COLLEGES : Loyola’s Gathers Cries Foul Over Foul

An amusing sidelight to Loyola Marymount’s basketball game at the University of San Francisco last weekend came when Lions star Hank Gathers accused USF and Coach Jim Brovelli of intentionally trying to injure him.

Early in the game, Gathers took an elbow to the face. Even though a foul was called, Gathers was so incensed he had trouble calming down, barking at the referees that the foul was intentional and accusing one referee of allowing the USF players to use dirty tactics. Coach Paul Westhead had to remove Gathers from the game to let him regain his composure.

After the game, Gathers said it was the most physical game he had ever played in, and accused Brovelli of sending waves of less-talented players at him to try to injure him. “I’m a player with NBA possibilities, and they’re messing with my future,” Gathers, who plays center, said after the game. Gathers had a sub-par performance, with no rebounds in the first half and only three in the game.

The three players who primarily covered Gathers--James Bell, John Glavan and Jeff Green--combined for 10 fouls in 34 minutes.

The curious thing was that the game didn’t look more physical than normal to observers, and the muscular Gathers is the West Coast Conference’s most dominant physical player, the self-proclaimed “strongest man in America.” Neither Westhead nor Brovelli thought play was unduly physical, and Brovelli laughingly noted that Gathers is the most physical player in the conference and should be able to take some of what he dishes out.

Certainly, players such as Louisiana State’s Shaquille O’Neal and Stanley Roberts and Xavier’s Tyrone Hill and Derek Strong presented more physical front lines than USF--but in Gathers’ view, they didn’t cross the line into dirty play or go out of their way to hurt him.

The kicker: These teams could meet again in early March in the WCC Tournament. Don King may want to be on hand for that one.

Milestones: Hank Gathers was presented the game ball early in Wednesday’s contest against Pepperdine when he broke the West Coast Conference record for scoring in conference games. He had entered the night tied with USF’s Bill Cartwright at 1,065 points. Gathers now has 1,094 points in WCC games--in three seasons, whereas Cartwright played four--and has 2,599 points in his career, good for 17th place on the all-time NCAA list. He needs seven points to move past Joe Dumars and 30 to pass Michael Brooks into 15th place.

With his season-high 40 points Wednesday (he scored 42 last season against DePaul), Jeff Fryer moved past Jim Haderlein into fourth place on the Loyola career scoring list with 1,735 points. Next on the list is Keith Smith at 1,980. Fryer is averaging 30.7 points in the last three games and shooting 63% from three-point range, hitting 17 of 27 triples in that stretch. He also had seven rebounds Wednesday, five of them on offense.

Bo Kimble, who continues to lead the country in scoring, averaging 35.7 points, now has 2,076 points in his career and 857 points this season. If he maintains a scoring pace of about 30 points per game, he would join Gathers as the 13th collegian in NCAA history to score 1,000 points in a season.

Lions Coach Paul Westhead’s next victory will be his 100th at Loyola. In his fifth season, Westhead is 99-46 and has recorded three straight 20-win seasons.

Dee-fense: As of Jan 2, the Cal State Dominguez Hills men’s basketball team was allowing more than 70 points per game, something a Dave Yanai-coached team has never done. Since then, the Toros have given up only 60.7 points per game. And in 10 California Collegiate Athletic Assn. games, the Toros are No. 1 in defense, allowing 61 points per game.

Stat of the Week: Loyola Marymount has raised its season scoring average to 125.1 points, a pace that would break its own year-old NCAA record (112.5) by more than 12 points. Loyola could average 50 points the rest of the way and still break the record by more than a point.

College Notes:

Loyola sophomore forward Nicole Taylor scored a career-high 22 points Tuesday in a 75-64 victory over Pepperdine. She hit nine of 16 shots, all four free throws and added seven rebounds. . . . In a victory over Cal State Northridge, Dominguez Hills center Khyra Anderson got 15 rebounds and two blocked shots. The next night the Lady Toros defeated Cal State Los Angeles, hitting a season-high seven three-pointers. . . . The Dominguez Hills golf team, ranked 20th in Division II, ran its dual record to 3-1 with a victory over Loyola Marymount on Monday. The Toros defeated UC San Diego, 380-381, last weekend with Jeff Manare carding a 73. . . . The 15th-ranked Loyola men’s volleyball team, which has been off since Feb. 7, returns to action Sunday at Stanford. The Lions are 1-5. . . . Dan Melendez, South Bay high school baseball player of the year at St. Bernard last spring, is off to a fast start at Pepperdine. Going into this weekend’s series at Loyola, the freshman ranks among the West Coast Conference’s leading hitters, batting .444 with two doubles, two homers and eight runs batted in after eight games. . . . Former Aviation and Redondo High and El Camino College basketball star Roland H’Orvath is serving as graduate assistant coach at Santa Clara, where he played for two seasons.