Feb. 23, 2002
Final Stats
Los Angeles, CA -- The Loyola Marymount University men's basketball team fell to the University of San Diego 87-71 in the final regular season game of West Coast Conference play on Saturday night at Gersten Pavilion.
With the win the Toreros improve to 15-12 overall and 7-7 in the WCC, fifth in the conference standings. LMU drops its 11th straight and falls to 9-19 overall and 2-12 in the WCC. They are tied for seventh with Portland in the WCC standings. The Lions earned the seventh seed in the tournament by winning the coin toss tiebreaker. However, it was a tough win for the Lions, who will face Gonzaga in the first round, which begins on Saturday, March 2 in San Diego at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. Gonzaga lost their coin toss, giving Pepperdine the number one seed in the tournament and the Bulldogs, ranked seventh in the country, the number two seed.
"We have been telling our players that it is a second season," said Head Coach Steve Aggers. "Everyone heads into the tournament at 0-0 and it is a one-game series, not a seven-game series. Anyone in this league can step-up and play a great game and upset someone. We aren't going to beat Gonzaga in a seven-game series, but someone might get hot and we make a couple of plays in a one-game series and you never know. We will keep fighting with a high spirit, prepare with the best of our abilities and fight until the end."
San Diego will play San Francisco, whom tied with Santa Clara for third in the WCC but lost the coin toss to earn the number four seed. Other first round match-ups are Pepperdine taking on Portland and Santa Clara playing Saint Mary's. Times will be announced late Saturday night.
The Toreros held the Lions to just one field goal in the final 7:58 of the first half to pull away. The only field goal in that stretch would come with :37 seconds left in the half on a three-pointer by sophomore Kent Dennis. The Toreros would go into the half with a 12-point lead, 33-21.
USD would stretch the lead to 20 at the 10:18 mark of the second half. The Toreros were led by the two-man attack of Andre Laws and Jason Blair, who combined for 54 of the Toreros 87 points. Laws led USD with 32 points and Blair added 22 points with 10 rebounds. Sam Adamo would add 11 points for the Toreros.
"Laws really killed us tonight," said Aggers. "We couldn't stop his dribble penetration and he really played well. Losing Robert (Davis) to an ankle injury really hurt us tonight. He is our best perimeter player defensively and we missed his intensity tonight."
The Lions would cut the lead to 11 on a three-pointer by freshman Andy Osborn with 3:46 remaining in the game. Osborn had 12 of his 14 points in the second half.
Both teams would shake off slow starts in the first half, which saw the teams shoot just 39 percent from the field, to finish with an explosive second half. The Lions would score 50 points in the second frame and finish the game shooting 48 percent (54 percent in the second half), their highest in the past 11 games. However, San Diego was equal to the task, scoring 54-second half points on 77-percent shooting. They finish 55 percent from the field for the game.
Senior Philipp Czernin, one of six LMU seniors playing in their final home game, led the Lions with 17 points, equaling a career-high he set last year against Cal State Fullerton. He was 7-for-8 from the field with five assists. Senior Greg Lakey added 10 points and six boards.
