Lavin gets reprieve as UCLA stuns Arizona; USC beats Stanford to extend season

Jerry Dupree was having a serious case of deja vu.

Errick Craven was sure there was a poltergeist in the building.

And it wasn’t even close to Halloween.

Still, the beginnings of March Madness and the seemingly supernatural occurrences at Staples Center did not scare off USC. Rather, the Trojans embraced the unknown and rode it to new heights Thursday night.

Instead of blowing a big lead and limping off into the off-season with another come-from-ahead loss, the Trojans held off No. 15-ranked Stanford and avenged two earlier losses to the Cardinal with a 79-74 win in the first round of the Pacific 10 Conference tournament.

Up next: a semifinal against California, which defeated Oregon State, 69-46, in the late game Thursday.

“We’ve been leading in all of our games,” said USC Coach Henry Bibby. “It’s time. It’s time for us to start finishing teams off.

“I sensed a lot of energy, a lot of excitement from the kids tonight.”

It transformed itself into the Trojans’ building a game-high 14-point lead, 56-42, with 11:13 remaining.

They still led, 64-51, with 8:27 to play.

Then it started.

Lazy passes.

Unforced turnovers.

Fruitless possessions.

Three-point baskets by the opposition from deep behind the arc.

Before the Trojans (12-16) were able to catch their breath, Stanford (23-8) had clawed back to within 73-71 with just over three minutes to play.

“I was like, ‘Oh, no. Here we go again,’ ” said Dupree, who had six points, six rebounds and one block in 29 minutes.

Especially when Craven was having difficulty converting free throws to seal the win.

With USC nursing a 77-74 advantage with 25.6 seconds to play, the sophomore shooting guard missed a pair of free throws.

And after the Cardinal failed to score on the ensuing possession, Craven missed his third straight free throw, with 9.9 seconds remaining.

His fourth attempt, though, went through and the Trojans finally exhaled.

“I thought I made all four,” said Craven, who had an off night but still finished with nine points, nine rebounds and two steals. “It was like there was a ghost sitting up there [on the rim], knocking them out.”

USC had built its big lead by pounding the ball inside to sophomore center Rory O’Neil and getting Stanford’s big men, center Rob Little and power forward Justin Davis, into foul trouble.

Both would foul out and O’Neil had his way with Cardinal backup center Joe Kirchofer, hitting turnaround jumpers, converting pretty-looking up-and-unders, even flying in from the lane, a la Dupree, to put back Trojan misses.

O’Neil, who chose to attend USC over Stanford, had 17 points and five rebounds in 28 minutes.

“One of our main emphases of the game was to box out and not let them pound the glass,” he said.

Another was to get the bench players involved.

Enter Roy Smiley.

The 6-foot-4 junior responded with a career-high 20 points, making three three-pointers, in 21 minutes.

“The difference this time was about having heart late in the game,” Smiley said. “And to limit our mistakes.”

Plus, he said, the Trojans seemed hungrier than the Cardinal, who were led by senior point guard Julius Barnes’ 18 points and already have their ticket stamped for the NCAA tournament, possibly with a seeding as high as a No. 4.

“Some teams don’t need the [conference] tournament and they relax,” said Smiley, a transfer from Southeastern Iowa College. “We need it to get to the NCAA tournament.”

When USC has blown leads this year, Bibby has attributed it to the youthful nature of the team -- which often has started four sophomores and a junior -- and the rebuilding project the Trojans were forced to undertake after having lost three senior starters.

On any other night this season, the Trojans probably would have folded after getting hit with two technical fouls -- as Bibby was for arguing a call with 16:31 left in the game and the Trojans leading by nine points, and Dupree was for pulling himself up on the rim after a dunk that gave USC its 13-point cushion with 8:27 remaining.

It didn’t happen, at least not to the point where it cost the Trojans a win.

“We were just trusting each other,” said Desmon Farmer, who led USC with a game-high 24 points in 40 minutes.

“We’ve matured in that way.”

And they’re not scared by the unknown anymore either.