LOS ANGELES — Sitting in the Lakers’ spacious locker room Friday night, Luke Ridnour didn’t feel like a pro.
He grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off the tape around his ankles, signaling the end of his trip to the fancy Staples Center.
Across the room, teammate Luke Jackson sat in the corner with an ice pack attached to his back, which was sore after falling on it hard after he made a dunk in Thursday’s win over Washington.
For both Lukes, their first taste of one-and-done tournament basketball was disappointing in that they didn’t help lead their team to the final day as No. 1 seed Oregon fell to No. 4 USC, 89-78, in the semifinals of the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament.
But the season isn’t over for them. In fact, the real season is just beginning with the Ducks set to open the NCAA Tournament as a No. 2 seed Thursday against Montana (16-14) in Sacramento, Calif.
Friday night in Los Angeles, though, the Oregon sophomores were more concerned with what had just transpired than anything else. Ridnour was feeling down about turning the ball over nine times. Jackson was frustrated with his second-half performance, scoring just three points after a 13-point first half.
Ridnour was one of four Ducks (23-8, 14-4) in double figures with 18, but he felt like he was mainly to blame for the defeat.
“I had too many turnovers and really hurt us,” Ridnour said. “We’re disappointed about how we performed, especially in that second half.”
To understand the Ducks’ second-half dropoff, one must reflect on the wild first half, which consisted of both Oregon and USC showcasing plenty of razzle-dazzle.
First, Oregon took a 17-10 lead after a 10-0 run. Then USC answered with an 11-0 run to reclaim the lead at 21-17. But the Ducks came right back and scored 18 of the next 20 points to open up a 35-23 lead, and it appeared that Oregon was going to run away with the game.
Alas, the Trojans (22-8, 12-6) closed the entertaining half with a 22-13 run to cut the Oregon lead to 48-45 and set the stage for their second half dominance.
“I thought we were pretty spectacular in the first half,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said. “Maybe running too much caught up with us in the second half.”
Whatever it was, the Trojans turned up the heat, utilizing a full court press that baffled the Ducks.
Oregon led 68-65 after a Chris Christoffersen bucket with less than 12 minutes to play. But from there, it was all USC. The Trojans scored the next 10 points en route to a game-closing 26-10 run that accounted for their 11-point victory — the largest margin of defeat for Oregon all season.
This was a win that USC badly wanted after losing two close ones to the Ducks during the regular season and, thus, losing out on the conference title as well.
“I really didn’t want to lose to them three times,” USC senior Sam Clancy said.
“We felt that Oregon took the championship from us and the coach of the year award away from coach (Henry) Bibby,” said sophomore Jerry Dupree, who was the Trojans’ spark-plug with 12 points.
Speaking of coaches, both Bibby and Kent were faced with similar dilemmas and made opposite choices. First, Oregon senior Freddie Jones picked up his fourth foul with 9:46 to play and Kent promptly pulled him. Jones, who scored a game-high 20, returned four minutes later with the Ducks trailing by eight.
“We knew we had to rest him for a stretch there, and it turned out to be a critical stretch,” Kent said.
With 7:23 to play, Clancy also picked up his fourth foul, but Bibby kept him in for the rest of the way.
“I never thought about taking him out,” Bibby said. “Sam got us here, so Sam is going to stay in the game.”
Jones might not have made that much of a difference with the way the Trojans were feeding off their large fan base, which clearly didn’t provide a neutral floor atmosphere for the Ducks.
“Their school is, what, two minutes away?” Ridnour said. “They had a lot of fans here.”
“USC was pumped up for us,” Oregon sophomore Jay Anderson said. “They were doing a little excessive celebration there at the end. The tournament isn’t over for them. I don’t know what they were so happy about.”
Clearly, USC was thrilled to beat Oregon. But now it’s the Ducks with revenge on their minds. With his ankle tape cut and on the floor, Ridnour eventually moved his thoughts away from the past couple of hours and toward the future.
“It’s a good experience for us to play in a big arena and knowing that if you lose, you’re done,” Ridnour said. “We wanted to be in the championship game, but we can’t let this ruin our season. We have to use this loss as motivation for the NCAA Tournament.
“USC was talking a lot about playing us and they came out and got it done and we didn’t. Hopefully we play them again this year in the Elite Eight.”
With that, Ridnour dressed himself and departed from the Lakers’ confines, leaving the scenes of a frustrating night but entering the promise of a mad March.