WEEKEND WEAKENS USC; STANFORD KNOCKS TROJANS TO 4TH IN PAC-10 STANFORD 67, USC 57.

Byline: Scott Wolf Staff Writer

No USC player left the locker room on crutches Saturday night, and considering the opponent was second-ranked Stanford, the Trojans will take minor victories where they can get them.

``That was the most physical game I've played in my life,'' USC forward Brian Scalabrine said.

The Trojans left the Sports Arena with their health, but not much else, after losing to the Cardinal 67-57 before a season-high crowd of 10,221.

Stanford (19-1, 8-1) entered the game with a much-hyped defense that held opponents to 33.7 percent shooting, the best mark in the nation. And the Cardinal showed USC it is even better than the statistics.

Consider some of the lowlights USC experienced:

--The Trojans shot a season-worst 32.8 percent from the field and had a season-low 23 points in the first half.

--The Trojans were outscored 15-0 by Stanford midway through the first half, watching a 15-9 lead turn into a 24-15 deficit. They did not score a point for six minutes, 31 seconds.

--Stanford outrebounded the Trojans 50-27. It was the largest margin USC has been outrebounded by all season.

Scalabrine, who managed 20 points and six rebounds, was as impressed as any Trojan over the Cardinal's domination.

``Mark Madsen did exactly what I was going to do,'' Scalabrine said. ``He's the strongest guy and has the best feet and best hands of anybody I've ever played against.''

USC (13-8, 6-3) played much better than Thursday in a loss to Cal, and that's probably the only thing that kept the margin of victory at 10 points. But the Trojans would have rather had this effort against the Bears to avoid getting swept at home.

After entering the week tied for first in the Pacific-10 Conference, the Trojans are now in fourth place, two games behind Stanford and Arizona.

``It sets us back a lot,'' forward David Bluthenthal said. ``In the Pac- 10, you can't lose on your home court. It definitely sets us back a lot.''

One similar problem USC had to its loss against Cal was getting a contribution from someone other than Scalabrine. Jeff Trepagnier had 16 points, but Bluthenthal was 2 for 10 from the field (four points) while point guard Brandon Granville was 2 for 12 (six points).

``We need four to five guys playing basketball to win,'' USC coach Henry Bibby said. ``I thought we needed five guys and one or two off the bench to play great basketball (to beat Stanford).

``We held them to 67 points. That's not bad. Our defense was decent at times. But we didn't move the basketball. The same thing happened against Cal. It got to one pass and then stopped.''

The Trojans actually did a nice job holding down Madsen (eight points) and center Jarron Collins (two points) of Harvard-Westlake. But they were unable to stop Stanford on the perimeter. Guard Ryan Mendez scored a career-high 24 points, making 4 of 5 3-point shots and David Moseley added 13, including three shots from 3-point range.

``We wanted their big people to beat us inside, but their outside people were the key factors to the game,'' Bibby said. ``We knew exactly what they would do, we just didn't do anything about it. We shied away from their physical play and that didn't help our cause.''

For all their faults, the Trojans were down only five points at halftime (28-23) and pulled within four (34-30) on a dunk by Trepagnier. But Casey Jacobsen scored a layup and Moseley hit a 3-pointer to boost the lead to nine points.

The Trojans never really threatened after that point, and it's not a great mystery why they couldn't muster a comeback. In the two home games this week, if you took away Scalabrine's shooting, the Trojans made 26 of 85 shots (.306).

``We didn't get many good looks,'' Granville said. ``When we did, we didn't knock down the shots. We've got to figure something out for the next time.''

He meant the next time USC faces Stanford, but he might as well have meant the Trojans' next opponent - UCLA on Wednesday.

Suddenly, after winning their first five conference games, the Trojans have dropped three of their past four.

``It's tough,'' Bibby said. ``You think you can go out and beat Cal to start the week. Hopefully, you can have some momentum and maybe pull off an upset against Stanford. Every game we play right now is a game we need to win.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) Stanford's Michael McDonald slices through USC's Nate Hair and Brandon Granville.

(2) Trojans' Jeff Trepagnier shows his athletic ability as he saves the ball from going out of bounds.

Eric Grigorian/Special to the Daily News