Loyola Beats Gonzaga With Rally

It did not take long for Loyola Marymount to go from a team hanging its head to one pumping its fist Friday night.

Outplayed for most of the game, the Lions rallied from a 13-point deficit in the final 4:20 to pull out a 95-92 West Coast Conference victory over Gonzaga before 2,431 at Gersten Pavilion.

Senior guard Tony Walker scored the winning basket with 18 seconds left, giving Loyola a 93-92 lead, after junior forward Rahim Harris stole the ball on a botched inbounds play by Gonzaga, which did not score a field goal in the final three minutes.

The victory kept alive Loyola’s chances of securing the third seeding for the WCC tournament. The Lions, 14-12 overall and 7-6 in the WCC, need a victory over Portland and a Pepperdine victory over Gonzaga (18-8, 8-5) tonight to move up to third in the standings, meaning they would not have to play WCC champion Pepperdine before the final round of the tournament.

The Lions appeared headed for their third consecutive loss after Gonzaga took an 84-71 lead with 4:27 left on two free throws by point guard Geoff Goss.

Loyola finally got going behind senior guard Terrell Lowery, who scored 16 of his team’s final 24 points and finished with a game-high 34. Included in Lowery’s late heroics was a three-point shot that he banked in from about 23 feet.

After Walker’s basket, Goss missed a shot in the lane with five seconds left, with Lowery rebounding the ball and hitting two free throws with two seconds left to secure the victory.

Gonzaga center Jeff Brown, a 6-foot-9, 235-pound sophomore, led his team with 29 points on 12-for-14 shooting.