Two years ago, in a dim locker room in the bowels of the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the USC basketball team held a wake for a season that ended just as some team members had expected: in the Pac-12 Conference tournament, with a loss to rival UCLA.
Players showered, dressed and plodded out noiselessly.
“It wasn’t really like everyone was all pissed off,” said walk-on forward Samer Dhillon, who made a brief, one-minute appearance. “It was just like, ‘Well — playing UCLA again.’”
Since then, the balance of power in this rivalry has shifted dramatically. Only two players who played in that game remain on USC’s roster, Dhillon and shooting guard Elijah Stewart. A third, point guard Jordan McLaughlin, was injured and did not play.
The rest of this season’s USC players have never lost to the Bruins. They’ve won four games in a row over UCLA. When the rivalry renews on Saturday at Pauley Pavilion, the teams will be wrestling over history: Not since 1943 has USC defeated UCLA five times in a row.
That came during a stretch of 42 USC wins over UCLA. When USC Coach Andy Enfield learned of that streak he laughed, then expressed admiration. But he conceded USC’s current streak was unlikely to reach that mark.
“I’ll be on the golf course before that happens,” Enfield said.
When the streak began last season, USC’s athletic advantages were obvious. UCLA played two big, plodding forwards, and USC blazed past them. But this season, No. 6 UCLA added freshman forwards TJ Leaf and Ike Anigbogu, who could play above the rim. Freshman point guard Lonzo Ball cranked up the speed and wrung out every drop of his teammates’ athleticism. UCLA had reversed the dynamic — or appeared to.
Then three weeks ago, USC upset UCLA, 84-76, at the Galen Center in familiar fashion. USC was playing without one of its best players, forward Bennie Boatwright, yet USC controlled the tempo. It ground UCLA’s offense to a halt. Then it burst out in transition.
"Every basketball team has an identity,” Stewart explained. “Once you start corroding the identity of that team, it’s an easier game."
The loss stung enough that UCLA senior guard Bryce Alford led an impromptu 30-minute team meeting in the locker room immediately following the loss.
UCLA still plays at a faster tempo than the Trojans, its possessions averaging 1.8 seconds less than its rival. Bruins Coach Steve Alford didn’t sound like someone who begrudged USC counterpart Andy Enfield’s salvo from 2013 regarding the pace of his offense.
“If you want to play slow,” Enfield said at the time, not long after Alford was hired, “go to UCLA.”
Alford had no visible reaction earlier this week when reminded of the quote.
“If I worried about things like that,” Alford said, “we wouldn’t be good offensively or defensively.”
Enfield demurred when asked whether his team held an edge in athleticism.
"I’m not going to comment on other teams,” Enfield said. “If you want to know about our athleticism, I’ll tell you. We’re pretty athletic.”
He added: "They’ve got, I don’t know how many McDonald’s All-Americans, six or seven? So pretty athletic to me.”
The Bruins have the nation’s most efficient offense as measured by analytics expert Ken Pomeroy. But they committed 17 turnovers in the game against the Trojans.
“That always makes a team look athletic when one team’s dunking all the time,” Alford said.
Alford said he regretted playing four guards a lot in the second half because it led to unfavorable matchups. USC (21-5, 8-5 in the Pac-12) also flummoxed the Bruins with a 2-3 zone defense that UCLA (23-3, 10-3) had rarely seen or practiced against.
“We just stood out on the perimeter,” Bruins guard Aaron Holiday said.
UCLA center Thomas Welsh said he considered himself an important counter to the Trojans’ zone, should they use it again, because he could suck in the defense by running to the middle of the paint and create open shots or driving lanes for teammates.
The Bruins concede that the return of Boatwright from a knee injury alters the dynamic of the matchup. On defense, Enfield said, Boatwright gives USC more flexibility. It can still deploy the zone, but Boatwright allows Enfield to use more man-to-man. Offensively, Alford compared Boatwright to Leaf as far as his ability to stretch defenses with his outside shooting.
“He’s a great talent,” Ball said. “Anybody that’s 6-10, can score the ball like that at that size, he can always help, so I feel like they got better with him coming back.”
But Boatwright’s presence, Alford said, doesn’t change the game’s objective. It will still be about speed.
“They want to play fast, we want to play fast,” he said, “so I don’t think you’re going to see one team try to slow the other team up. I think it’s going to be an up-and-down game.”
When: 7
Where: Pauley Pavilion
On the air: TV: Pac-12 Networks; Radio: 570, 710.
Update: A UCLA victory would give the Bruins a three-game lead over the Trojans in the Pac-12 Conference with four games left in the regular season. “That’s big as you get into late February,” Bruins Coach Steve Alford said, “if you can start distancing yourself.” UCLA has made significant progress in attacking zone defenses since the Trojans befuddled the Bruins with one in their meeting last month. “When you face zones you’ve got to be able to get it inside and I didn’t think we did that,” Alford said. “I thought we stood a lot and it was indicative of a team that looked a little tired. Hopefully we’ve got a little different look to us on Saturday.” … USC had a five-game winning streak snapped by Oregon on Saturday. That leaves just two regular-season chances to get a resume-boosting win over a conference power: Arizona or UCLA. USC forward Chimezie Metu, who has mostly dominated the Bruins in four meetings, drew criticism this week when video emerged of Metu sticking out his foot on the bench to attempt to trip an Oregon player. The Pac-12 reviewed the incident, and Enfield said Metu wouldn’t be publicly disciplined. "What happens in our meetings stays in our meetings,” Enfield said. “He’s a competitor and a great kid. So we’ve had our talks, and we expect his emotions to be channeled in a positive way."
zach.helfand@latimes.com
Follow Zach Helfand on Twitter @zhelfand
ben.bolch@latimes.com
Follow Ben Bolch on Twitter @latbbolch
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