posted February 9, 2006 at 09:55 EST in NCAA B Articles

Floyd having success

The Pac-10 Conference has been full of surprises this year. The Washington Huskies threaten to implode, the Arizona Wildcats are struggling, and the USC Trojans are enjoying a basketball revival under first-year coach Tim Floyd.

Floyd’s Princeton-style offense turned around moribund programs at his previous four stops in the college ranks, most notably the Iowa State Cyclones. He’s enjoying the same success with the Trojans, but their road to respectability has hit a major roadblock. Point guard Gabriel Pruitt suffered a broken bone near his left knee during Monday’s practice and is expected to miss the next three weeks of action.

Pruitt was driving for a lay-up near the end of the practice session when he collided with a teammate. The early diagnosis was a bone bruise, but an MRI taken that day revealed a broken tibial plateau. The good news for Pruitt and the Trojans is that no ligament damage was discovered; this type of fracture is generally caused by the same stress to the knee that results in a torn ACL.

The Princeton offense has many variations and is often misunderstood, but the general emphasis is on running, spacing and cutting. A talented point guard, especially one who can shoot as well as pass (think Baron Davis, who Floyd coached briefly with the NBA Hornets), can thrive in this offense. Pruitt has done just that. The Los Angeles native was putting up quality numbers in his sophomore season, including 17 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.3 steals per game. He was also heating up over the past week, piling up 25.7 points over his last three games.

Pruitt’s prowess hasn’t been quite enough to prevent the Trojans from experiencing growing pains in their first year under Floyd. They followed up last Thursday’s big 77-70 win over the Arizona Wildcats (Pruitt had 25 points and seven steals in that outing) with Saturday’s deflating 68-65 loss to the last-place Arizona State Sun Devils. That loss dropped USC to 6-5 in conference play; still, the Trojans have been a moneymaking machine at 15-7 overall and 13-7 against the spread.

Floyd’s latest challenge is to keep USC in the hunt for at least an NIT appearance during Pruitt’s absence. If the Trojans don’t win the Pac-10 Tournament, their prospects are hindered by the surprisingly poor play of their conference brethren – USC ranks No. 102 in RPI and No. 121 in SOS. Their only significant non-conference win was an eye-opening 74-59 pasting of then-No. 19 North Carolina back on Dec. 21. The Tar Heels were 4 ½-point road favorites.

Sead Odzic is pegged to take Pruitt’s place in the starting rotation Thursday when the Trojans hit Seattle for a key matchup against the No. 23 Huskies. The freshman guard has scored just 3.1 points in 13.9 minutes per game, but he leads all USC players with an assist/turnover ratio of 2.57. Odzic fits the Princeton offense to a T; he canned over 40 percent of his trey attempts in high school and has a textbook shooting stroke that has been compared to Peja Stojakovic. Odzic’s trial by fire gets underway at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time.

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