USC 61, #15 ASU 49

It was a tale of two halves for USC last night at the Galen Center, and luckily for the Trojans, they were able to pull away from the Sun Devils at the end. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, last night's game was essentially a must win for USC and they came through and got the money at home. Now, they have to stay focused and beat a much worse Arizona team at home tomorrow. Then, hopefully the Trojans can get on a run and we can start talking about them as serious contenders in the Pac-10. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. Here are my impressions from last night's big win:

-The stat in the box score that stood out the most was James Harden's 4 points. He torched the Trojans three times last year (scoring over 20 twice) and is without question the best player in the Pac-10 and one of the best in the nation. Daniel Hackett's defensive performance was as good as I have ever seen at the college level. It wasn't just that he was forcing Harden to miss shots (0-8 FG). He did an even better job of denying him the basketball. Whether Harden was on or off the ball, Hackett was face to face with him and made everything tough for the star player. Daniel was 0-4 shooting himself, but his defensive effort won the game for the Trojans.

-DeMar DeRozan was the other player who stood out to me. After only scoring 3 in the first half, he put up 19 in the second half. 17 came in the last 10 minutes of the game. That's what you call finishing. It's even an improvement from one game ago, where DeRozan had 15 in the first half and disappeared down the stretch. He scored in a variety of different ways and it was a pleasure to watch. His spin move in the lane followed up by a lefty floater was sensational. DeRozan is getting better and becoming more comfortable each and every game. What is making him so lethal right now is the improvement in his jump shot. We all knew he had a great ability to get to the rim, but if he can shoot with consistency, he will become unstoppable. As I've said before, if he starts to hit his stride in Pac-10 play, DeRozan can take the Trojans very far.

-Dwight Lewis kept the Trojans in the game in the first half. After coming off the bench for the first time this season, Lewis finally got his stroke back. His first three in the first half got the Trojans out of a terrible 1-12 shooting start. I say it a lot, but Dwight Lewis is the X-factor for this team. He played great and the Trojans won.

-Donte Smith is still a very mediocre player. Apparently, he was starting as a reward for working hard in practice, but he has several things he must improve in order to play at this level: turnovers, ball handling, and most importantly, his outside shooting. Smith was supposedly a great outside shooter in junior college, which suggests to me that he is not mentally prepared yet to make shots in high pressure situations. He is shooting threes at about 20% right now, which is just atrocious. Tim Floyd left Smith in for far too long at the outset. Don't get me wrong, the Trojans need Smith to be a serviceable backup to Daniel Hackett, but right now, he should not be playing big minutes. The Trojans could sure use my boy Angelo Johnson, who transferred after last season.

-ASU needs to find a way to win in Los Angeles if they want to be considered serious Pac-10 title contenders. They have lost eight in a row in LA. Seen as the Pac-10 tournament is at Staples Center , they might want to start winning here. It also might help to beat UCLA or USC on the road once in a while if you want to win the conference. USC knocked ASU out in the first round of the Pac-10 tourney last year. Here's hoping it happens again.

-As much as I just ripped on the Sun Devils, they do play terrific defense. It's a very complicated defense that at first appears to be a zone, but then shifts to a man to man. It's very tough to describe and I even heard USC assistant coach Phil Johnson having a tough time describing it after the game. He jokingly said it would take him three years to learn. Well, it works for coach Herb Sendeck most of the time. It was just that last night, USC's defense was better thanks to Daniel Hackett. YES!

-ASU guard Derek Glaser is a punk. In the first half, he gave DeMar DeRozan a hard elbow to the chest that the refs completely ignored, and he picked up several chippy fouls after that. Plus, he's one of those guys you can tell is a jerk just by looking at him. The student section was very appropriately heckling him throughout the game.

A great win for USC. It can mean one of two things: The Trojans either use it as momentum to start a run through Pac-10 play, or the Trojans revert to their old inconsistent ways. With all the talent on this squad and the return of Leonard Washington approaching, I think the win will propel USC forward on a nice run. Let's hope so. Fight On.