LMU Has Shot at NCAAs

This is a strange kind of March madness, and Loyola Marymount is loving it.

The West Coast Conference tournament format tries to protect the league’s top two seeded teams by giving them byes into the semifinals.

Now Loyola Marymount is one crazy upset from making the NCAA tournament even though the Lions have a 12-17 record and lost their last four regular-season games.

After a 66-63 semifinal victory over St. Mary’s on Sunday in McCarthey Athletic Center, all the second-seeded Lions have to do to make the NCAA field is upset the No. 5-ranked Bulldogs on their home court tonight.

Maybe that’s not so easy, but when Gonzaga visited Loyola Marymount last month, the Lions had a 10-point first-half lead, only to watch Adam Morrison take the game in his hands with a career-high 44-point performance.

“We’re going to put seven guys on him tomorrow,” Loyola Marymount Coach Rodney Tention said.

Loyola Marymount hadn’t won since, and Tention said it was because the Lions hadn’t learned how to win.

They nearly demonstrated it Sunday, when they almost let a 12-point second-half lead slip away in the final seconds with missed free throws and one final gaffe.

With Loyola Marymount leading by four with nine seconds left, John Haywood fouled St. Mary’s Wayne Hunter on a three-point attempt.

The shot didn’t fall, and Hunter helped save Haywood by making only the first of three free throws, and the Lions held on.

“I’ve always told ‘em, if you’re going to make a mistake, make sure you go hard. Luckily he fouled him pretty hard and it didn’t go in,” Tention said.