USD Scores 13 in Half, Can’t Catch St. Mary’s

Catcher Tim McCarver used to tell pitcher Bob Gibson that he was the luckiest man in baseball because the other team never got any runs on the days he happened to pitch.

The same can be said of St. Mary’s men’s basketball team. The other team always seems to shoot poorly, score few points and lose.

Saturday night in front of 2,235 in the USD Sports Center, St. Mary’s beat cold-shooting University of San Diego, 65-47. Wednesday in Moraga, St. Mary’s defeated cold-shooting USD, 70-45.

The victory kept St. Mary’s (22-3, 10-2) in a first-place tie in the West Coast Athletic Conference race with Pepperdine, a winner over Portland in Malibu. The Gaels, with two WCAC games remaining, control their own destiny because of the second tie-breaker procedure (record against opponents in descending order of finish) in the WCAC. USD fell to 6-18, 1-11 with its sixth consecutive loss and remains last.

After 12 minutes 45 seconds of a remarkable first half, St. Mary’s held a 17-point lead.

Amazingly, St. Mary’s had just 21 points. USD, which made just two of 14 shots to that point, had four.

The Toreros had only 13 at the half on three - of - 19 shooting and trailed, 28-13. Center Dondi Bell led USD by making five of six free throws. Gylan Dottin had three points, Randy Thompson two, Keith Colvin two and Kelvin Woods one.

But USD Coach Hank Egan still felt his young team was not out of it.

The Toreros shot much better (14 of 28) in the second half, pulling to within nine with 7:38 remaining, but the Gaels pulled away with a 9-2 streak.

Said Egan of the halftime atmosphere in USD’s locker room, “The kids were a little discouraged. But I told them I didn’t think we were playing that badly. We just weren’t shooting well.”

St. Mary’s has a way of doing that to opponents. The Gaels are third in the NCAA in scoring defense (58.2 points), field goal percentage defense (39.7%) and scoring margin (plus 20.1).

USD’s 13 points at the half were the fewest of the season. The previous low was Wednesday when the Toreros trailed St. Mary’s, 32-16, at halftime.

At 14:50 of the second half, USD pulled to within 34-24 on a Woods layup after Bell blocked a Dan Curry shot. After a Danny Means basket, the score was 37-26, but USD missed shots on its next four possessions.

Later, a 6-0 run featuring a Bell slam dunk and two free throws left USD trailing, 41-32. A 9-2 run by St. Mary’s made it 50-34.

Bell finished with game highs in points (17), rebounds (10) and blocks (three). No other Torero had more than seven points.