COLLEGES / ALAN DROOZ : They Still Lionize Loyola Despite a Series of KOs

It is open season on the Loyola Marymount men’s basketball team.

December has seen Top 20 teams from sea to shining sea ring up Mike Tyson-style KOs over the outmanned Lions and laugh about it on the sidelines.

UCLA conducted a dunk clinic and won by 51. In Norman, Okla., Billy Tubbs let his shooting guard, Brent Price, try to break the school scoring record.

“I told him to break downcourt every time Loyola shot,” Tubbs said.

Price finished with 56 points and several Sooner starters were still on the floor at the end of a 60-point victory.

Through it all, amazingly, Loyola remains a marquee name, a victim of its enormous success the past three seasons under then-Coach Paul Westhead.

Featuring such standouts as Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Jeff Fryer, the Lions lost a 148-141 overtime thriller to Louisiana State at Baton Rouge, La., last season on national TV.

“I probably got more calls and letters about that game than any I can remember,” LSU Coach Dale Brown said last week. “That was one of the most exciting games of all time.”

Because of that appeal, the now-outmanned Lions are still playing a star-studded, made-for-TV pre-conference schedule, and paying for it.

And people are still coming out to see them on the road, expecting another great shootout.

“They’re not nearly the team they were,” Brown said. “But because they score so many points they’re dangerous.”

The blowouts aren’t sitting well in Westchester, but Coach Jay Hillock and his team met last week to reaffirm their commitment to the running system. Last week they played their best game, playing LSU nearly even in Baton Rouge before losing by eight, then playing a competitive half against Georgia Tech in Atlanta before eventually losing by 41 points to fall to 2-7.

“It seems like some people out there would like to bury us,” said Loyola Athletic Director Brian Quinn, who felt Tubbs poured it on in Oklahoma.

“I’m a little concerned about that. I mean, it isn’t even the same coach here. I was a little emotional after the Oklahoma game but I was reacting as a fan at first. I’m sure people felt like that about us last year. I don’t want to get into a cross-country spat with Oklahoma.”

Quinn said Lion fans need to be forgiving while the 1990-91 team finds the right combinations.

“This is not the team we had last year,” he said. “Everyone needs to be a little patient, the team needs to get its own identity. You just don’t lose players like Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble and Jeff Fryer and Per Stumer. That was 90 points a game.

“That team last year would’ve won with any system. What the (Westhead) system does is put people in the seats. Remember, with the system (Westhead) went 4-10 in conference the year he didn’t have Bo and Hank (1986-87).

“Jay’s a very good coach and we’ve got some good players but they’re kids, and we’re really decimated (with injuries). If everyone can be patient, I think this is still going to be a very good team.”

En Garde: Due to injuries, Hillock is desperate for a backup for scoring leader Terrell Lowery at point guard. The situation is so forlorn that Hillock recently told a reporter, “We’re so thin I’m No. 2 on the depth chart and you’re No. 3.”

U.S. International University has made basketball headlines in recent years by giving up record numbers of points to running teams like Loyola Marymount and Oklahoma. But those setbacks are minor compared to the problem now facing the Gulls: bankruptcy.

The San Diego-based school filed for economic reorganization last week and athletics may be among the casualties. The school’s board of trustees will meet today and could decide to close down athletic programs immediately, putting the Jan. 5 game at Loyola in jeopardy.

The players were on the road last week when they were informed of the bankruptcy moments before a tournament game in Dayton, Ohio. The Gulls (1-10) then were beaten by Murray State, 103-55.

“There were a lot of tears in the locker room (before the game) because they were afraid,” USIU Coach Gary Zarecky said. “These are young men. They’re down.”

Zarecky said he has not been paid in two months, and the only assurances the team got was that scholarships would be honored for the remainder of the school year. Zarecky said he was as shaken as his players when Dayton reporters called the Gulls “a team without a school.”

Zarecky’s team allowed an NCAA-record 181 points by Loyola two seasons ago, and last December Oklahoma scored a best-ever 97 points in a half. But Zarecky said he used those games as motivation.

“I’ve been motivated for six years . . . by all the adversity and negativisms and sneering,” he said. “I’ve been motivated to prove people wrong.”

“Now things are happening that are out of my control. Everybody’s fighting for their lives right now.”

Stat of the Week: Despite the four-game losing streak the Lions took into the week, Loyola has seven players scoring in double figures, led by Terrell Lowery’s 29.4 average. The statistic is misleading, however, because the Lions have never been able to put all seven players in the lineup in the same game. Freshman Kareem Washington, averaging 13.3 points, has missed the past three games with a groin pull and will probably be held out until mid-January, and sophomore Brian McCloskey, scoring 12.3 per game, missed the last two games when tests revealed a stress fracture in his lower back.

Notes

The Cal State Dominguez Hills men’s basketball team (7-4) takes a five-game winning streak into Azusa Pacific (7-5) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Brian Jones leads four Toros averaging double figures with a 14.3 average. Dave Yanai’s team is holding opponents to 63.7 points a game and only 58.2 during the win streak. . . . The Dominguez Hills women, off to their second-best start at 10-2, travel north to play Cal State Hayward on Saturday.

Two former El Camino College football players are appearing in bowl games this week. Defensive end Jeff Cummins (Torrance High) will start for Oregon in Saturday’s Freedom Bowl at Anaheim Stadium, and wide receiver Sean Smith (Leuzinger High) will be in Iowa’s starting lineup in Tuesday’s Rose Bowl. . . . According to the newsletter of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, a basketball player now has a better chance of playing with a team overseas than making an NBA roster. The NBA has 324 players and there are more than 500 Americans playing in 22 foreign countries, with the most in France (110), Italy (73) and Spain (68). The list includes Dominguez Hills graduate Anthony Blackmon, who is playing in Japan.