Lowery Is Latest in Line of Shooting Stars for Lions : Basketball: Junior guard has scored 40 points or more in four of Loyola Marymount’s nine games. He is ranked eighth in the nation in scoring.

Loyola Marymount’s Terrell Lowery likes a challenge, so he drove the lane against Louisiana State’s towering Shaquille O’Neal last week and tried to shoot a high-arcing one-hander over the 7-footer, who swatted the ball but was called for goaltending.

A few minutes later the scene was replayed with the same result, and a grinning Lowery got right in O’Neal’s face to tell him: “You can’t block everything, big man.” Lowery finished with 40 points.

A few days earlier, Lowery had a similar exchange with Oklahoma guard Brent Price, who was on his way to scoring 56 points against the Lions. Price had just converted a steal into a basket and was laughing.

“He was high-fiving everybody and talking kind of cocky, and I told him, ‘Let’s see you do that to me,’ ” Lowery said. He partially offset Price’s performance with 41 points.

The Loyola Marymount junior may have a cocky streak himself, but he needs every edge to maintain the pace he has set this season and the responsibility that has been placed on him by Coach Jay Hillock.

In taking over the bulk of Loyola’s scoring this season, Hillock knew he would have less firepower than recent Loyola teams and was expecting Lowery to pick up some of the scoring slack. The junior out of Oakland has generally answered the bell, scoring 40 points or more in four of Loyola’s nine games and averaging 29.4 points, combining long-range accuracy with a variety of ambidextrous moves around the basket.

In the most recent NCAA statistics, Lowery ranked eighth in the nation in scoring. He is shooting 47.5% from the field and 85.5% from the foul line.

However, Hillock’s and Lowery’s careers have been complicated by a spate of Loyola injuries that has left the Lions with virtually no depth at guard.

Although Hillock originally wanted Lowery to be the Lions’ shooting guard, he has had to be the point guard as well. Before the season, point guard Tony Walker, the returning starter, was lost with a wrist injury. More recently, freshman Greg Evans suffered a leg injury and has missed the past two games.

With the lack of backup at the point position, Lowery has to play nearly every minute, a challenge for anyone in Loyola’s breakneck system. As a sophomore, Lowery averaged about 20 minutes.

Lowery goes into tonight’s game at the University of the Pacific averaging 9.5 assists, placing him in the top five in the country.

“I don’t mind” the double duty, he said. “I was recruited as a point guard. I happen to have a few skills to allow me (to score). We don’t have Bo (Kimble) and Hank (Gathers) and (Jeff) Fryer anymore and I have to score. For us to win I have to score more.

“Any way for my team to win, that’s what I want to do. It hurts without Tony being here. And now (the injury to) Greg Evans puts more pressure on me, I have to play more minutes with teams keying on me.”

That hasn’t slowed Lowery much. After a poor start in which he appeared to be forcing his shots, Hillock told Lowery to think about passing off early in the game, then look to shoot once the defense was distracted. Lowery responded with a 40-point game against Chaminade and has averaged nearly 33 points in the past seven games, with a high of 48 in a victory over Idaho State.

In his consecutive 40-point games against Oklahoma and LSU--both on national television--Lowery made 67% of his shots, including 10 of 16 from three-point range, and still had 21 assists.

“I hate to depend on Terrell for that much every night,” Hillock said.

But Hillock has little choice. When Lowery comes out for a breather, the team invariably has trouble handling the ball. When Lowery’s shooting touch is off, the Lions’ offense sputters despite their 111.9-point average.

His shooting was off Saturday against Georgia Tech, but Lowery still managed to come within a rebound of his first triple-double: 26 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. But the Lions lost and Lowery wasn’t impressed with his box score line.

“I had to do something (besides score),” he said. “I couldn’t hit (bleep).”

As the Lions’ scoring star, coming on the heels of back-to-back national scoring titles by Gathers and Kimble, Lowery has become the focus not only of enemy defenses, but of young autograph hunters at road games. But Lowery’s approach is that reputation doesn’t mean much and that a player is only as good as his last game. That’s why he planned to test even as intimidating a player as O’Neal, the nation’s most dominant big man.

“I don’t put a lot in what I hear,” he said. “I’m the kind of guy, you pretty much have to show me.”

In stumbling to a 2-7 start, the Lions have shown a lot of holes and admittedly have been overwhelmed by a schedule heavy on ranked opponents and light on home games. Lowery said he hopes what the team has learned in its losses can be transferred into victories when West Coast Conference play begins Jan. 11.

LOWERY’S SEASON

Opponent Pts. Assts. Santa Clara 19 7 Northeastern 16 9 Chaminade 40 13 Bradley 22 12 Idaho State 48 9 UCLA 13 4 Oklahoma 41 7 Louisiana State 40 14 Georgia Tech 26 10 Averages 29.4 9.5