USD Keeps Winning Despite Slow 2nd Half

Maybe the worst thing that ever happened to the University of San Diego basketball team was being touted as a very good team this season.

With recognition comes the pressure of winning expectations.

Well, USD is winning. But, sometimes, Coach Hank Egan finds it a little difficult to figure out how.

The Toreros beat Rice, 48-47, Tuesday night in front of 625 at the USD Sports Center, but afterward Egan was talking about losing.

“You simply can not play well if you’re afraid of losing,” Egan said after his team tried hard to blow an 18-point halftime advantage.

The game was not decided until the final second when USD center Scott Thompson intercepted an errant pass from freshman guard D’Wayne Tanner under his own basket.

Egan felt the game should have been decided earlier.

“For some reason, we just stopped playing in the second half,” Egan said. “I think it’s because we’re afraid of losing. I don’t have the answer.”

USD (6-3) scored only 17 points after halftime using a deliberate offense. The Toreros would run their offense . . . and then run it some more, many times failing to get off a clear shot.

“When the shot clock is down to five seconds all the time, you tend to feel more pressure,” guard Paul Leonard said.

“We need to do something,” Egan said. “We’ll just have to keep getting after it.”

For the Toreros, the second-half jitters have become commonplace. In its only other home game this season, USD led Boise State by 14 points with five minutes to play but didn’t score again until the buzzer. Nils Madden’s jumper gave USD a 54-52 victory.

Tuesday, USD led at halftime, 31-13, and Madden scored on a slam dunk two minutes into the second half to put the Toreros ahead, 33-15.

Then, the offense disappeared, resurfacing more than seven minutes later when Thompson scored on a three-point play inside. By that time, however, Rice was back in the game, trailing 36-27.

Greg Hines, the Owls’ leading scorer with a 20.5 average coming into the game, scored only three points in the first half, but helped Rice rally in the second half. In fact, Hines outscored USD, 20-17, in the final 20 minutes and finished with a game-high 23 points.

“I think they have a very normal problem,” Rice Coach Tommy Suitts said. “When you get a big lead, you tend to not want to take the bad shot. We were able to play more freely because we were behind.”

Rice might have won the game if it weren’t for a terrible first-half shooting performance. The Owls made just 5 of 26 shots.