Loyola Perfect in WCAC After 141-126 Romp

Loyola Marymount completed its West Coast Athletic Conference schedule Saturday night as impressively as it started it, with a barrage of points and a 141-126 win over the University of San Diego.

The win completed a rather improbable regular season that found Loyola with a 24-3 record, a 14-0 mark in the WCAC, a 21-game winning streak and the national scoring lead.

The first time these teams met, San Diego was missing guard Efrem Leonard, and Loyola won by 40.

Saturday night, before a standing room only crowd of 2,500 in San Diego’s Sports Center, Leonard scored 28 points off the bench, and senior Marty Munn marked his final home game with a career-high 35. But, once Loyola got its game going, the opposition didn’t make much difference.

The Lions will enter next weekend’s WCAC tournament as the No. 1 seeded team and will face last-place Portland in the first round. San Diego (11-16 and 4-10) will play second-place St. Mary’s.

Sophomore transfers Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble each scored more than 30 points, but it was Gathers who led Loyola. The 6-7 post man scored 34 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and had dominating scoring sprees in each half to help the Lions pull away.

Loyola Coach Paul Westhead said Gathers can control a game. “He’s such a force on the boards, at times he truly is The Bank,” Westhead said alluding to Gathers nickname of Hank the Bank. “He was the difference in the game.”

Kimble scored 36 points, including five three-point shots, and Jeff Fryer added 23, with four three-point shots.

Loyola came out flat, and Munn took advantage to score several easy baskets in pacing the Toreros to a 14-6 lead.

Then Leonard took over, scoring 20 points in the half as San Diego built a 32-23 lead with 11 minutes left in the half.

But in the next 6 1/2 minutes, Loyola turned the nine-point deficit into a nine-point advantage, 53-44. The Lion defense forced four turnovers on in-bounds passes, and Gathers began to assert himself inside, getting most of his 19 first-half points in the final eight minutes of the period.

Loyola also hit five three-point shots to one for USD on the way to a 72-62 halftime lead. For the game, Loyola outshot San Diego, 11-7, from three-point range.

“It’s nice to win the league without a loss,” Westhead said. “Basketball is such a tough game, with so many variables. The thing is, we kind of eliminate a lot of variables with our (all-out) style.

“After we hit 18 in a row, the guys were kind of sticking their chests out. I told the guys that when I was coach at Cheltenham High (in Philadelphia), we won 26 in a row--so they’ve got a ways to go to match that.”