Battle of Los Angeles

By Hannah Gordon
DAILY BRUIN REPORTER
[email protected]

  Daily Bruin File Photo UCLA’s Billy
Knight absorbs the charge from a leaping Sam
Clancy during a UCLA-USC game Feb. 26, 2002 at Pauley
Pavilion.

Armed with knowledge of your superiority to your crimson
crosstown counterpart, you will be an educated heckler. So study up
on the history of the UCLA-USC rivalry. Here are the Cliff’s
Notes.

In men’s basketball, UCLA leads USC 117-94 all time,
including a winning streak from 1933-1942 and another 19 straight
spanning the entire 1970s. Those were the glory days of coach John
Wooden (as in the Wooden Center, for the Bruin Sports newbies) and
Bill Walton (NBC’s white-toothed commentator who shouts
“throw it down, Big Man!” during NBA games, for all
those born after 1980).

Why does this history matter? Because at UCLA, Pauley Pavilion
is the Sistine Chapel of college basketball and John Wooden is the
Pope. The Trojans may play in the Lakers’ former house at the
Great Western Forum, but they know where it’s at: their head
coach Henry Bibby was a star point guard at UCLA from 1969-72 and
tried to move to Fresno State after a first-round loss in the last
NCAA tournament.

But back to our history lesson. The Bruins streaked again from
1995-1999, winning ten games in a row against their crosstown
rivals, including a 1996 game in which they shot .731 from the
floor.

The past two years the Bruins have split the series. In their
first contest last season, the Bruins failed to defend and rebound
in an 81-77 loss at the Forum.

They appeared to be in line for another defeat in the February
rematch. Having blown an 11-point lead with six minutes left, the
Bruins were down 65-64 with half a minute to play. They missed two
shots, but having improved on the offensive glass since the last
rivalry game, then-senior Dan Gadzuric rebounded and threw the ball
out to then-senior Billy Knight who sank a sweet buzzer-beater to
defeat USC 67-65.

“God’s helping us out,” Knight said after the
game. “It’s like divine intervention or
something.”

If only God had intervened on the gridiron as well.

This year, the Bruins were shutout 27-0 at the Coliseum.
Painful? Yes. But not as embarrassing as the first ever USC-UCLA
football game in 1929 in which USC abused UCLA 76-0 and followed it
up the next year with a 52-0 whipping.

“Whoever wins has 365 days’ bragging rights,”
UCLA football head coach Bob Toledo said. “You’ve got
to live in this town, right here together.”

The crosstown aspect makes USC-UCLA different from any other
rivalry in the country. So you’ll be hearing about the 27-0
loss for another 170 or so days until Nov. 23. But don’t
worry.

“I look forward to getting the winning tradition
back,” redshirt freshman running back Jason Harrison
said.

  Daily Bruin File Photo Justin Patananan
(center) and Andrew Wulf (left) finished 1-2 in
the steeplechase at the UCLA-USC dual track and field meet on May
4, 2002.

“Winning tradition” may be a bit of a stretch since
UCLA is 27-37-7 all-time against USC. But there is no shame in
having a worthy adversary, and the quality of both programs
annually makes USC-UCLA a nationally noteworthy game.

When UCLA lost 17-7 in 1999 it was the first time since 1941
that both teams went into the game under .500.

“We’re always good football teams,” Toledo
said. “We both recruit out of state more than other schools
and (our game) is on national TV every year.”

Although UCLA is currently looking to snap a three-game losing
streak, recent history has been kind to the Bruins. From 1991-1998,
overlapping the Terry Donahue and Toledo eras, UCLA owned eight
straight victories for the first time in any major national college
football rivalry.

This is no religious history course, but nothing short of a
miracle occurred in Toledo’s first year in 1996 when it
looked like the streak would be broken after 5 years.

“We were down by 17 with six minutes left and won 48-41 in
double overtime. That was my most memorable game,” Toledo
said.

A touchdown set up by a reception by little-known Rodney Lee
enabled the game to go into overtime. The matchup almost always
stars an unlikely hero.

“You’ve got to forget about what happened that
season, the records, because that game is different,” Toledo
said.

Favorites matter very little, as evidenced by another great
comeback: the 1992 game in which UCLA trailed by 14 in the fourth
quarter. The Bruins rallied to take a 38-31 lead but USC drove
right back down the field with 41 seconds to play for the
touchdown. The Trojans went for the 2-point conversion but it was
blocked by linebacker Nkosi Littleton to save the 38-37 Bruin
victory.

This being just a cheat sheet, we can’t go into the other
great sports in depth, but you should know that USC won the
infamously unfamous Lexus Gauntlet, in this, its inaugural season.
The Gauntlet awards points to the winner of each head-to-head
matchup in all sports.

The Bruins did, however, narrowly defeat USC for their seventh
straight Pac-10 title in women’s track and beat them in the
first round of the NCAA women’s tennis tournament.

Of course, the best learning is hands-on. Go to a rivalry game,
and you will become a living part of history. And if you retain
nothing else from these Cliff’s Notes, just remember, as far
as the rivalry goes, Trojans SUC.