Loyola Marymount men's basketball earned an 84-68 win over Portland Saturday to extended its start in WCC play to 3-0, equalling its conference win total of a year ago. With the victory, it sets up a surprising showdown in WCC play when the only two undefeated teams in the WCC do battle as LMU visits Gonzaga on ESPN's Big Monday match-up at 9:00 p.m. LMU, off to their best conference start since 1990 when they went 13-1 in the WCC, will go against a Gonzaga team ranked sixth in the nation and riding a 31-game home winning streak after a 102-73 over Pepperdine on Saturday. The game will also be live on Lions' All-Access through KXLU 88.9 FM and LMULions.com.
Line-up changes: Daryl Pegram did not dress for the first time this season due to soreness in his knee against Northern Colorado and did not dress against USD and USF. Also not on the trip to end the year was Adoyah Miller, who continues to be out of the line-up with a shoulder strain. Corey Counts, who was expected to earn more playing time, did not play after breaking his jaw when he was intentionally fouled against Northern Colorado. All three did not make the trip to the Pacific Northwest. In addition, Vitor Boccardo, in his second season from Brazil, has left the team to tend to family matters back in Rio de Janiero. He had played 16 minutes in five games this season.
THE MATCH-UP
LMU has played Gonzaga well over the past several seasons, upsetting the Bulldogs in 2003 and then falling on the final play of the game in Los Angeles a year ago. Gonzaga holds a 44-19 edge in the series, winning the last four overall, 20 of the last 21 and the Lions have not won in Spokane since the 1991 season, a span of 15 games.
RECORD BOOK
Wes Wardrop, the fourth-year player from Anaheim leads the team with 74 assists, just four shy of his single season record of 78 he set as a freshman. He added four to his total against Portland and has cracked the top-10 list in LMU history. He now has 262 in his career replacing Tom Peabody for 10th all-time in career assists. Floyd Hooper (1977-78) is ninth with 264. Wardrop also leads the team with 39 three-pointers on the year, snapping his personal single season mark of 35 he set last year. He has 119 in his career at LMU, hitting five against Portland, and is now tied with Charles Brown is seventh with 119. Senior Chris Ayer had four blocks against South Alabama, his second four-block game of the early season. With 17 blocks on the season, Ayer has made a major jump in the LMU record books. He entered the season tied for fifth all-time with 72 career blocks. He has moved to fourth all-time with 89 and needs 3 to tie Ime Odouk for third. The all-time record is held by Sherman Gay with 144.
DOUBLE-DOUBLES
The double-doubles by both Matthew Knight (22 points & 10 rebounds) and Chris Ayer (15 & 10) in the win over BYU in the season opener was the first time the Lions had teammates do it in the same game since Haywood Eaddy (21 pts, 10 assists) and Elton Mashack (17 pts, 11 reb) did it against San Francisco on Jan. 15, 1999. Ayer and Knight teamed up to do it again in the win over USF on Jan. 9 as Knight went for 22 points and 15 rebounds while Ayer went for 17 and 10. The two games with multiple players earning a double-double is the first time Lion teammates have done so since Ime Odouk and Wyking Jones did it in the 1994-95 season. Odouk and Jones did it on Jan. 20, 1995 against San Francisco (Jones - 10 pts, 11 reb.; Odouk - 15 pts, 12 reb.) and then on Feb. 10, 1994 against Portland (Jones - 18 pts, 10 reb.; Odouk - 18 pts, 10 reb.).
KNIGHT IN AND OUT
With his double-double against Portland on Jan. 14, Matthew Knight has earned two in WCC play, eight overall this season and 10 in his career. The eight in one season is the most since Ime Odouk in 1995-96 and 1994-95 and Wyking Jones in 1993-94. Knight's 10 is tied for 14th all-time in LMU history with Jones. During non-conference, Knight rattled off four straight double-doubles against South Alabama, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara, and Montana, as he averaged 21.8 points and 13.3 rebounds in those four games. He became the first player in 11 seasons to claim four consecutive double-doubles. Wyking Jones last did it from Jan. 10, 1994 through Jan. 20, 1994. He is just the sixth player in LMU history to have a consecutive game stretch of four or more, joining a list that includes Jim Haderlein, Steve Smith, Hank Gathers, Brad Dean, and Jones. All five finished in the top-25 all-time in LMU scoring. Knight is currently seventh in the WCC in scoring with 16.4 points per game and leads the league in rebounding with 9.4 per game. In WCC play he is averaging 22.0 points and 11.7 rebounds per contest. He is also fifth in overall in field goal percentage (55.0), first in offensive rebounds (3.44), first in defensive rebounds (5.88), 12th in steals (1.23) and eighth in blocked shots (14).
30 AND 15
Matthew Knight scored 32 points with 18 rebounds against Long Beach State. The performance ranks as one of LMU's all-time best performances. He becomes just the seventh player in LMU history to score 30 or more points with 15 or more rebounds. After going just 4-for-13 from the field with nine points and six rebounds in the first half, he exploded in the second, going 9-for-12 with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Last season he was the first player since Ime Oduok in 1994 to have back-to-back double-double games. And he joins the Oduok as the last player to do back-to-back double-doubles in consecutive seasons. Jim Haderlein (Feb. 21, 1969 to Jan. 28, 1970) and Steve Smith (Jan. 4, 1972 to Dec. 4, 1972) hold the record with 20 consecutive games with a double-double.
WORK HORSE
Senior Wes Wardrop is proving to be the leader the Lions hoped he would be as he has become the Lions' workhorse, averaging 35.9 minutes per game, including a career-best 48 minutes against USF Monday. Wardrop has exploded in conference play as he has jumped his average more than three points the last four games thanks to 19 against San Diego State and San Diego and 18 against San Francisco and 25 against Portland. He is second on the team with 13.8 points per game in all games and in the three WCC games he is averaging 20.7 ppg. He set his career high earlier this season with 25 points against South Alabama and then equalled it with his perfect effort against Portland. He is first on the team with 74 assists and second with 22 steals. He was the first WCC Player of the Week of the 2005-06 season for his performance in guiding the Lions to an 83-71 win at BYU in their season opener. He finished with 19 points, four rebounds, four assists, and three steals. He is ranked 15th in the WCC in scoring, fourth in assists (4.38 apg), 11th in steals (1.31 spg), 15th in free throw percentage (75.5%), and fifth in three-pointers made per game (2.12).
AYER TIME
Like his four-year teammate, senior Chris Ayer just keeps adding to his record-breaking season. For the first time in his high school and college career, Ayer delivered the game winner at the buzzer against San Diego, hitting his 17th point on the game. With 17 more against San Francisco, he has moved his averaged to 10 points per game this season, the first time he has ever averaged double-digits in his collegiate career. This season he has had his first 20-point games of his career, including a career-best 22 against Northern Colorado and 21 against Western Michigan. Ayer is 24th in the WCC in scoring (10.1 ppg), seventh with 1.0 blocks per game, eighth in shooting percentage from the field (50.4), and seventh with 6.1 rebounds per game.
THE COACHES' POLL
According to the coaches of the West Coast Conference, Loyola Marymount University men's basketball has been picked to finish in the top half of the WCC standings this season. The coaches have the Lions taking fourth in the 2005-06 season, and if the Lions under first year head coach Rodney Tention hold true to the coaches' thinking, it will be the best finish in 10 seasons. The Lions earned 40 points in the annual coaches poll and round out the top half of the eight-team conference. Both LMU and Gonzaga return the most experienced squads in the WCC. Both the Bulldogs and Lions return four starters, the most among any team in the WCC. LMU will return 12 letterwinners for coach Tention, who takes over the Lions' program after eight seasons as an assistant with Arizona.
THE WCC CONNECTION
The new coaching staff for the LMU men's basketball team is no stranger to the West Coast Conference. Head Coach Rodney Tention has the strongest ties, graduating from San Francisco in 1988 after a three-year playing career. Tention averaged 10.5 points and 4.3 rebounds during his time at USF, playing for Jim Brovelli, who recently served as an assistant with the Denver Nuggets. The ties do not stop there. Tention played his freshman season at the Air Force Academy, spending a season under Head Coach Hank Egan, who was a one-time WCC coach. The staff joining Tention this season as assistants, Brian Priebe, Calvin Byrd and Steve Wachs, also have ties to the WCC. Priebe's ties come as the only holdover from last year's staff. He enters his sixth season in the league. Byrd joins to the program after four seasons with Pacific. Before his time with the Tigers, Byrd spent two seasons (1999-2001) as an assistant at USF. Wachs is a 1996 graduate of Loyola Marymount, spending four seasons as a student manager and one seasons the director of basketball operations under John Olive.
WELL EARNED
Redshirt junior John Montgomery walked-on to the Lions' squad his first three seasons and as he entered his fourth year with LMU he was rewarded with a scholarship. He has lived up to coach Rodney Tention's decision, proving big off the depleted bench for the Lions. In the last five games of non-conference for the Lions', Montgomery averaged nearly 24 minutes a game, nearly triple his average of his first two seasons (6.9 per game). In that stretch he has averaged 5.4 points, 1.8 rebounds and 12 assists. His career average entering the season was 1.1 ppg, 0.6 rpg, and 22 total assists in two seasons.
INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR
The Lions' roster for 2005-06 is one of international flavor, featuring four players with international roots. Making up bulk of them are the three Australians, Damian Martin, Matthew Knight and Marko Deric. All three come from Australia's Institute for Sport (AIS), earning valuable experience and getting plug into the country's national program. Both Knight and Martin played with the Under-18 team that won the World Cup and played this past year with the Under-21 team. Deric's roots go beyond Perth, Australia, where he grew. His family migrated from Serbia when he was a child. Also joining the Lions' roster is Adoyah Miller, who grew-up in Verona, Italy. Miller was born in New York but spent more than 15 years of his childhood before moving back to the United States in 1998 to begin high school in Boston.
HISTORICAL THREE
Since the three-point field goal was introduced in the 1986-87 season, Loyola Marymount men's basketball has had just one game where they have not had a three-pointer. In the 568 games the Lions have played since the three-point line was instituted, the Lions have hit three-pointers in 566 of them. The only "miss" came on Dec. 19, 1995 when the Lions went 0-for-6 in an 82-80 win over Hawaii. That game snapped a 271 consecutive three-pointer streak for the Lions. They currently have made a three-pointer in 296 straight games heading into the game against Gonzaga.
WORKING OVERTIME
LMU improved to 1-1 in overtime games this season with an 84-75 win in double overtime against San Francisco. LMU is 24-38 in overtime games with the first overtime game coming in the 1926-27 season against California Christian College, a 16-14 win for the Lions. As for double overtime, the Lions improved to 7-1. The longest game in LMU history was a five-overtime affair against Fresno State in 1957. The Lions lost 92-90.
GERSTEN PAVILION
LMU has won three straight in Gersten Pavilion and are 4-3 at home this season. The Lions finished the 2003-04 season with a record of 8-6, which was the best record at home since the 1998-99 season when they went 9-5. Opening on Jan. 15, 1981, the men's basketball team has set many records, including several national NCAA records. More memorable moments in Gersten's history include the Lions' 16-game winning streak from Feb. 28, 1987 through Nov. 28, 1988. Gersten is also the home of the all-time NCAA Division I highest scoring game, a 186-140 win by the Lions over US International on Jan. 5, 1991. The Lions are now 179-147 all-time in Gersten.
NEWEST ADDITIONS
Loyola Marymount University men's basketball added a pair of California high school All-CIF performers during the early signing period in November. Terron Sutton (6-9, 230, F, Price High School) and Brad Sweezy (6-6, 195, F, Ocean View High School) signed National Letters of Intent to attend LMU starting in the fall of 2006, LMU Head Coach Rodney Tention announced on Wednesday. Sutton will come to LMU after playing four seasons at Price High School, helping the team to three straight CIF Championships heading into his senior season. In his junior season he exploded into a role of team leader, earning first-team All-CIF and first-team all-league. Like Sutton, Sweezy earned All-CIF honors and first-team all-league honors while playing at Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach, Calif. Sutton became a full time starter as a junior and averaged eight points and nine rebounds per contest. His career-best just happen to be in the title game, as he earned a double-double with 12 points and 11 boards. Price enters the 2005-06 season with Sutton as a senior captain. In 2004-05, Ocean View High School finished the season 15-8 overall and 9-3 in the Golden West league as Sweezy earned All-CIF Division III-AA and All-Golden West League honors. He averaged 15 points and eight rebounds per game. Sweezy finished his junior season with 16 games in double figures, including a career-high 26 in the final game of the season against Artesia High School. His previous high was 19 points as he was the leading scorer in a 57-43 win over Costa Mesa. As a sophomore Sweezy helped the team to a perfect 11-0 record in league play and a 21-6 overall in 2003-04.
TAKING ON THE RANKED
Following the Portland win, the Lions will head to Spokane to take on sixth-ranked Gonzaga on Monday, Jan. 16 at 9 p.m. The game will be featured on ESPN Big Monday. It is the second ranked team the Lions have faced this season (#25 Washington on Nov. 25). It will be the 85th time LMU will play a ranked opponent in school history. The last win for the Lions against a ranked team was in the 1990 NCAA Tournament when LMU defeated No. 23 Alabama 62-60 to advanced to the Elite Eight. They have played 24 ranked opponents since then, including four in the 2004-05 season.
- GO LIONS -