Floyd Sparks a Turnaround

Tim Floyd had seen enough.

His USC Trojans were executing the same casual approach on defense against Washington State in the first half Saturday evening that had resulted in three Pacific 10 Conference losses, so the coach let his team know his displeasure at halftime.

“Coach came in here and got on us real good, [asking] us how could we beat a team that’s shooting 55%, 60%, so we came out [in the second half] and had to pride ourselves on defense,” freshman guard Ryan Francis said.

After allowing the Cougars to score 41 first-half points -- the most by Washington State since it had scored 49 against Washington on March 1, 2003 -- the Trojans played a smarter brand of defense in the final 20 minutes of a 71-66 victory at the Sports Arena.

They limited the Cougars to 30.8% shooting and 25 points in the second half, marking only the third time in six conference games that USC had held an opponent under 70 points.

“You have to understand, we haven’t stopped anybody since we got into league play,” Floyd said. “We’ve been giving up 51%, 53% [shooting], and I thought for 20 minutes in the second half [our defense] was good. I thought for 30 minutes we defended as well as we’ve defended during conference play.”

Francis helped limit Washington State guard Josh Akognon to eight points and one three-pointer in the second half after he had scored 11 points and made three three-pointers in the first half. Francis also stole the ball from Akognon before feeding Nick Young for a breakaway dunk in the final seconds.

“You can go back four or five times this year to where he’s made plays at the end of a game that have changed games,” Floyd said of Francis.

UP NEXT

Wednesday at UCLA, 7:30 p.m., Pauley Pavilion, FSNW2--The Trojans have lost two consecutive games in the cross-town rivalry after winning five of the previous six meetings.