For USD, It’s Pay-Back Time, 82-48 : Toreros, Recalling Last Season’s Key Loss, Rout Lions

University of San Diego’s basketball team remembered how Loyola Marymount ruined their season a year ago and they were determined Thursday night not to let it happen again.

The Toreros, West Coast Athletic Conference leaders, put together an impressive performance with in their 82-48 defeat of Loyola in front of 2,800 in the USD Sports Center.

Last season, Loyola beat USD in San Diego, sending the Toreros on a three-game losing streak that eventually cost them a postseason playoff berth.

The memories came flooding back Thursday, and this time Loyola (2-4, 10-9) succumbed to a wave of good USD shooting, rebounding and fortune. The 34-point loss was Loyola’s worst since Paul Westhead took over as coach two years ago. The 48 points the Lions scored was their lowest since December, 1981. Loyola came into Thursday night’s game with a conference-leading average of 89.9 points a game.

“All week we’ve been recalling what happened to us last year,” said USD’s 7-foot center, Scott Thompson.

What happened, in part, was that Loyola’s smaller front line outplayed Thompson & Co. inside and wound up winning on a last-second jump shot by Keith Smith.

Smith, however, now plays for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Assn. And without him, Loyola had no outside shooting to speak of Thursday night. The Lions shot just 31% from the floor, hitting 18 of 58 shots. So the Toreros (6-1, 15-4), packed their zone defense in and dominated the boards, 44-32.

At the heart of USD’s defensive attack was Loyola forward Mike Yoest, who had scored 40 points in two games against the Toreros last season. Yoest had 14 Thursday, but he was contained for the most part.

“They still remembered last year, no question about it,” Yoest said. “Their whole team was more motivated than I’ve seen them. They played a tremendous game defensively.”

USD wasn’t bad on offense, either.

Mark Manor, USD’s best outside shooter, hit three three-point shots in the first half, including two in the opening three minutes, to help the Toreros take a 9-2 lead. USD’s lead was never less than five points the rest of the way.

Manor started this season slowly, missing eight of his first nine shots from three-point range. At the time, he was always looking over his shoulder, wondering if Coach Hank Egan was upset with his wild shooting. Egan always has been thought of as the kind of coach who says, “No, no, no, no (shot goes in) . . . nice shot.”

“Hank Egan is the least understood guy in town,” Egan said. “Never once have I told one of my players that he took a bad shot.”

Said Manor: “As long as the shot comes within the framework of our offense, he doesn’t mind.”

With that in mind, Manor finished with 13 points in the first half and USD led, 41-22.

In the second half, the Toreros continued to do as they pleased, although they were getting inside for their shots. Nils Madden, who led USD with 17 points, made 7 of 11 shots from in close. And Thompson, the player who may have been burdened the most by Loyola’s dominating play last season, was determined to make his presence known.

On one play early in the second half, Thompson (13 points, 8 rebounds) missed from in close and tapped the ball back up five times before finally scoring.

“It was as if I was playing volleyball,” he said.

The next time down, Thompson spiked down a dunk and USD had a 51-30 lead with 16:38 remaining. Four minutes later, Egan went to his bench to rest his starters for the arrival of defending conference champion Pepperdine Saturday night.