Reserve Strength Helps USD Outlast Portland

University of San Diego Coach Hank Egan liked what his team did in the first 20 minutes, but the Toreros were hard-pressed to walk away with a 61-57 victory over Portland on Thursday at the Sports Center.

The Toreros survived by building a 15-point lead at halftime in the West Coast Athletic Conference game in front of 1,032 fans.

“We were awfully efficient in the first half,” Egan said. “We congratulated ourselves for playing a great game (in the locker rom), and we didn’t play with the same intensity in the second half. But we hung on. Portland came after us.”

“We thought the game was over, and got ourselves in trouble.”

It was the first conference victory at home this season for USD, 4-5 in WCAC and 15-9 overall. It was also the Toreros’ first victory at the Sports Center in more than a month. They beat Southwest Baptist on Jan. 12.

Chris Carr and Steve Krallman led USD with 13 points each. Peter Murphy and Scott Thompson each 10 points and fouled out.

Fred Harris led Portland (1-7, 12-12) with 20. Tony Havior added 13.

Said Carr: “When you’re up (by a lot of points), everyone talks about going hard, but it’s tough. They cut our lead at the end, but we didn’t get panicky.”

A jumper by Krallman gave the Toreros a 51-37 lead with 8:44 left in the game. But the Pilots scored the next eight points and were down by six after Dan Hunt scored on a follow shot with 6:07 to play.

Portland had a chance to make USD even more uncomfortable in the closing seconds. After Havior’s basket with 20 seconds left made it 60-55, USD called time out. Murphy’s ensuing in-bounds pass was stolen by Hunt, who drove to the basket and missed a 5-footer. Hunt was fouled battling for the rebound, but missed the free throw.

Ten seconds later, Harris’ jumper in traffic closed the gap to 60-57. However, Carr’s free throw with seven seconds to play ended the scoring.

After the game, Egan was most pleased with the production from the bench. Murphy and Krallman did not start but both played well, so much so that USD survived a four-point game from Anthony Reuss and one point from Kiki Jackson.

“The bench has been doing a good job,” Egan said. “Krallman and Murphy may have earned starting jobs, but it’s nice to have them on the bench. I can use them in different ways.”

Said Murphy: “I like coming off the bench. You get to see the game and how it’s going, what’s working, what’s not.”

The Toreros were working well the entire first half, even though leading scorer Reuss and rebounder Thompson spent much of the first 20 minutes on the bench with foul trouble.

USD jumped out to an early 10-3 lead, and extended that margin to 17-7 on a pair of free throws by Krallman with 9:44 left. A jump shot by Murphy and two more free throws by Krallman made it 27-16, USD’s favor, with 5:26 to play.

The Toreros had their biggest lead of the half, 3l-16, less than a minute later, on two free throws apiece by Krallman and Nils Madden.

Free throws played a major part in USD’s 37-22 halftime lead. The Toreros hit 13 of 16 (81.3%) from the line. The Pilots hit 4 of 8 from the line.

Krallman made all eight of his shots from the throw line in the first half.

USD also shot accurately from the field, hitting 52% (13 of 22).