LOS ANGELES (KRT) — Their team will play for first place in the Pacific-10 Conference with only four regular-season games left. They will face one of the top big men in the country, who was injured the last time USC played Stanford, without the help of their starting center. And they are only freshmen.
Apparently none of the above is a big deal to USC’s Rory O’Neil and Nick Curtis, who said they won’t let their poise succumb to the pressure they are under.
“I’ll just go out there and play basketball and it’ll be fine,” O’Neil said.
Said Curtis: “I’m not going to put too much pressure on myself.”
If O’Neil and Curtis can play as cool a game Thursday as they talked Tuesday, No. 20 USC might be OK against No. 10 Stanford at
Maples Pavilion.
However, if they get rattled and play like, well, freshmen, the Trojans could be in trouble.
USC learned Tuesday that it definitely would be without center Kostas Charissis, who has a non-displaced fracture in his left ankle and is expected to miss at least 3-4 weeks. The Trojans also will have to deal with Stanford’s 7-foot center Curtis Borchardt, who missed USC’s 90-82 victory over the Cardinal on Jan. 26 because of a
hip pointer.
O’Neil is expected to get the bulk of the minutes in place of Charissis, and he had a breakout performance against Stanford in the first meeting. The 6-foot-11 center was 7-for-8 from the field and had two blocked shots in 24 minutes before he fouled out.
USC coach Henry Bibby said he does not plan to start O’Neil because he likes to have his scoring ability coming off the bench. It also should help O’Neil stay out of early foul trouble.
Curtis (6-foot-8) appears to be the likely starter in place of Charissis, unless Bibby changes up and goes with a smaller lineup. Curtis started three non-conference games but has averaged only 5.6 minutes and 1.2 points this season.