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Monday's 83-59 USC romp over a TCU team clearly better than three of the four teams that have beaten USC at Galen Center this season didn't exactly compute.

But there it was. A USC team that could score a mere 36 points in an embarrassing loss to Cal Poly here fired in 47 more against a Horned Frog team that had beaten Virginia, Texas Tech and Houston. The Trojans had a season-high 42 in the first half, more than they'd managed in three 40-minute games this season and broke a three-game home losing streak in the process.

"USC was capable of a game like this," TCU Coach Jim Christian said, "and we gave them every opportunity to achieve it." The Trojans' season-high 83 points was 17 more than the previous high of 66 in the opener against CS Northridge.

"That's basketball," freshman Byron Wesley said as the Trojans piled out of the locker room convinced that a USC team that lost to Cal Poly here a month ago could beat 12th-ranked Kansas here Thursday.

And if the Trojans do, the maturing play of the 6-foot-5 Wesley and his freshman counterpart, guard Alexis Moore, who scored 12 points to Wesley's 13, will be a big part of that, Coach Kevin O'Neill said. "Two guys who've made a huge difference in the offense," O'Neill said.

But only because of this: When they play the way they did "with force on offense," O'Neill said, something he was seeing for maybe only the second time this season, it opens everything up -- inside and out.

Inside for 7-foot Dewayne Dedmon, whose quick, well-timed lane and baseline cuts to the basket and scores off a series of interior passes, didn't look like anything the Trojans had shown all season.

"He's not a post-up player," O'Neill said of his athletic neophyte from Lancaster. But with his size, speed, hands and athleticism, made for a major mismatch for a team trying to defend him man-to-man as TCU hoped to do -- and when he's on the move. Dedmon's 14 points came on seven-of-10 shooting with six rebounds in 26 minutes.

"Earlier in the year, we were just standing around out there," said Wesley, who had a season-high four assists in the first half and finished with six of USC's 17. No more standing around now, he said. They seem to have an idea what to do and when.

"That was a specific play we ran," Dedmon said, that has him stop away from the lane allowing more often than not point guard Maurice Jones plenty of room to penetrate -- and either score or dish.

Now that he can practice and is feeling more comfortable on offense, 7-footer Dewayne Dedmon is becoming something of a mismatch for opponents' defenses -- as he was Monday.

The numbers game USC played was good everywhere you looked. Aaron Fuller's 11 rebounds were a season high. So were USC's 17 asists. And the five turnovers by the Trojans, compared to TCU's 20, helped USC to a 55-49 edge in field goal attempts.

"I thought we played well on both ends," O'Neill said, looking ahead to Kansas coming in Thursday and wishing the Jayhawks hadn't been upset by Davidson Monday. "We need a signature win."

After losing four "one-possession games at home," as O'Neill likes to classify them, USC needed any win Monday. "The guys are getting more used to playing with one another," O'Neill said, describing his young team as having had "stunted growth on offense."

That's mostly a result of inexperience and injuries, he said, that have limited the practice time for Dedmon and Fuller and still keep 7-foot backup James Blasczyk from practicing. He just plays games.

"The guys are getting used to playing with one another," O'Neill said. "If shots go in, it always makes things look better." And on this night, they did as the Trojans knocked down 28 of 55 from the field (50.9 percent) including eight of 17 (47.1 percent) from three-point range.

"When you give up layups and put-backs," Christian said, "the opposition builds confidence -- and that's what happened here tonight."

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