Loyola’s Unsung Basketball Heroes Will Meet . . . .

In recent Loyola Marymount basketball games, Mike Yoest:

-- Beat Santa Clara, 94-93, on a free throw with two seconds remaining, and beat St. Mary’s, 96-94, on a desperation three-pointer with time running out;

-- Scored 23 points on 7-of-12 shooting in the West Coast Athletic Conference tournament championship game against Santa Clara;

-- Scored 35 points, made 15 of 17 free throws and had 10 rebounds against the University of San Francisco.

In the same stretch, his four-year running mate at forward, Mark Armstrong:

-- Got 18 points and 19 rebounds against USF and 15 points and 12 rebounds the next night against Santa Clara;

-- Got the key rebound in heavy traffic and made the outlet pass that set up Yoest’s game-winning shot against St. Mary’s;

-- Had 34 rebounds in the three-game WCAC tournament, including 13 against Pepperdine in the semifinals and 12 against Santa Clara in the championship.

Yet, as Loyola clinched its first WCAC title and automatic NCAA tournament berth in 27 years, neither player was named to the all-tournament team, and both four-year starters often have been overlooked all season, playing in the shadow of high-scoring transfers Corey Gaines, Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, all flashier players.

That doesn’t bother the two team co-captains, who count maturity among the virtues they are expected to pass on to teammates.

“We joke that they get all the publicity, but we’re the foundation,” Armstrong said. “Leading by example is the best we can do, going out and play hard. It’s not just (an example) for the guys playing, who have learned what it takes, but for the younger guys on the bench who are going to have to step in.”

The payoff for both is that, in accepting less glamorous roles to accommodate the talented newcomers, they have helped lead the Lions to a 27-3 record, 24 straight wins, the national scoring lead at 110.4 points per game and a consensus Top 20 rating.

They will try to add more glitter to this magical season today when the Lions open against 14th-ranked Wyoming in a first-round NCAA West Regional game at Salt Lake City.

The Lions, virtually unknown when the season began, are now considered as one of the potential Cinderella teams in the NCAA tournament field.

That’s pretty heady stuff, considering that three months ago the Lions were 3-3 coming off an overtime loss at Long Beach State.

“We were struggling. People were trying to figure out their roles,” Yoest recalled. “For someone to say ‘We’re gonna win 24 straight,’ that person would either be crazy or drunk.

“But this team’s got a lot of character. We started to win the close games. Lately we’ve had several games we could have lost but didn’t.”

It’s a far cry from their freshman year, the last before Paul Westhead was hired as coach, when the team went 11-16 and finished sixth in the WCAC.

“Now, we go out expecting to win, by a lot,” Yoest said. “Our freshman year, it was, ‘Let’s go out and try not to lose.’ It was like that early in our sophomore year. We were learning a new system under Coach Westhead. Then we seemed to blossom and people got a lot of confidence. We went out there to win. Coach Westhead’s as good as any coach at instilling confidence in you.”

Armstrong also changed his approach after playing with Keith Smith and Forrest McKenzie, who were the stars two years ago when Loyola went to the National Invitation Tournament. Armstrong had been a prep star in Riverside, and he said his attitude about basketball was, out of sight, out of mind.

“When I came in as a freshman . . . I really didn’t know much about college basketball,” he said. “I was competitive in the game. It was like, ‘Let’s go out and have a good time.’ If we lost, we lost. (Now) I don’t like to lose. Players like Keith and Forrest instilled that in me. They said I shouldn’t be happy if we lost.”

Yoest’s fire and spirit on the court and Armstrong’s yeoman work on the boards have blended with the skills of the newer players to produce the surprise powerhouse.

Credit Yoest and Armstrong for accepting less visible roles for the sake of the team. It was a conscious decision.

“The blending of older, more experienced guys with newer, talented guys could have been a disaster,” Westhead said. “It turned out to be a very happy union. Most of the tribute is to the players themselves, especially the older guys. Some of the tribute is to our (spread-the-wealth) style.”

The 6-7 Yoest, who produced little offense in his first season-and-a-half, began to blossom as a scorer near the end of his sophomore year. Last season, with Smith and McKenzie--the school’s career scoring leaders--both gone, he became the focus of the offense, tying for the WCAC scoring lead at nearly 20 points per game. But he became the object of rival defenses in the last half of the season and points became tougher.

As a senior he is quietly having a better season. He is still scoring 17.6 points per game and is shooting nearly 58%. He’s hitting 81% from the foul line, has increased his rebounding to 7.7 per game and continues to dive for loose balls, whatever the score. Yoest has moved into fourth place on the school’s career scoring list with more than 1,600 points. Westhead often refers to him as “dependable as the sunrise.”

When Yoest hit the clutch free throw against Santa Clara, Westhead’s summary was: “Captain Yoest comes through. . . . He delivered his experience and effort of four years in one shot.”

This season, Yoest has been more what Westhead calls “an undercover operative,” getting many of his points on offensive rebounds, loose balls in the lane and passes off picks.

“What I have to do is concentrate more on rebounding and defense. I’m not the first option on most of the plays, which I don’t mind,” he said. “I got the chance to score last year and we lost. With a lessened load, I’ve been able to improve my all-around game. I talked with Mark about it. We were willing to give up the glamour and glory of scoring for wins. I was more than willing to give it up.”

Yoest’s contributions haven’t gone unnoticed. Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick was boosting Kimble as “maybe the best player in the country” after he scored 68 points in two games against the Waves, but in the same breath he noted that Yoest is “the heart and soul of that team.”

Armstrong is the only starter scoring below double figures. He is second on the team in rebounding at 8.2 per game (just behind Gathers at 8.5) but his scoring average is 7.2.

Armstrong ranks second in Loyola career rebounding with more than 800, but admits he hoped to get in on more of the scoring this season. He has shown on occasion he is capable, but he is often not involved in the offense.

At 6-6, Armstrong usually has to cover or help out on opponents’ best big man, so he leads the team in fouls and has fouled out of four games.

“At the beginning of the year, I was a bit frustrated because there were some personal goals I wanted to accomplish,” he said. “The position I was going to play called for me to be a little unselfish, concentrate on some things I didn’t want to concentrate on.”

A talk with Yoest convinced Armstrong that he was needed more on defense.

“Mark is the guy that goes out and does the dirty work and gets overlooked,” Yoest said. “He’s kind of like the mechanic on a race car. If it does well, the driver gets the credit. We’d be in a world of hurt without Mark.”

“It’s a team effort, not one person doing it all,” Armstrong said. “It’s all the way down to the guys in practice who never play but have to run as much as we do.”

Gathers said he has noticed a more mature Armstrong this season. “Mark has taken a different attitude to winning. It’s helped the team,” he said.

Of the altered roles--Gathers has replaced Yoest as team and conference scoring leader--Gathers said: “I think Mike took it very well. I expected him to. Mike’s the kind of person who sacrifices and does what he has to, to help the team.”

When Loyola pulled out the last-second win at St. Mary’s, Westhead spoke matter-of-factly, almost jocularly of the game-ending sequence: “For Yoest to shoot outside 4 feet was incredible. Mark got the big rebound. It’s Armstrong and Yoest down the wire.”

The wire may end soon for both. Yoest and Armstrong will graduate with marketing degrees. Yoest would like to keep playing if anybody wants him. Armstrong will probably hang up the Reeboks.

“I’m just concentrating on the degree,” Yoest said. “I couldn’t think of a better thing to do than getting paid to play. But I’m not counting on it.”

Armstrong said: “I’ve done about everything I can do in basketball. It’s very satisfying to have done something very few teams have done. We dominated the league like it probably hasn’t been since the days of USF and Nevada-Las Vegas. I’m sitting here in my room with the net from the second Pepperdine game. I have enough memories. I will enjoy sitting back and watching the progress of Hank and Corey and Bo and even Mike. But there’s other challenges out there. I think I’ve played enough basketball for a while.”

For the next few weeks, there are still games to be played, however.

Going into the NCAAs, Yoest said: “We really feel confident. We know what we can do. Whoever we get is gonna have their work cut out. I’ll say this, I really couldn’t have written a better script, for myself or the team.”