Nov. 21, 2005
Box Score
Los Angeles, CA (Nov. 21) - The Loyola Marymount men's basketball team could not answer the hot touch by Montana as they fall to the Grizzlies, 81-75, at Gersten Pavilion on Monday night. Montana finished the game hitting 54 percent while the Lions shot just 37 percent in the home opener for the Lions.
Junior Brandon Worthy led all scorers with 26 points and Matthew Knight managed 18 despite going a mere 4-for-12 from the field as LMU falls to 1-1. Montana improved to 1-1. Kevin Criswell led the Grizzlies with 24 and Andrew Strait added 19.
"I don't know if we rested on what we did Friday or what," said Head Coach Rodney Tention. " We just weren't good tonight. They played into their strengths and we didn't make the adjustments. We gave up way too much dribble pentration that resulted in easy baskets."
Montana finished 27-for-50 from the field, including Strait's 8-for-8 performance. The Lions went 23-for-61 from the field and 7-for-18 from the three-point line.
Trailing by six to nine points for the last of the first half and start of the second the Lions started to chip away at the lead and cut it to a pair, 39-37, when Wardrop hit a lay-up in transition after an Ayer block. He was fouled on the play and hit the free throw to make it 39-38 with 16:38 remaining.
Worhty gave the Lions their first lead of the second and first since going up 5-0 to start the game when he put back an offensive rebound from a Dustin Brown to make it 40-39.
The teams traded leads back-and-forth before Montana took a four-point lead, 59-55, on a three-pointer by Kevin Criswell, with 8:54 remaining. The Grizzlies stretched the lead on a pair of free throws by Jordan Hasquet with 7:58 remaining, making it 61-56. On the night Montana finished 23-of-26 from the charity stripe to ice the game.
Jon Ziri's second three of the game cut it to 63-61 with 6:04 but the Grizzlies answered when Criswell stretched it back to four, 65-61 with another pair of free throws. Andrew Strait made it 67-61 with a putback with 4:45 remaining. They pushed the lead to eight, 70-62, that made the game just out of reach for the Lions as they got no closer than four, 74-70, with 32 seconds. The Grizzlies came through hitting 6-for-6 at the stripe in the final 30 seconds to put it away.
Shooting woes in the first half sent LMU down 35-26 at the break. The Lions ended the first half shooting just 26.7 percent, hitting just 8-for-30 from the field while Montana finished the first frame hitting 14-for-27 for 52 percent.
The only answer in the first half for the Lions was Worthy with 13 points on 5-for-10 shooting. No other Lion had more than four points in the first half as the teams combined for 23 turnovers.
The Lions head to Seattle to take on Washington on Nov. 25 at 3:30 p.m. It will be televised on Fox Sports Net West 2.
- GO LIONS -
