Occidental Ends Skid With Win Over Whittier

Before the referees arrived at the Occidental College gym Saturday night, the Whittier basketball team performed an impromptu--and illegal--slam-dunk session while Occidental players stretched under their goal.

When the game started, however, it was the Tigers who were impressive.

Occidental (12-5 overall, 2-2 in conference play), riding a 2-game losing streak that had dropped it to the basement of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference standings, regained much of the intensity it had lost over the past few weeks and turned back Whitter, 92-76, at Occidental.

“We went back to the way we were playing,” said center Chris Anderson, who scored 21 points, had 3 blocks and a thunderous double-fisted jam in the first half. “We had good motion and we didn’t try to force it inside.”

As for the Poets’ pregame theatrics?

“Why show off?” Anderson said. “In the game is where it counts.”

The biggest contribution might have been the backcourt pressure of guards Ethan Caldwell, Jason Greenstein and Jay Caba. The trio stole the ball from Whittier’s guards several times for easy layups.

The Poets (8-11, 1-3) committed 17 turnovers.

“It really bothered us,” Whittier Coach Dave Jacobs said of the pressure. “Every mistake we made, Oxy scored on. It was a double crucifixion.”

Occidental Coach Brian Newhall said that he enjoyed the game’s upbeat tempo.

“We’re going to start playing 10 people,” he said. “We’ll keep rotating--pulling them out, putting them in--those little breaks really help.”

Forward John Keister led Occidental with a game-high 25 points. Keister said that the Tigers had better luck trying to exploit Whittier’s lack of speed.

“When we ran a little bit we’d get some room,” he said. “They were all over me in the set offense.”

The game started evenly and Occidental founded itself trailing by a point, 16-15, 9 minutes into the first half. But then the Tigers applied backcourt pressure and capitalized on 4 Whittier turnovers to put together a 9-2 spurt.

Leading by 8 at the intermission, Occidental opened the second half with an 11-6 rally paced by Anderson, who scored 6. The Tigers maintained momentum and led by 12, 63-48, with 12:40 to play.

Nine minutes in the second half Whittier trailed by 19. But the Poets weren’t through as they mounted their own rally, putting together an 8-0 run over the next 3 minutes to trim the deficit to 74-63.

But the Tigers, who muffed a 13-point second-half lead in an overtime loss to Claremont last Wednesday, held on.