Galen Center Power Outage Briefly Cuts Lights At Oregon-USC Basketball Game

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The lights inside Galen Center went out for 20 minutes before power was restored during the first half of the game between No. 9 Oregon and Southern California.

A USC spokesman said a city electrical grid went down Saturday and caused a power surge that knocked out the arena lights.

Elijah Stewart had just hit a 3-pointer for the host Trojans when the arena went dark. Oregon was leading 31-22 with 5 1/2 minutes left in the half.

The public address announcer thanked fans for their patience during the outage. It took about 10 minutes for the lighting system to restart once the problem was corrected.

Some fans held up cell-phone lights, and the USC band played on. The arena D.J. started a singalong to popular TV theme songs to entertain the crowd. Lighting in the concourses stayed on and fans were in line for concessions.

The curtains that usually cover the floor-to-ceiling windows on the north end of the arena were opened to provide daylight and a view of the downtown Los Angeles skyline. The teams started shooting using the natural light to see the baskets. The curtains were closed once the game resumed.

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