By Dropping Team Right Into The Pit, Egan Gave USD a Lift

OK, class, today’s quiz has to do with strategic scheduling as applied to the game of basketball.

You are a coach whose team is attempting to rebound from a rather modest 11-17 season. The roster has seven freshmen, five sophomores, a junior and two seniors, one of whom is your only returning starter.

To open the season, you . . .

A) Schedule a home game against Doane.

B) Schedule a home game against Clark.

C) Schedule a home game against Olivet.

D) Go to a tournament at the University of New Mexico.

I know, class, this is a tough one.

After all, how do you choose from among A, B and C?

If you happen to be Coach Hank Egan, whose University of San Diego Toreros fit the above profile, you throw stereotypical coaching wisdom out the window and choose D.

You’re kidding.

No one should go to New Mexico unless they have to, at least not with a basketball team. Arizona went over there last year unbeaten and ranked No. 1 in the nation and came away a 61-59 loser.

The University Arena is called The Pit, and I’m not sure if it was nicknamed by sadistic local Lobo locos or by unfortunate visiting teams. The Pit is an asylum that played to 97% of its 17,235-seat capacity through its first 22 years, during which time the home side won nearly 80% of its games.

“I like to start on the road,” Egan argued. “You find out more about your players . . . and it toughens them up.”

Of course, The Pit was a neutral court for USD’s actual season-opener. It went up against Lehigh in the first game of a tournament-opening doubleheader Saturday night and came away with a 68-58 victory.

And then came Sunday night’s date with the Lobos, runaway 96-71 winners over Loyola (Md.) in the first round. This was surely a mismatch akin to sending a kid on his first date . . . with Mae West.

Egan was 0-5 coaching in The Pit, but I imagine he neglected to impart that bit of trivia on his troops.

“I told them to look upon this as an opportunity,” he said. “I told ‘em just to go out and get after ‘em.”

And so the Toreros went right out and fell behind, 13-0. Understand that New Mexico’s fans stand and cheer and clap and stomp until the other team scores, and you probably get a feeling for how intimidating this might be to a young team.

“Slightly,” Egan laughed.

Egan laughed?

Why not?

After all, USD won.

That’s right. And it wasn’t really close. This was a case of the road-runner eating the wolf, 64-53. Maybe the Toreros thought those 16,889 lunatics were cheering for them .

It could be that these kids are just a little bit crazy themselves. They practice each day at 6 a.m. . . . by their choosing.

“They said Temple does it,” Egan said, “so they wanted to know if they could do it. I sat on it for about a month and came back and asked them if they were serious.”

They were.

“It’s more good than bad,” Egan said. “They’re fresh and alert. They have a good practice, go to breakfast and then they’re regular students for the rest of the day. They don’t have to worry about us, and they can involve themselves in other campus activities.”

And so it goes each morning with the players, coaches, trainers and, occasionally, a lost and befuddled jogger.

Incredibly, the Toreros successfully made the transition from such tranquility to the bedlam of The Pit.

Hank Egan, for one, enjoyed the taste of such a delicious surprise, but he prefers to look at a bigger picture. To him, the victory in New Mexico was not as important as what it represents.

“We’ve had two good recruiting classes, and we feel good about the one we have coming up,” Egan said. “We’ve got the makings of putting it all together.”

It appears to be a program headed in a stable and successful direction, though it is only a year removed from the giddiness of winning the West Coast Athletic Conference championship and going to the NCAA Tournament with a 24-6 record in 1986-87.

This USD team is young but deep. Egan will send the Toreros onto the court in swarms and waves, uncharacteristically going in the face of the Loyolas of the world with increased offensive tempo and pressure man-to-man defense. The Baby Bench Brigade outscored New Mexico’s bench, 30-10, and had a 24-6 advantage in rebounding.

Significantly, these kids will face one of the toughest schedules USD has encountered, including 10 teams that played in the postseason in 1987-88--Lehigh, New Mexico, UC Santa Barbara, North Texas, Marist, Utah, Western Kentucky, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine and Santa Clara.

What happened in New Mexico, to be sure, was that these kids went down into The Pit and proved how up-and-coming they are.

Smart scheduling, Coach Egan. Right, class?