Loyola Marymount Ready to Make a Run for It : Santa Clara, Playing at Home, Is Lions’ Biggest Threat in WCAC Tournament

To Paul Westhead, this weekend’s West Coast Athletic Conference basketball tournament reminds him of Marc Antony’s speech in “Julius Caesar.”

“You know,” the Loyola Marymount coach said Friday, “the ‘Lend me your ears’ speech. The other coaches are sitting here saying, ‘We come to bury Loyola, not to praise them,’ ”

Although Loyola emerged from the WCAC regular season with a 14-0 record and a top-20 ranking, the tournament is expected to provide a challenge for the Lions, since it is being played at Santa Clara’s Toso Pavilion, where the Broncos went 14-1 this season, the sole blemish a one-point loss to Loyola. The winner here will get the WCAC’s automatic berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament.

The top-seeded Lions (24-3 overall) will open at 2 p.m. today against last-place Portland (6-21, 1-13). In the other afternoon game, second-place St. Mary’s (18-8, 9-5) will play No. 6 San Diego (11-16, 3-11) at noon.

In the evening session, Santa Clara (18-9, 9-5) and USF (13-14, 5-9) will play at 6, followed by fourth-place Pepperdine (16-11, 8-6) against No. 5 Gonzaga (16-11, 7-7) at 8.

Semifinals will be played Sunday at 5 and 7 p.m., with the highest remaining seeded team facing the lowest. Monday’s championship game will be played at 8:30 p.m. and will be shown on ESPN.

On Friday, most of the coaches did come to praise Loyola. But many, including Westhead, were curious to see if Loyola would be able to run all-out for three straight days. The Lions are averaging 110.7 points and scored nearly 115 a game in league play in shattering virtually every team scoring record in the conference.

“With three games in three days, teams that play slow have an advantage,” Westhead said. “We’ll play to exhaustion Saturday, then have to come back Sunday.”

Portland, coached by former Trail Blazer Larry Steele, will run with the Lions, even if the Pilots don’t keep up. His team scored more than 100 in each game against Loyola--but the Lions scored more than 120 each time.

Pepperdine’s problem will be trying to reverse its late fortunes while playing a tough opener. The Waves have lost four straight, including breathtaking consecutive games against Loyola, and Gonzaga has won five straight.

Wave Coach Jim Harrick, whose team finished seventh last year but reached the tournament final, blamed the Loyola losses for the late tailspin.

“You can’t know what this game does to you,” he said. “Those two games against Loyola destroyed me, just destroyed me. I couldn’t eat. A game never had that effect on me before.”

The object of much of Gonzaga’s attention will be Pepperdine strongman Levy Middlebrooks, named the WCAC player of the year Friday. The big senior averages 20 points and 10.7 assists, making him one of about a dozen players in the country with a double-double average.

Gonzaga is concerned about leading scorer Doug Spradley, but Coach Dan Fitzgerald said the senior guard, who averages nearly 20 points, will start. He had knee surgery during the summer and the same knee was bruised last weekend against USF.

St. Mary’s carries the sixth-best defensive average in the country, 57 points, but the Gaels and San Diego split this season, each team winning on the road. The league’s unpredictability means that no victory today would be a major upset with the exception of Portland in its game against Loyola.

Santa Clara, the defending tournament champion, has the enviable host position but faces a dangerous foe in Bay Area rival USF, which lost to the Broncos twice--by a total of five points. “I think they have an edge, though Loyola’s had a great, great year,” USF’s Coach Jim Brovelli said.

WCAC Notes

All-league awards were announced Friday. Loyola’s Paul Westhead was named coach of the year, Pepperdine’s Levy Middlebrooks player of the year, and San Diego forward John Sayers freshman of the year. . . . The all-conference team: Corey Gaines, Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Mike Yoest, Loyola Marymount; Middlebrooks and Tom Lewis, Pepperdine; Robert Haugen, St. Mary’s; Keith Jackson, San Francisco; Doug Spradley, Gonzaga; Dan Weiss, Santa Clara.