COLLEGES / AL DROOZ : The Inside Story on Loyola Basketball

Things you probably didn’t know about Loyola Marymount as the Lions open the basketball season:

* This is Jay Hillock’s second stint as a head coach in the West Coast Conference. His record with four modestly talented Gonzaga teams in the early 1980s was 60-50. He was 7-3 against Loyola. The last time he coached against the Lions, his team won, 51-49. Gonzaga led the conference in defense in three of those four seasons. Incidentally, Hillock was 3-5 against Santa Clara, tonight’s season-opening opponent.

* The first name on Terrell Lowery’s birth certificate is Quenton. Tony Walker’s given name is Melvin.

* John O’Connell wears a size-17 shoe.

* Not only is Brian McCloskey the nephew of former Lions scoring star Jim McCloskey (class of 1981) and the son of former Loyola player Richard McCloskey (class of 1965), his brother Sean plays on the USC water polo team and another uncle played college basketball in San Diego.

* Czechoslovakian transfer Richard Petruska lists “The Benny Hill Show” as his favorite TV program.

* Freshman Kareem Washington comes from Lansing, Mich., the same hometown as Magic Johnson’s. His favorite player? Michael Jordan.

* The Lions have a winning streak on every West Coast Conference court except Pepperdine’s Firestone Fieldhouse, where they have lost their last two games. Every team in the WCC will bring a losing record into Gersten Pavilion. St. Mary’s is the only WCC team to win a game there in the last three seasons.

* Most teams consider it an accomplishment to score 100 points. League foe Santa Clara has scored 100 or more 36 times in its history, Portland 27 (five of them losses to Loyola) and Gonzaga 25 (four losses to Loyola). Loyola scored in triple figures 28 times last season and 73 times in the last three seasons. The Lions have scored 150 or more seven times, all under Paul Westhead.

The season has barely begun, but the Cal State Dominguez Hills basketball team has already had its fill of heartbreakers.

Opening on the road, the Toros fell to Grand Canyon, 79-73, after pulling to within two points with two minutes to play. Tuesday night at Biola, they erased a 13-point first-half deficit and took a late lead only to see Biola hit a three-point shot before the buzzer to send the game into overtime. The Toros bowed, 74-72.

They suffered another loss this week when starting center Albert Kiilehua sprained an ankle in practice. He didn’t play Tuesday and may miss two weeks. The Toros are also waiting for mid-December, when transfer Keith Billingslea becomes eligible. Another transfer, Brian Jones, paces the Toros with a 20-point average.

Thus, the Toros take an 0-2 record into their home opener tonight at 8 against Northwestern Iowa, an NAIA team that may not have much name recognition but has produced three 20-win seasons in the last four. It promises to be a high-scoring game; the Raiders have 10 players back from a team that averaged 94 points.

“I felt we would be good enough to beat those two (teams) on the road, and I felt like we made some strides,” Toro Coach Dave Yanai said. “The team is still finding itself, and we saw some things that are correctable. These games are the times you use to learn about some people, especially some of the new ones. I’m very optimistic still. But we had chances to win those two.”

In a preliminary women’s contest, the Lady Toros (2-1) will play Texas Women’s University at 5:45 p.m. The Lady Toros are coming off their first loss, 54-45, Tuesday night at Point Loma. In their two victories they have averaged 94 points.

The Loyola Marymount women’s volleyball team finished the regular season with a three-match sweep in the San Francisco Bay Area to run its record to 18-15. The Lions, who finished third in the West Coast Conference, improved by 10 wins over last year and hope to be asked to the Women’s Invitational Volleyball Championships in Knoxville, Tenn. The WIVC field will be announced Sunday after NCAA Tournament bids go out.

Senior Kerry House was named to the All-West Coast Conference first team for the second year in a row, while Deanna Doolittle made the all-freshman team. House led the conference with a dig average of 5.83 per game and was among kill leaders at 4.2, while Doolittle averaged 3.7 kills. The WCC’s major award winners were Gonzaga’s Lisa Petticord, player of the year; Gonzaga’s Sean Madden and Pepperdine’s Nina Matthies, co-coaches of the year; and Nikki Wallace of San Diego, freshman of the year.

Notes

In its season opener last week, the Dominguez Hills women’s basketball team rang up a 99-51 victory over The Master’s College. Guard Cheri Bullet, a transfer from El Camino College, made a successful college debut, scoring 21 points in 21 minutes. . . . The Lady Toros lost freshman guard Karee Bonde, a probable starter, for an indefinite period when she suffered a broken nose the day before their first game. . . . The Dominguez Hills volleyball team matched its 1989 record of 7-22 but won more than 30 games for the first time in four years. . . . The All-West Coast Conference volleyball team included Pepperdine’s Carolyn Hueth (West Torrance High) on first team and Santa Clara’s Julie Jamile (Torrance High) on second team. . . . Loyola freshman Gina Browne placed 85th in the NCAA cross-country regionals, held in Fresno. The first women to represent Loyola in a regional on the Division I level ran the 5-K race in 20:19. . . . Westchester High senior LeRoi O’Brien, a 6-foot-8 center, signed with the Pepperdine basketball team. Loyola Marymount didn’t sign anyone in the preseason recruiting period.