Trojans stomp the Banana Slugs after scramble for an opponent

UC Santa Cruz fills in after Brown canceled game in the wake of on-campus shooting.

- BY RYAN KARTJE

JOHN MCGILLEN USC Athletics USC center Gabe Dynes dunks for two of his game-leading 16 points against UC Santa Cruz at Galen Center.

The call came Monday morning, just six days before USC was slated to play its final nonconference contest. In light of the deadly shooting on Brown's campus, its men’s basketball team wouldn't make the trip west.

If coach Eric Musselman hoped to test his Trojans again before the new year, he and his USC staff had less than 24 hours to find a replacement.

Which is how USC found itself facing UC Santa Cruz, a 6-6 Division III team with losses to Chapman, Redlands and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, on Sunday. USC had no trouble overwhelming the Banana Slugs in a 102-63 victory. But given the scrambling it took to schedule Santa Cruz, no one was complaining about the seamless victory heading into the Trojans’ winter break.

Musselman, who notched his 250th career win, initially hoped that USC could find a Division I program to take Brown's place. But rules limiting the amount of regular-season games a Division I program can play narrowed that list considerably. It left USC’s coaches counting by hand to decide which teams would fit.