USC Tries to Win Title Outright

USC Coach Stan Morrison didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, but he knew that a season so rewarding could be ruined if his team lost its final two games.

The stakes were high: a Pacific 10 championship and an invitation to play in the NCAA tournament.

Now Morrison can breathe more easily. USC beat Oregon, 65-62, Thursday night at the Sports Arena to clinch at least a tie for the conference championship.

The Trojans, 13-4 in the conference and 19-8 overall, could win the title outright today by beating Oregon State in a 3 p.m. game in the Sports Arena. They could also back into sole possession of first place if Washington (12-5 in the conference) loses to Stanford (3-14) in a 1 p.m. game at Palo Alto. That isn’t likely.

USC had to get at least a split in its last two games to ensure participation in the post-season tournament.

Morrison was aware that if his team lost to both Oregon and Oregon State, the season would end in shambles.

“We would have had an 18-10 record and we could have been left out in the dark as far as the NCAA tournament is concerned,” Morrison said Friday. “I didn’t breathe that prospect to a soul. And I was more nervous before the Oregon game than I’ve ever been.”

Of course, there would have been stories about a USC collapse--which would have been strange, indeed, considering that the Trojans weren’t even regarded as a first-division team at the outset of the season.

With the NCAA tournament field expanded to 64 teams, it isn’t unlikely that four Pac-10 teams could be invited to participate in the three-week playoffs.

That announcement will come Sunday, along with seedings and designated sites.

USC and Washington (21-9 overall) will most likely be invited to play in the NCAA tournament. Oregon State (11-6, 21-8), Arizona (11-6, 20-9) and UCLA (11-6, 15-12) are all scrambling to extend their seasons.

Arizona meets Arizona State (7-10) today at Tucson, and UCLA closes out its regular season against Oregon (8-9) tonight at Eugene, Ore.

USC wants to win its first outright Pac-10 basketball title in 24 years. But there’s another reason the Trojans don’t want to share first place with the Huskies: Only one team will be the official Pac-10 representative in the NCAA tournament, and it would most likely be assigned to the West Regional instead of being sent to a site farther away from home.

If Washington and USC tie for the title, there is a tiebreaking formula to determine which team will represent the conference in the NCAA tournament.

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head competition. USC and Washington have already split their season series.

The second consideration is best overall record. Washington would have a better overall record, even though three of its games were played in Hawaii and aren’t counted by the conference in the tiebreaking procedure.

The Pac-10 representative probably will play first- and second-round games at Salt Lake City or Albuquerque, N.M. That’s considerably more convenient than traveling to Hartford, Conn., Atlanta, South Bend, Ind., Dayton, Ohio, Tulsa or Houston, the other tournament sites.

The Trojans had to hold off the Ducks in the closing minutes to win as forward Wayne Carlander, the Pac-10 Player of the Year, made six straight free throws in the final 68 seconds.

USC had a 15-point lead with 11 minutes remaining on the strength of a 15-5 run at the outset of the second half.

“That’s as good . . . as we’ve played since I’ve been at USC,” said Morrison of that spurt. “Even though we spread the court, we were still strong and aggressive going to the basket.”

USC forward Derrick Dowell, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds, along with six steals, credited Morrison with solving Oregon’s zone defense.

“It was a good decision to elevate the zone (USC weakened it by extending its offense),” Dowell said. “That was a key, because they couldn’t handle us man to man.”

Trojan Notes

Today’s game will be televised by Channel 5, and the doors won’t open at the Sports Arena until 2:15 p.m. The 3 p.m. game is being sandwiched in between morning and evening sessions of the Southern California prep regional championships. . . . Oregon State Coach Ralph Miller had three guard types in his starting lineup for most of the season. Tyrone Miller, a 6-7 forward, started in a 59-51 loss to UCLA Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. He complements 6-9 A.C. Green and 6-9 Steve Woodside. Miller said he wasn’t getting much outside shooting from his smaller team, and Miller provides some more muscle in the lineup. Oregon State got seven more field goals than UCLA and took 20 more shots. But the Bruins were 27 of 32 from the foul line, while the Beavers were only 5 of 11. . . . USC beat Oregon State, 60-58, last month at Corvallis on guard Larry Friend’s off-balance, 17-foot baseball throw with two seconds left. . . . If USC beats OSU, it will finish with a 14-4 Pac-10 record, the most conference losses for a champion since Stanford and UCLA tied for the title at 7-5 in 1963. . . . USC last appeared in the NCAA tournament in 1982 and was eliminated by Wyoming, 61-58, in a first-round game. . . . USC hadn’t previously won a conference football and basketball championship in the same school year since 1940.