USD to Play Pepperdine in Conference Semifinal

The University of San Diego has a busy agenda for the weekend.

The Toreros will attempt to live up to their honors and acclaim, and they also will try to earn their second trip to the NCAA tournament in four years.

The spotlight will be squarely on USD, which will meet Pepperdine at 6:30 tonight at the University of San Francisco in the semifinals of the West Coast Athletic Conference tournament.

On Thursday, after a vote of WCAC coaches, the Toreros’ Hank Egan was named coach of the year and center Scott Thompson player of the year. Forward Nils Madden also was named to the 10-man All-WCAC team.

But the focus of USD, the conference’s regular-season champion, was on the business at hand, not on the honors accorded Thursday.

After the USD-Pepperdine game, Santa Clara will face St. Mary’s. The two winners will meet Saturday night, and the tournament champion is assured of a bid to the NCAA tournament, which begins next week.

“I think the tournament has been exciting for everybody, but it’s probably a little nervous for Hank,” said Coach Jim Harrick of Pepperdine, who rates the Toreros, Nevada Las Vegas, UCLA and Arizona as the West’s top four teams.

If Harrick was trying to put pressure on USD, he didn’t succeed, Egan said.

“We’ve got a good, positive attitude and we’re ready,” he said. “We knew before the season started we were going to have this (tournament) fight on our hands here at the end. We’ve told our kids not to feel put upon or like it’s unfair for them to have to win here.”

Egan said he is nervous, but that’s his normal condition before any game.

“We would like not to have to do this (play in the tournament),” he said, “but the worst thing we could do would be to go around saying, ‘We won the league championship and we should be going to the NCAAs.’ We’re not at all down, and we’re going to be well prepared.”

Egan has indicated previously that he is uncertain about USD’s chances of being invited to the NCAA tournament if it loses here. But Harrick said he thinks the Toreros will be selected regardless. The Toreros bring a 24-4 record, including 14 straight victories, into tonight’s game against Pepperdine.

USD ranks No. 1 in the nation in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents 39.7% of their shots.

Pepperdine (11-17) advanced to the WCAC semifinals by upsetting second-seeded Gonzaga, 76-73, last week. Craig Davis, a freshman guard, scored a career-high 28 points, 26 in the second half, and Eric White, an All-WCAC forward, had 13 points.

Harrick made light of suggestions that his team has more good athletes than USD, which is often viewed as a group of intelligent, cohesive players.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I’d like to have Scott Thompson. I’d give them anybody I’ve got for him.”

White, only the third player in Pepperdine history to be named three times to the All-WCAC team, is Harrick’s clutch performer. White, a 6-foot 8-inch senior forward, led the team in scoring with an average of 19.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.

Pepperdine had two close losses to USD during the regular season: by 69-66 in San Diego and by 78-73 at home. Thompson was the leading scorer for USD in both games, with 18 and 26 points.

Pepperdine has been inconsistent according to Harrick, who said the team is peaking.

Of course, the latter could be said of USD.

“I ask myself, ‘How many straight games can they win?’ ” Harrick said. “Their advantage is having so many great shooters. It seems like everybody hits 50% or more. The only ones who don’t are the guys who shoot the three-pointers.”

Egan’s goal tonight is to keep his team organized and avoid one-on-one play, offensively or defensively.

“We know they are talented athletically, and now they are a veteran club, as well,” he said. “We are bigger and stronger, but they are more athletic, so the game becomes a real chess game when they make a substitution.”

Thompson said the Toreros understand what’s at stake but probably won’t be as nervous as they were in their victory over Loyola Marymount to open the WCAC tournament last weekend.

“We’re real jacked up,” he said. “We know the whole year rests on these couple of games here this weekend. I think we play well in big games, and we’re going to have a good time.”

Despite their status within the conference, the Toreros have something to prove to the world at large, as they discovered Thursday when they boarded their flight to San Francisco.

“We’d like to say good luck to the basketball team from UCSD,” the flight attendant said, mistaking the private university in Alcala Park for the University of California campus in La Jolla.

“We all laughed,” Thompson said. “We’re used to it.”

But things could change, as Harrick said.

“This is March madness,” he said. “This is crazy time. Anything can happen.”