BILLINGS COULD USE A BETTER BREAK.

Byline: Lee Barnathan University Beat

Brook Billings hopes this week's spring break will give him the needed break from playing on the break in his leg.

Billings, USC's top volleyball player, has a stress fracture in his lower left leg, which caused him to miss four matches (the Trojans went 2-2, including an embarrassing loss to Cal Baptist).

It should have sidelined him longer, except Billings loves to play and the Trojans need him.

USC, like the rest of the nation, doesn't have many opposite hitters. Billings, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, leads the team with 350 kills. He's hitting .328 with 93 digs (4th best) for the 15-13 Trojans, who are third in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation's Pacific Division at 11-2.

In his first match back, against then-No. 1-ranked Pepperdine, Billings had 23 kills and 17 digs. Both were match highs. Then he helped the Trojans knock off Hawaii with a 19-kill, 7-block effort.

He wasn't suppsed to play last week against Cal State Northridge, but when the Trojans lost the first game, in came Billings, and he finished with 26 kills. He followed that with 17 kills against UC Irvine.

Coach Pat Powers has no trouble playing Billings because he limits Billings in practice.

``His timing is a little off with the setter,'' Powers said. ``His percentage goes down without hitting a lot of balls in practice. But he's all right. We don't push him too hard. We don't want to hurt him.''

Billings plays because he believes USC can compete for the national championship, yet he acknowledges playing now could jeopardize his health for the NCAA Tournament, which is in May. He just doesn't think it's that serious.

``It feels like it's more muscle now,'' he said. ``It doesn't hurt as much as it did.''

If everything works out, Billings will have stayed off his leg this week while spending time in Lake Tahoe with his fraternity.

Powers knew where Billings was going and he had the following words of advice for him:

Don't ski. No snowboarding. No lap dances.

--Postseason: USC's women's basketball team opens in the National Invitational Tournament tonight at Santa Clara at 7 p.m. It's the first NIT berth in school history.

It's also just the second meeting between the two schools. USC won at Santa Clara in the first round of the UC Irvine tournament Feb. 3, 1978.

USC's Tashara Carter, Tiffany Elmore and Danielle Golay made the Pac-10 Conference honorable-mention list. Golay led USC with 11.5 points per game. Elmore averaged 10.5 points and shot a team-best .758 from the free-throw line. Carter averaged 10.1 points and 2.3 assists.

Junior center Annie Garrison averaged 12.1 points and 6.7 rebounds for Santa Clara. She also shot 55 percent from the field.

--Academic honor: UCLA senior forward Maylana Martin was named to the Pac-10 All-Academic second team. Martin has a 3.10 grade-point average, majoring in sociology.

--On the bar/beam/vault/floor: The Pac-10 gymnastics championships are Saturday at Arizona State. UCLA's Heidi Moneymaker will attempt to keep the all-around and vault titles she won last year. Lena Degteva will try and recapture the vault title she won in 1998.