can play Fight On over 30 times during a football game, why can't we hear it more than 3 times during a basketball game? And what happened to playing Conquest? It's our freaking battle cry, and we don't get it before basketball games? That's the best part of the pregame routine in football, yet its nowhere to be heard in basketball? What the heck?

While I hate UCLA in general, I do like their fans. They care about ALL of their sports teams, not just the successful ones. They show up to baseball, basketball, football, volleyball in decent numbers compared to SC fans, who are truly bandwagoners. At least most are. I don't really consider myself a bandwagon fan, even though I did start enjoying USC when the football team won the national championship in 2003. Which, coincidently, was my freshman year here. Now while I haven't been to a whole lot of other USC sporting events, I do root for USC when I get a chance to. Freshman year, I went to the USC-Arizona basketball game when Desmon Farmar scored 40 as the Trojans upset a top-10 Wildcat team. I was there the following game when SC lost to lowly Arizona State, but I was there, even though it was quite a trek to get to the Sports Arena. My sophomore year, I went to two road football games. The first was a close one, where the Trojans rallied from a 11 point halftime deficient to win 31-28 against Stanford. The second was another close one, a 29-24 win over UCLA for a trip to the Orange Bowl, where USC won their second national championship in football. When I was in Hawaii for Winter Break, I went to the Rainbow Classic championship, where USC fell to Hawaii 81-78 under interim coach Jim Saia. I also went to a volleyball game between Hawaii and USC that year, though skipped out on basketball cause I lived sooo far away from the Sports Arena that year. Junior year, I went to the epic Rose Bowl game between USC and Texas. Senior year, I was there for the 13-9 debacle against UCLA at the Rose Bowl, as well as going to a handful of basketball games at the Galen Center. And this year, I traveled to Berkeley for the weekender game against Cal, and have gone to several basketball games and my first USC baseball game. This is on top of being at 30 consecutive home football games during my 5 years at USC. So me a bandwagoner? Hardly...