USC Facing Tough Assignment on Road Today in Arkansas

The road won’t get any easier for USC’s basketball team today when the Trojans play Arkansas in a nationally televised game (Channel 2, noon PST) at Barnhill Arena in Fayetteville, Ark.

Arkansas is off to its worst Southwest Conference start in 15 years with a 1-5 record, but the Razorbacks are 9-7 overall.

Those figures aren’t comforting for the Trojans because Arkansas hasn’t lost a nonconference game on its home court since 1975--a string of 41 games.

USC, 8-8 overall, has lost six of seven games on the road, most recently to California Wednesday night at Berkeley, 62-61.

This will be USC’s final nonconference game of the regular season. The Trojans, 3-4 in the Pacific 10, resume conference competition against UCLA next Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion.

Stan Morrison’s team has had problems defending against big centers, and Arkansas has a 7-2 post man in Mike Carpenter. His statistics aren’t frightening, though. He is averaging only 1.3 points and 2.3 rebounds.

Nolan Richardson, Arkansas’ new coach, who previously built a winning program at Tulsa, has three sophomores and two juniors in his starting lineup. His leading scorer, 6-7 William Mills, who is averaging 14.3 points, comes off the bench.