Jan. 12, 1998

USC Athletics the Week in Review / Preview

LAST WEEK
Sport                          Record   Conf.       Nat'l Rank              Last Week 
Men's Basketball                6-8      2-2                                lost to Arizona, 91-72, def. Oregon, 63-59, def. Oregon State, 71-67     
Women's Basketball              6-7      1-3                                lost to Oregon, 79-65, lost to Oregon State, 57-52 
Men's Golf                                          12th (Golfweek)         none
Women's Golf                                        20th (Rolex)            none
Men's Swimming and Diving       2-0      2-0        t2nd (Speedo)           none 
Women's Swimming and Diving     2-0      2-0        5th  (Speedo)           none 
Men's Volleyball                6-2      0-0        11th (VB Mag.)          7th at UC Santa Barbara Invitational 


Season Complete         Record  Conf. Finish    National Finish     Notes 
Women's Cross Country               6th          30th (Coaches)     Penc 11th at District VIII Meet 
Football                 6-5        4-4 (t5th)                      Kelly, Claiborne All-Pac-10 1st team 
Women's Volleyball      23-6     13-5(t2nd)      9th (AVCA)         Marinkovic All-American 1st team 
Women's Soccer          16-3-1      7-2 (2nd)    23rd (Soccer Buzz) Clark All-American 3rd team 
Men's Water Polo        21-7        5-3 (1st)    2nd                Cimerman All-American 1st team 

This Week

USC edged Oregon, 63-59, and Oregon State, 71-67, at the Sports Arena last weekend. Both games were similar, as the Trojans trailed at halftime by seven points, then trailed by double-digits early in the second half but came back to win both games by four points.

The Trojans ended their seven-game losing streak with a win over the Ducks. Junior forward Adam Spanich, making his first start of the season, led USC with 15 points and hit back-to-back three-pointers midway through the second half in a 13-0 run. Senior forward Gary Williams notched the first double-double of his Trojan career with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

Senior guard Gary Johnson then scored 19 points and buried a tie-breaking three-pointer with four minutes remaining to lead the Trojans over the Beavers. It was USC's sixth straight Pac-10 home win and the 10th of their last 11.

Earlier in the week, USC faced defending national champion Arizona in Tucson on Monday and lost, 91-72. But the Trojans outplayed the No. 5 Wildcats in the first half and had a 39-33 lead at the break. Johnson scored a career-high 30 points and junior guard Elias Ayuso scored 20.

The Women of Troy, hampered by injury and using only eight players in each game, suffered a pair of tough road losses to Oregon and Oregon State in their first Pac-10 road trip of the year. They lost to the Ducks, 79-65, on Thursday and to the Beavers, 57-52, on Saturday. Against the Ducks, USC shot just 41.8 percent compared to Oregon's 52.7 percent. The game was tied, 27-27, with just more than four minutes left in the first half, but the Ducks went on a 15-6 run in the final minutes and USC wouldn't get any closer than seven points the rest of the way. Junior guard Kristin Clark and sophomore forward Tiffany Washington each had 19 points.

USC looked like it might salvage a split at Oregon State, but fell victim to a late comeback. The Women of Troy, led by 17 points from junior center Adrain Williams and 11 from Clark, led by as many as 14 points in the first half. But USC made just 7-of-28 shots in the second half and Oregon State took the lead with less than a minute to play.

The Trojans opened the 1998 season with a seventh-place finish at the UC Santa Barbara Invitational. The wins came over La Verne, California, Washington State, Brigham Young (the No. 1 team in the country), Sacramento State and Stanford, while the losses were to Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne and Pepperdine.

Johnson, a senior guard, scored a career-high 30 points against Arizona, then followed it up with nine points, four rebounds and six steals against Oregon and a team-high 19 points and five assists against Oregon.