Finally Floored

PHILADELPHIA —  They’re not gone. They just got here.

The USC basketball team staggered off the floor, but onto a landscape.

The Trojans were knocked out of the NCAA tournament, but into a place more enduring.

Into view.

Los Angeles sees them now.

A city is aware. A city is curious.

It will take more than that 79-69 roundhouse by Duke in the East Regional final Saturday at First Union Center to make us forget.

We saw Sam Clancy swat the shots of America’s best basketball players into the third row. We saw David Bluthenthal throw in three-pointers over America’s longest arms.

We saw, for nearly two hours, an unranked team hang to the heels of a top-ranked team that could have kicked it to New Jersey.

Then, in the final moment of the final game of a memorable 10-day introduction, we saw all we would have needed to see.

Shane Battier casually threw up a layup.

Brian Scalabrine leaped and blocked it.

One second left. Down by 10.

“I wanted to play it out,” Scalabrine said. “I wanted to leave it all out there.”

And so out there it will stay, this new Trojan basketball presence, sticking one sneaker into a tiny bit of winter radar space between the Lakers and UCLA basketball and the Kings, making us watch and wonder.

What next?

Desmon Farmer says he knows.

The freshman guard is one of the players returning to a team that will lose starters Scalabrine and Jeff Trepagnier.

He will join Clancy and Bluthenthal and Duke-bedeviled guard Brandon Granville as the core of a team that now understands.

Not only can’t he wait, he won’t wait.

“I’m going to go home and start lifting weights right away,” Farmer said late Saturday night.

Right away when?

“Like, Sunday,” he said. “The minute we get back to campus. I’ll find an open weight room. I’m going to work. Next year is going to be big.”

How big?

“So big, when people see USC on TV, they’re no longer going to be changing the channel,” he said.

In the world of a 19-year-old, that’s huge.

It’s also true.

The Trojan hopes were leveled Saturday, but in a way that last bit of foundation is leveled during a flashy new remodeling job.

It was not an ending, but a beginning.

“We’re the pioneers,” said Clancy, who nullified Battier Saturday with 19 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks. “We’re changing the way basketball is going to be viewed at USC.”

In November, the Trojans will open their season with some big-name matchup in the preseason NIT.

Once, that game might have been reported in this newspaper on Page 6. Now, it will be Page 1.

“People who wouldn’t be paying attention to us will start paying attention,” said Bluthenthal.

In the coming weeks, USC President Steven Sample will be considering endorsing the completed plans for the new arena. Once that endorsement is given, a big chunk of funding from naming rights should follow.

In the past, Sample might have said, “Why?”

After these past 10 days, he should say, “When?”

For USC, the tournament built respect among boosters, credibility among recruits, goodwill among TV executives.

There is no reason it couldn’t also build an arena.

“Once we get the arena, you’re talking about a Final Four program,” Scalabrine said. “All of the great recruits who live in our area? Once they see we are serious, everything changes.”

With Henry Bibby grimacing from the sidelines, the Trojans have always looked serious.

Only now, they are serious.

Duke saw this Saturday.

With 2:14 remaining in the game and the Blue Devils leading by nine, Coach Mike Krzyzewski called timeout and loudly cursed his team.

After his defense forced Granville into his fifth turnover, Krzyzewski leaped into the air.

“They scared the heck out of me,” Krzyzewski said.

They used to only amuse. Now they actually intimidate?

Of course, this could all be another Paul Hackett-sized mirage.

Few things get a buzz going quicker in our town than Trojan success. But few things flame out quicker.

What if, when Farmer shows up to lift weights today, he is the only one?

What if, by the time next season starts, the team will forget all about the 20,000 folks in Philadelphia, and remember only that it plays in front of 6,000 in an aging arena off campus?

What if the Trojans begin losing the mind games with Bibby? What if they lose the magic?

The Trojans return to town today like an overnight star with a surprising box-office hit.

Nothing is more important than their next role.

“What has happened in the past few weeks is amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said senior Jarvis Turner, who scored six points in four minutes in a splendid, if brief, goodbye. “I just hope that next year, this team can build on it.”

Such a small window of opportunity. But so much to build on.

Earlier this season, Bibby passed out T-shirts with the words “Buy In” on the back.

For the first time in a long time at USC, the players did exactly that.

The best thing being that, for now, they are not the only ones.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.