Loyola Pulls Off Big Upset

Loyola Marymount gave Coach John Olive quite a present on his 42nd birthday, rallying from a 16-point, first-half deficit to upset top-seeded Santa Clara, 70-61, in the first round of the West Coast Conference tournament Saturday night at Loyola.

“I’ve been telling this team all year that they’re special,” an emotional Olive said after the game. “They never give up.”

Loyola, the WCC’s last-place team, will play co-champion St. Mary’s at 5:30 tonight in the semifinals. In the second game, San Francisco meets San Diego at about 7:45.

Center Kenny Hotopp and point guard Jim Williamson each scored 24 points to lead the Lions (7-20), who limited co-champion Santa Clara (16-11) to 33.8% shooting and took the lead for good with 16 unanswered points to open the second half.

It was the fourth consecutive year that Santa Clara lost in the first round of the tournament, the last three as the top-seeded team. Loyola beat the Broncos in 1995 and Pepperdine upset them last year, both times at Santa Clara.

“This is the way our league has been this year,” Santa Clara Coach Dick Davey said. “You never know from game to game who’s going to win.”

Santa Clara took a 21-5 lead and was ahead, 25-10, when the Broncos were assessed a technical foul because one of their players, Chris Gomes, was wearing a different jersey number than the one listed in the scorebook. Loyola responded with a 15-2 run and trailed, 34-29, at halftime.

Davey downplayed the importance of the mix-up.

“If we can’t recover from a couple of free throws and a basket, we don’t deserve to be in the second round,” he said. “Things happen in games.”

However, no one expected Santa Clara to fall apart after halftime.

Five minutes into the second half, Loyola had a 45-34 lead as Hotopp scored eight points and Williamson made two three-point shots during a 16-0 stretch. Hotopp, who made 10 of 14 shots and had 14 rebounds, scored two of his points during the run when a shot that went through the bottom of the rim and back through was ruled a basket by officials.

“I didn’t design it,” Hotopp said. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

Loyola extended its advantage to 51-37 before Santa Clara rallied to pull within 55-52 on a basket by Lloyd Price, who finished with 15 points, with 4:24 left.

That’s when Williamson took over. The 5-foot-10 senior hit two free throws and scored on a drive through the lane to make it 59-52, and his three-point basket with 1:37 left made it 64-53. The three-pointer came after Ben Ammerman stole the ball in the backcourt and made two free throws after he was intentionally fouled by Santa Clara’s Craig Johnson.

“He keeps me speechless,” Olive said of Williamson, a two-time all-conference selection. “I have the utmost confidence and faith in him.”

Williamson blamed overzealousness for the Lions’ slow start.

“We were really fired up,” he said. “Our emotional level was almost too high. Finally we were able to calm ourselves down and get into a groove.”

Santa Clara guard Marlon Garnett, the WCC player of the year, made only two of 16 shots and finished with eight points.

San Francisco 78, Portland 66--Center Hakeem Ward, a junior transfer from Ventura College, scored a career-best 30 points on 13-for-16 shooting and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Dons (15-12) to their fourth consecutive victory and their first in tournament play since 1994.

“I felt I couldn’t be stopped,” said Ward, who scored 22 points in the second half when San Francisco made 16 of 22 shots and led by as many as 16.

Ward said he had trouble sleeping the night before playing in his first WCC tournament.

“I was tossing and turning,” he said. “It meant more to me because we have a chance to go to the NCAA tournament.”

Portland (9-18), last year’s tournament champion, ended the season with its seventh consecutive loss. .

San Diego 64, Gonzaga 59--Reserve forward Brian Miles scored 19 points, including five of six free throws in the last 10.2 seconds after Gonzaga had pulled to within 59-57, to help the Toreros (17-10) hold on for their sixth consecutive victory.

Guard Lorenzo Rollins scored 26 points for the Bulldogs (15-12) in their final game under Coach Dan Fitzgerald.