College Basketball Roundup : Thompson Responds to a Challenge and USD Wins

Scott Thompson emerged from the University of San Diego locker room Wednesday night, turned to leave, but stopped when he saw a couple of reporters.

“Oh, hey guys,” he said with a laugh. “Nice of you to want to talk to me again. It’s been a while.”

Thompson was right. It has been a while since USD’s 7-foot senior center dominated a basketball game the way he did Wednesday against Colorado, scoring 23 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in the Toreros’ 61-51 victory over the Buffaloes at the USD Sports Center.

“We have a lot of good players here,” Thompson said. “Tonight, it was my night.”

Thompson’s scoring and rebound totals told only a part of the story. He added six assists, two blocked shots and made three steals.

With USD trailing, 8-5, early in the game, Thompson gave control of the contest to the Toreros for good by scoring 12 consecutive points.

USD went on to open a 30-14 halftime lead and in the second half, the lead was never less than 10 points.

“For some reason, Scott seems to play better against bigger teams,” Coach Hank Egan said. “It’s actually a little frustrating at times. He sure played well tonight.”

Thompson said he had looked upon Wednesday’s game as a challenge because USD has been beating up on smaller opponents. But Colorado (3-5) presented the Toreros’ with a front line including 6-10 forward Matt Bullard and 6-9 center Scott Wilke.

Bullard scoring 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. But Wilke, who had come into the game averaging 14.4 points, was guarded by Thompson much of the game and fouled out without scoring.

“I don’t think I do anything differently,” Thompson said. “I just know I have to get psyched to play well against bigger players.” USD, which won its third straight game and improved to 8-3, continued its run of strong first-half performances, forcing 13 Buffalo turnovers and limiting Colorado to just 12 field-goal attempts.

“The important thing is that we’re playing better in the second half, too,” Thompson said. “We keep getting these big leads and sometimes it’s hard to keep it up.”

Marquette 75, Loyola Marymount 65--Michael Sims scored 22 points and Mike Flory had 20 points and 9 rebounds to pace Marquette at Los Angeles.

Tony Smith contributed 16 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists for the Warriors (8-2).

Mike Yoest led Loyola Marymount (6-5) with 14 points.