USC Bench Steps Up and On Cougars

Elias Ayuso is not what USC had in mind, and neither is Ken Sims or Danny Walker, and certainly not Anthony White. When the Trojans and Coach Henry Bibby took stock of the team before the season, those were names passed over quickly and quietly.

But that group of reserves and sometimes starters got most of the credit for Saturday’s 106-73 victory over Washington State at the Sports Arena, and have Bibby and the rest of the players thinking they can build on only the second 2-0 start in the Pacific 10 Conference for the Trojans since the 1979-80 season.

“I remember after the first exhibition thinking there was no way we would be a team that went eight or nine [players] deep,” said senior Stais Boseman, who scored a game-high 23 points in front of 2,868. “But now you look around and it’s hard to figure out who the starters are.”

It is not as if the starters aren’t contributing. Boseman had what Bibby called his best “all-around performance,” including five assists and three three-point baskets. And Rodrick Rhodes, again starting at point guard, added 12 and seven assists despite suffering a knee injury in the first half. But it is the play of Ayuso, Sims, Walker and White that has USC thinking in grand terms.

“I have discovered new people who have stepped up,” Bibby said. “The best thing for this team was when those three players [Rhodes, Boseman and starter Gary Williams] got suspended [against Ohio State]. Now there are other guys who can step up and be successful.”

Ayuso, a sophomore transfer from New Mexico Junior College, has seemed to step the farthest, after playing only junk minutes in the Trojans first six games because freshman Walker was the designated three-point gunner.

But when Walker went down with a knee injury before facing Ohio State, Bibby looked to Ayuso and in the last four games he has made 47% of his three-point shots (nine of 19) and is 13 of 16 from the free-throw line.

He has scored in double figures in all four games, including 15 against Washington State, highlighted by three-of-three shooting from three-point range and six of six from the line.

“I have been working hard and took advantage of the opportunity,” Ayuso said.

Walker has returned, and in his first game playing major minutes, scored 14, making both his three-point attempts, part of USC’s 13-for-19 performance (87.5%) from beyond the arc. Add in Sims eight points in 16 minutes, and eight points and six rebounds in 18 minutes from White, and Bibby has a nine-man rotation no one could have envisioned to begin the season.

“We’re all playing well right now,” Walker said. “I think for all of us the Ohio State game [a 79-68 Trojan victory] gave us confidence.”

It may have also given the Trojans poise. When Cougar Carlos Daniel fell on Rhodes’ knee less than four minutes into the game and Rhodes left for the locker room minutes later, USC went on a 13-4 run before he returned with his knee in a brace.

“I came out [of the locker room], looked up at the scoreboard and couldn’t believe it,” Rhodes said. “I was thinking, here we go again, the team playing well without me.”

Rhodes will have the knee examined today and said he is unlikely to practice until Tuesday.

The Trojans continued the run when he returned after having trainers look at the knee, pushing the lead to 17 on Boseman’s three-point shot at 5:26 before the intermission.

Washington State cut the lead to 11, but then a Trojan rally upped the lead to 46-27 at the half, and the Cougars never got closer as USC began the second with a 7-0 run.

USC scored from everywhere in the second half, shooting 66.7%, and finishing 62% for the game. It was the first time in 595 games (since Feb. 12, 1976, against UCLA) that Washington State has given up 100 points in regulation. It was USC’s most lopsided victory since a 102-69 defeat of California in the 1971-72 season.

“We’re just energy-less right now,” Cougar Coach Kevin Eastman said. “And without energy, we’re not very good. USC was just quicker and springier today.”

And, surprisingly, deeper.

“Now, I don’t think any of them look at themselves as bench players,” Rhodes said. “And if they do, they shouldn’t after today.”