COLLEGE BASKETBALL ‘88-89. : Loyola Marymount Hopes to Turn Its Sprint Up Another Notch
Loyola Marymount will sprint out of the blocks next week with one eye on the national ratings and another on the scoreboard.
For an encore, the speedy little team that captured the sporting public’s attention last season by averaging 110 points and shooting on the average of every 7 seconds en route to a 28-4 record will try to prove it was not a flash in the pan with a nucleus that includes four of the top six scorers.
Looking for ways to increase the team’s pace this season, Coach Paul Westhead, who refers to the 45-second clock as the “4-to-5 second clock,” has had his team doing sprint exercises and running 440s after practices.
Westhead has been in constant demand at clinics since his team gunned down Wyoming in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament, 119-115, last season. He said he is sometimes stopped on the street these days by strangers who saw the game on TV.
“Apparently, it kind of blew their minds,” he said. “I was the coach of that crazy team . . . some people had never seen basketball like that. At clinics they want to hear the charm of the system. Unfortunately, there’s no charm. Just a lot of work.”
Scoring leader Hank Gathers said the team is doing even more running this season.
“Each year practice gets a little bit tougher,” he said. “That’s the scary part of the system. When game time rolls around, running the floor is easy. ‘Blow out the lungs’ is (Westhead’s) favorite term.”
Westhead’s team motto is “Run the System,” and even he is not sure how far he can take his combination of constant fast break and a game-long, full-court press.
“I don’t think 110 (scoring average) has us maxed out,” he said. “It’s good, but I don’t know if it’s the end. I always believed players will go as high as they’re grooved. I always felt the game, even in the NBA, has been played at a slower pace than it could be. (I figure) we’ll play at a higher pace and our opponent won’t and we’ll reap the benefit.”
Westhead’s top reapers are 3 juniors--Gathers, who averaged 22.5 points and 8.7 rebounds a game; Bo Kimble, 22.2 points, and Jeff Fryer, 12.6--and senior Enoch Simmons, 8.9.
Kimble and Fryer will put up the 3-pointer anytime, often as the first option.
Also back are 6-foot 10-inch senior John Veargason, 6-10 junior Marcellus Lee and a number of younger players. Newcomers who should see extensive playing time are redshirt sophomore guard Tom Peabody, 21-year-old sophomore Per Stumer--a member of the Swedish national team--and freshman Terrell Lowery, a high school all-star guard in Oakland.
The Lions are extremely deep in the back court, where Kimble, Simmons, Fryer, Peabody and Lowery all figure to play regularly. Kimble, 6-5, and Simmons, 6-4, are capable of playing up front as well.
The problems for Westhead are replacing graduated forwards Mike Yoest and Mark Armstrong, the team’s blue-collar types for several seasons. Gathers, 6-7, is the only proven inside player and rebounder. Stumer, a rock-solid 6-7, heady player and good passer, may be part of the answer. He can also shoot the 3-pointer.
“He passes too much, but we’ll work that out of him,” Westhead deadpanned.
But the Lions need a leap forward by Veargason, Lee or both, and maturation from such youngsters as 6-9 redshirt freshman Chris Knight or 6-8 sophomore Marcus Slater to handle such taller, talented opponents as Oklahoma, Xavier of Ohio, DePaul and conference foes Santa Clara and St. Mary’s.
“The way we play we don’t really need a center, per se, but we may be a player away,” Westhead said. “Per (Stumer) can do some of that. I still haven’t found the perfect blue-collar worker. I just don’t know if we have Yoest and Armstrong replaced.”
Loyola is ranked anywhere from 17th to 40th in preseason polls and students are wearing “Repeat Guaranteed” T-shirts around campus. But Westhead and those familiar with the West Coast Athletic Conference expect Loyola to have a tougher time repeating as conference champion.
“We’re gearing up to be a returning NCAA team,” Westhead said. “We have players good enough to do it. The league has three or four teams that could stop us. It will not be an undefeated cakewalk.”
Last season was more like a cakerun for the Lions, who made such a good impression when they finally got on TV--scoring 142 points against Pepperdine and beating Santa Clara, 104-96, in the WCAC tournament finale--that they are on the national schedule 4 times this season, including the long-awaited matchup at Oklahoma Dec. 17.
During the NCAA tournament last March, Sooner Coach Billy Tubbs was asked what would happen if his team met the Lions.
Westhead recalls: “Tubbs said they’d whip us by 30 or 40. They might, but we’re going to get our average. It could be the first 300-point game in the history of college ball.”
Kimble, a self-styled shooter with no conscience, grins and says mischievously, “400.”
The Lions will also appear nationally on TV against UC Santa Barbara, DePaul and Pepperdine. And this season they are actually a known commodity. Gathers said he was surprised to be recognized by fans in his hometown Philadelphia over the summer.
Simmons, who spent the summer playing for the Oakland Athletics rookie team in Phoenix, said, “The name LMU is really getting to people it hasn’t reached before.”
And Westhead has crisscrossed the map lately, spreading the gospel of running the system, from Alabama to Canada.
“I was even asked to speak at the North Carolina Coaches Assn.,” he said. North Carolina ended Loyola’s 25-game winning streak and season in the NCAA tournament, 123-97.
Gathers said: “Last season is over with. We’re a new team. It’s a whole new ballgame. We’ll play as hard as we can. We’ll run as fast as we can. If we don’t win 25 in a row we’ll be close. We’re gonna win a lot of games.
“We still have the system, and good guys who can run it. The system makes players look better. I think we are the best in the business at pushing the ball.”