THREE-FOR-ONE DEAL IN BASKETBALL NOT BAD.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

A beautiful day for basketball, I thought Saturday morning as I looked out at thickening clouds. Let's play three.

It's a funny part of the sports year: Baseball players go to camp. Hockey skates into the homestretch. Golfers swing west. Derby horses stretch their legs. Southern gentlemen start their engines. There's fresh powder on the ski slopes. Pro football just refuses to leave.

And to some of us, all it means is it's almost March Madness.

The stars and schedules aligned, and for the only time this season, a college hoops fan with a willing automobile could attend USC, UCLA and Cal State Northridge games in a single long day Saturday. USC-Arizona State at 11 a.m., UCLA-Arizona State at 1 p.m. and Northridge-Northern Arizona at 7 - all three with NCAA tournament implications.

That sounded like a dare to me.

The Trojans played at that odd hour to accommodate their first national-television appearance since a 19-point loss to Cincinnati on Super Bowl Sunday in 1997. These guys do not look good on TV.

Coach Henry Bibby is fond of explaining losses by saying his players took the night off. This time they took the morning off on the way to losing 105-61 at the Sports Arena.

At one point the score was Gilbert Arenas 15, USC 14. The Trojans were hitting the side of the board, the top of the board, everything but the basket. They put up enough bricks to build that on-campus basketball palace they're always promising.

The crowd never got into the game. The Arizona fans made most of the noise.

Late in the first half, a group of Wildcats fans held up a banner reading, ``GO CAT.'' Demonstrating that Arizona alums can't spell ``Cats'' if you spot them the C, A and T.

Just when I thought all the life had gone out of the Sports Arena, a couple of pigeons got in and flew around in the rafters. They must have been looking for a statue to land on, or USC backup center Luke Minor, whichever is less mobile.

The public-address announcer introduced Pete Carroll from the baseline seats. Arizona was up by 21 at the time. Message: It's OK, we're a football school.

At halftime I said I was sorry to eat and run but I had a basketball game to go to.

On the 35-minute drive to Pauley Pavilion I listened to the second half from the Sports Arena on the radio. Now the PA man was introducing Rod Dedeaux. Arizona was up by 35 at the time. Message: It's OK, we're a baseball school.

I got to my seat at Pauley Pavilion in time for the national anthem. It was half empty.

Thursday night UCLA sold out Pauley for the huge, overtime win over Arizona. For that game a ticket broker said he got $500 for arena-level seats. For this one the upper student section was vacant.

To show you the difference: Cade McNown came to the Arizona game, Cory Paus came to the ASU game.

The Bruins were empty too, from the players all the way up to Steve Lavin, who coached like a wild man in Thursday's game but stayed in an inconspicuous crouch for most of this one.

The same was not true of ASU coach Rob Evans. He drew a technical foul in the first six minutes. The Pacific-10 Conference officials dispensed with the traditional five-minute ejection.

Based on what I've seen of Pac-10 referees the past few days, there's good news for Richie Ballesteros, whose crew mistakenly kicked USC coach Henry Bibby out of Thursday's game against ASU, only to let him return: He's still in the running for conference official of the week.

Anyway, ASU went ahead 10-0 before the Bruins woke up. They wound up grinding out a 73-68 victory in a game slowed by 50 fouls and five foul-outs.

After that, I didn't want to watch another basketball game for as long as . . . three hours.

I went from an arena where the banners read ``National Champion'' to a gym where the banners read ``Pizzasaurus Rex'' and ``Auto Loans 7.9%.''

You can laugh at the rec room Northridge calls the Matadome. But there was more spirit and entertaining basketball in there Saturday than in the Sports Arena and Pauley Pavilion combined.

Students stood two-deep in the walkway above the stands on both sides, making this the biggest Matadome crowd of the season: 1,850.

They came to see if Northridge could hold onto first place in the Big Sky Conference by beating their nemesis from Northern Arizona. Last month in Flagstaff, the Lumberjacks broke the Matadors' hearts when Adam Lopez sank a garbage-play 3-pointer with eight seconds left.

Wouldn't you know, on Saturday, Lopez picked up a loose ball and banked in a 3-pointer as the shot clock ran out to give Northern Arizona its last lead.

Then Jeff Parris, who wears heat pads on the bench to soothe his back, scored eight consecutive points to send Northridge to a 78-72 victory. At the end, everybody was standing, and the Matadome was the loudest building of the day.

USC could have used Jeff Parris. UCLA could have used these fans.

I only had to watch three games to find one to remember.