So I'm tapping my foot outside the USC locker room, waiting for Trojans Sam Clancy and Brian Scalabrine to finish NCAA-mandated postgame drug tests.

I can't blame the NC2A. As good as SC looked in dismissing second-seeded Kentucky, I'm sure most of the nation thought they were smoking something besides the Wildcats.

Almost an hour after the game, Scalabrine finally emerges. Recognizing me from last weekend's games at Nassau Coliseum, he slaps my hand -- a move I instantly regret when I remember why I was waiting for him in the first place.

Scalabrine has been on some sort of Rocky vibe of late. The Trojans have been here in Philly -- where Sly Stallone filmed the Oscar-winner -- since their second-round knockout of Boston College. Big Red even tried to organize a team trip to the "Rocky steps" -- you know, the scene where Sly runs up the concrete stairs and stands triumphantly, bellowing nonsense? (The trip fell though due to the sub-arctic conditions here the past week. The Trojans are nails, but they're still from SoCal.)

For those of you who thought Stallone's best work was Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, allow Scalabrine to explain how the Trojans were straight-up Balboa tonight: "Everyone thought Apollo was gonna win, but Rocky came in and won the game. Or won the match. Whatever."

Well put, B, but I got another question. If y'all are Rocky and Kentucky was Apollo, then what the heck do you call the team that's dropping roundhouses on the Bruins out there? Clubber Lang? Thunderlips?

We both decide that Duke is Ivan Drago.

Scalabrine laughs a little, but catches himself. He looks behind me into a laundry room, where the Trojans' jerseys -- visiting colors for the lower seed, of course -- are already spinning like Jason Williams in transition. A TV in the corner shows UCLA on the ropes -- if you squint hard enough, you can imagine Mike Dunleavy as Dolph Lundgren with a silly flat-top. Big Red sets his jaw and jogs out to watch the rest of the Drago fight.

You can just hear him thinking, "Go for it."

Andy Latack covers college hoop for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at andrew.latack@espnmag.com.