LOS ANGELES – LMU men's basketball has advanced to the second round of the WCC Tournament and after knocking out the #9-seed Pacific, will face the #5-seed BYU. The Lions and Cougars will play the second-round matchup from Orleans Arena at 6:00 PM on Friday.
 
The Lions won on Thursday night after a milestone game by senior Joe Quintana. The sharpshooter hit a WCC Tournament record-tying eight threes and finished with a career-best 31 points. Quintana joins Terrell Lowery (34 points), Hank Gathers (33 points, 31 points, and 30 points) and Sherman Gay (30 points) as the only Lions to hit the 30-mark in the WCC Tournament. For his career in the WCC Tournament, Quintana has hit 13 threes and is now only behind LMU greats Jeff Fryer (21 threes) and Bo Kimble (16 threes) on the program's career tournament list.

For the second straight game, Quintana was joined by Scott in the box score with the senior pair each scoring at least 20 points in the last two outings. Scott has put together some stellar tournament games over his career including 117 career points, 63 career rebounds, and 25 career assists in eight WCC Tournament games. Those numbers rank fifth, third, and third in school history. Scott is also chasing the 2,000-point career milestone, which would make him just the sixth Lion to reach that mark. Scott enters Friday's game at 1,978 career points.
 
The Lions will look to knock off BYU for the first time in the WCC Championships, having previously matched up against the Cougars in 2014 and 2017. Both of those games were in the quarterfinal round. BYU took the season series from LMU in 2022 with two regular season wins. The first battle went into overtime and was decided by a single point.

Head Coach Stan Johnson will look to win two games in the tournament for the first time in his career after opening with a win over San Francisco in his first season in charge of the program in 2020-21.
 
The game will tip at 6:00 PM from the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. For those not in attendance for the tournament, the game will be broadcasted on NBC Sports California, ROOT Sports NW, and BYUtv and streamed on WCC Network.