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In what became a matchup between UCLA and USC’s freshmen, guards Jordan Farmar and Arron Af

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M. basketball: Rivalry renewed between freshmen

Colin Yuhl
Published: Monday, January 31, 2005

If the rivalry between UCLA and USC wasn’t simmering enough, Saturday’s contest at the Sports Arena had the added spice of a personal challenge.

Trojan freshmen Nick Young and Gabriel Pruitt were quite familiar with their Bruin counterparts, Jordan Farmar and Arron Afflalo; Young and Farmar were high school rivals at Cleveland and Taft High Schools respectively, while Afflalo and Pruitt played together and against each other on different AAU squads.

Though the Trojans’ duo controlled the game until halftime, it was Farmar and Afflalo who had the last laugh, coming up with key plays down the stretch in UCLA’s 72-69 comeback victory.

“To play within ourselves was the most important thing,” Afflalo said. “Our intentions were to win.”

“A lot of the ‘SC players were talking, just making the same comments like ‘we’re better freshmen,” UCLA senior Dijon Thompson said. “But they (Afflalo and Farmar) kept their composure, and fought until the end.”

While Farmar and Afflalo receive the most praise as part of one of the best freshman classes in the country, Young and Pruitt took it upon themselves to prove to anyone watching that they were just as good, if not better.

The USC pair torched UCLA, especially in the first half. Young scored 17 points on 6 of 7 shooting, and Pruitt added 11 points, hitting two 3-pointers as USC took an 18-point lead into halftime.

“I think we (proved our point),” Young said. “Me and (Pruitt) were talking about this the other day, that we had to come out and play and show everyone. We’ve been the underdogs the whole season, so we had to come out and prove it.”

Meanwhile, neither Farmar nor Afflalo had made a single basket by halftime. Where Young and Pruitt looked poised and in control, Farmar and Afflalo appeared anxious and uncomfortable playing against the Trojans’ zone defense. However, Afflalo and Farmar regrouped at halftime and made a concerted effort not to get caught up in a personal agenda.

“They were beating us and they were trying to make it obvious that they were the better duo,” Afflalo said. “Not to say that they did, but we could have taken extra shots to try to outdo them, but that’s not our intention.”

Fortunes changed for both teams in the second half, and as UCLA rallied, USC’s talented freshmen couldn’t keep up. Afflalo hit three 3-pointers in a 94-second span that enabled the Bruins to build their biggest lead of the game.

“They got fatigued, and I wanted to give them a break in the first half,” USC coach Jim Saia said. “I was hoping our bench would give us some good minutes, but we didn’t get anything from our bench.”

Though Young finished the night with 22 points and Pruitt pitched in 19, the rest of the team only scored 28 points.

But despite dominating on the box score, it was Farmar and Afflalo that walked away with the victory, UCLA’s first over the Trojans since 2002.

“(Young’s) and my performance proves we’re just as good as them,” Pruitt said. “But I can’t take anything away from them. They’re a great freshman class, we’re all buddies.”

“I can’t wait to play them again. I know we feel like we owe them something, and they know that we really beat ourselves tonight.”