Torero Defense Gets Loyola Under Control

For the first time in three years, the University of San Diego held Loyola Marymount to less than 100 points.

Consequently, USD defeated the Lions for the first time in three years, 98-90, in front of 2,596 in Gersten Pavilion.

USD, which received big games from several players, snapped a six-game losing streak to Loyola and improved to 9-6, 2-1.

Loyola, which lost for the second consecutive night after routing U.S. International, 186-140, last weekend, fell to 6-10, 0-2. The Lions also fell to 3-3 to end their first and longest home stand this season. They have just five home dates remaining and there is serious doubt as to whether they can defend their West Coast Conference regular-season championship.

USD is in considerably better shape.

Back-to-back victories over Pepperdine and now Loyola--on the road, no less--have put the Toreros in an envious position.

“We needed a win badly,” Egan said. “And to do it back-to-back up here was great.”

And now for the stars of the game:

* Senior forward Anthony Thomas scored his second career-high in as many nights with 25 points. Twenty of those came in the second half, as the Toreros increased a 44-42 lead at halftime to 91-78 with 3 minutes left.

* Senior center Dondi Bell also had a huge second half, scoring nine of the Toreros’ first 11 points, finishing with 15 points and eight rebounds.

* Junior point guard Wayman Strickland, who always seems to do something special against Loyola, contributed 10 second-half points. He finished with 14.

* The senior guard Pat Holbert, the Toreros leading scorer who was benched two games ago and did not start for the second night in a row because of a recent slump, had 13 points.

And then there was Geoff Probst, Friday night’s unlikely hero.

Probst scored seven points and made a team-high six assists--many of them spectacular--in 31 minutes, his longest playing stint of the season.

“Geoff Probst did a heck of a job settling us down against that press,” said Egan, referring to the Lions’ famous full-court defensive technique.

Turnovers also were something on which USD worked. The Toreros had 16 of them in the first half but only seven in the second.

“That’s what we talked about in the locker room,” Thomas said. “If we can hold down the turnovers, we’d be in good shape.”

USD struggled to get untracked in the first few minutes, turning the ball over seven times as the Toreros fell behind, 11-6 at the 15:40 mark and 20-15 at 11:53.

It wasn’t until 15:22 that the Toreros scored their eighth point--Thomas made a layup to end a dry spell of nearly three minutes.

Slowly, USD began to get things going. The furious pace may have affected the Toreros early, but they seemed to become more comfortable with it after about eight minutes.

Trailing, 20-15, Holbert buried a three-pointer from the right baseline and followed that 30 seconds later with a nifty layup in traffic to tie the score, 20-20.

The Toreros trailed most of the half, but got off a nice seven-point run to go ahead, 31-29, with 6:10 left. Bell started the run with a short bank shot. Probst, who scored the final three points in Friday’s 91-88 victory at Pepperdine, made a three-pointer from the right wing. And Holbert put in a layup.

After a Loyola basket, Strickland swished a three-point attempt, Loyola scored again, then Bell slammed off a 15-foot alley-oop pass from Holbert. After Strickland made one of two free throws, USD had its biggest lead of the half, 37-33, with 4:26 left.

The Lions rallied to take a 42-40 lead with 1:30 left, but USD scored the final four points of the half--Bell made two free throws, and Chris Knight was called for goaltending on Kelvin Woods’ layup.

Holbert led a balanced Torero scoring attack with nine points.

Terrell Lowery had 11 points for Loyola and Richard Petruska 10 points and eight rebounds.