TROJANS ROLL AFTER HALFTIME USC EQUALS LAST SEASON'S WIN TOTAL USC 73, OREGON STATE 56.

Byline: MATTHEW KREDELL Staff Writer

USC coach Tim Floyd said earlier this week that the Trojans couldn't play as well as they played in their first game against Oregon State and that the Beavers couldn't play as badly.

He was right for about 22 minutes.

For a little more than a half Thursday night, USC matched Oregon State's sloppiness.

As soon as the Beavers caught up to the Trojans, the game turned into a Corvallis redux.

USC went in for layup after layup in embarrassingly easy fashion to dominate the secondhalf and blow out Oregon State 73-56 at Galen Center.

With the victory, USC (17-6, 7-3) equaled its win total from last season and sits in a three-way tie for second place in the Pacific-10 Conference with eight regular-season games to play.

Floyd called a time-out after the Beavers (9-14 1-9) scored the first six points of the secondhalf to tie the game at 29-29 on a bank shot inside from Marcel Jones.

``Coach kind of gave us one of those looks and said `I'm going to sub all five of you out if you don't play the next couple of possessions,''' Lodrick Stewart said.

Out of the time-out, Dwight Lewis, who started for the second game in a row at USC's ever-changing fifth starting position, drained a 3-pointer from the left baseline to give the Trojans back a lead they would not relinquish.

But most of the points were scored inside as USC pushed the pace and got to the basket.

Stewart made two layups, Gabe Pruitt added another and Taj Gibson hit one up close to finish off an 11-0 stretch.

``We came out playing hard on defense and that's what started our run,'' Nick Young said. ``Coach got on us hard and we all fed off it.''

A few minutes later, Stewart connected on USC's thirdfour-point play of the season.

The Trojans' advantage reached 20 on a 3-pointer by Young, his first field goal of the second half after 11 minutes. Young led USC with 19 points.

USC made just one of its firsteight shots but trailed only 5-3 more than five minutes into the game.

At halftime, USC led by sixpoints but was shooting just 33.3 percent.

The Trojans shot 59.4 percent in the second half, looking like the team that shot 66 percent at Oregon State last month.

The 17-6 start is USC's best since beginning with the same record in 2001-02, the last season the school made the NCAA Tournament.

Five players finished in double figures. Stewart scored 12points, Lewis 11, Pruitt 10 and Gibson 10.

Pruitt led USC's attack by pushing the ball up quickly despite still being hampered by the effects from a stomach virus.

He left the game late in the second half because his stomach was bothering him.

``I wanted to be out there so I wasn't going to let this keep me out from the game,'' Pruitt said. ``So I just tried to fight and play through it, get as much minutes as I could.''

[e-mail]

[phone]

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

USC's Nick Young holds up three fingers after making a 3-pointer against Oregon State on Thursday.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer