Bench Gets Into the Act in USD Win : Basketball: Toreros roll to 90-63 victory over Division II Cal State Hayward.

Cal State Hayward didn’t provide quite the walk in Alcala Park that some expected, but the University of San Diego got what it wanted from its Division II foe Wednesday--a 90-63 victory and a chance to clear the bench.

The Toreros (4-3) scheduled Hayward with the idea of getting a home victory after a tough road trip. The Pioneers (1-6) put up a fight for about 25 minutes, but USD pulled away over the final 15 minutes and Coach Hank Egan got to juggle a series of lineups and play his entire bench.

All 11 players on the USD roster scored, led by Reed Watson’s 16 points and 13 apiece by Joe Temple and Gylan Dottin. Watson and Temple were part of a productive bench effort.

It served its purpose.

“Yes it did,” Egan said. “The purpose was to get a win--and hopefully use some people. We’re not clicking on all cylinders. We’re still struggling. It’s hard for us to play this game, and we played in a businesslike way--in the second half especially, we got after it, we played with more purpose. I thought it was over early in the second half. That’s when we played our best defense, by far.”

The Toreros shot 52% for the game and forced 22 Hayward turnovers.

Despite an inconsistent half, the Toreros’ superior height and depth helped USD take a 46-34 halftime lead, with Watson getting 10 points and Kelvin Woods nine of his 11. However, Hayward shot 61% in the half to stay within range.

With eight minutes left in the half both of Hayward’s big men were in foul trouble, and by the end of the half three Hayward starters had three fouls.

The Toreros still had trouble pulling away. They were only up 23-20 when 6-foot-9 Hayward center David Williams picked up his third foul with 8:05 left. A few seconds later, forward Derrick Ford drew his third personal.

USD went on a 14-6 burst to take a 37-26 lead and maintained the double-figure margin to the break.

The Toreros opened the second half with an 8-3 run, quickly building a 54-37 lead. Hayward answered with eight consecutive points to pull to within nine, but it proved to be the Pioneers’ last real threat.

Williams fouled out with 11:39 to play and the Toreros steadily pulled away. Temple’s free throw gave USD a 20-point lead at 67-47 with 10:16 to play and Egan used the bench liberally the rest of the way.

Forward David Barksdale led the visitors with 13 points. Mark Lawrence out of Morse High and Chris Ortiz from Kearny High each added nine.

The second half was enlivened by Temple’s best spurt of the season, with the 6-foot-4 sophomore throwing down three impressive dunks including a 360 on a breakaway that finally got the crowd of 878 involved.

“That’s fun to watch, isn’t it, when a guy gets up that high,” Watson said. “He’s the best athlete I’ve ever been around in my career.”

Egan speaks more cautiously of the explosive Temple. “We’re just trying to get Joe Temple baptized to the subtleties of this game because obviously he’s got physical talent,” Egan said. “When a guy’s a good athlete everybody always says he never reached his potential. Potential--that’s a dangerous word.”

Despite its crowd-pleasing aspect, Temple took some heat for his 360-degree dunk from the coaching staff, which didn’t want to show up the Pioneers. “I didn’t do it as an embarrassment, I want to make that clear,” Temple said. “It was something I just thought about when I was going down there. It wasn’t meant to be a humiliation to them.”

Except for the dunks, the game was finished in workmanlike fashion. “We worked hard on trying to execute,” Egan said. “We set some things up instead of taking the first shot. That’s the way this team has to play.

“We thought we’d have ‘em outmanned, and we did, but they played very tough and made us work, which is good for us.”

Said Watson, “That’s one of the toughest kind of games to get motivated (for). I think the effort was there, it just was hard to focus. All in all we had a good effort.”