To Make It, They Had to Come Back : Despite a Shaky Start, USC Women Are Playoff Bound

The USC women’s basketball team is in postseason play for the 10th consecutive season. It is an unremarkable statistic for a team that has won the national championship twice. On reputation, the Trojans are a team that should advance to postseason play.

This, though, is not a typical Trojan team. On paper, this USC team should have self-destructed early in the season and gone downhill from there. The Trojans are the shortest team in the Pacific 10 Conference, measuring an average of 5 feet 9 inches. Their two guards had never started. Their 6-6 center left the team. Their top sophomore was coming back after sitting out a year for academic deficiencies. The team was picked to finish third in the conference, after having won the Pac-10 title the season before.

As if to confirm the bleakness of the season, the Trojans began the year by losing three out of four games, one a humiliating 85-57 loss to Auburn. It was USC’s worst defeat in years.

“We’ve had our share of bad times this season,” USC Coach Linda Sharp said at a luncheon Tuesday. “We started out the season on the road. If you saw us play the first three games this season, you would have wondered if we would go .500.

“This team has made up for lack of size with their hearts, their smarts and their spirit.”

So here the Trojans are, sporting a 21-7 record and seeded No. 4 in the West Regional. They will play fifth-seeded Nebraska (22-6) in a second-round game Saturday night at 7 p.m. at Cal State Dominguez Hills. Sharp said that she is proud of what this team has accomplished. After years of working with can’t-lose talent such as the McGee twins and Cheryl Miller, Sharp has had a greater coaching challenge this season.

“It’s been more satisfying,” she said. “I don’t think this team ever let up. We had the fifth-toughest schedule in the country. Even though we haven’t beaten a lot of the top 20 teams, this team has done better than anticipated. When we were picked to finish third in the conference by the coaches, I had to agree with that. They really are overachievers.”

A big motivation for the team has been the change in fortunes. USC players are not used to being the doormats for anyone, and they have had a sense this season that other teams have seen them that way.

“It makes you burn a little to think that people are looking past you,” Paula Pyers, USC’s point guard, said. “Fortunately we can find it in ourselves as individuals and as a team. We have made it work for us.”

USC got pointed in the wrong direction during that Auburn game. After the loss, at the Long Beach tournament, the coaches and players had a spirited, and noisy, discussion in the locker room. It was all heard by reporters in the hallway outside.

Sharp said it was a way of clearing the air and set the tone for the rest of the season.

“Everything that can be said in a season was said in that meeting,” Sharp said. “I let it all out. I didn’t hold anything back. I let each staff member and each team member say something in that room. When we got in trouble early (in the season), you have to do something about it.”

Something worked. USC turned its season around and has lived to tell. This ragtag team of tiny overachievers may not advance past the second round of the tournament. But that’s not the point. It’s nearly a miracle that they even got this far.

Women’s Basketball Notes

Linda Sharp was named Pac-10 co-coach of year with Chris Gobrecht of Washington, the conference announced Tuesday. Players named to the all-conference team were Cherie Nelson and Karon Howell of USC, Dora Dome of UCLA, Chelle Flamoe of Oregon State, Jennifer Azzi and Katy Steding of Stanford, Shamona Mosley of Arizona State, Yvette Cole and Lisa Oriard of Washington, Stefanie Kasperski of Oregon, Dana Patterson of Arizona, and Jonni Gray of Washington State. Nelson was named player of the year.