Loyola Leaves USD in a Cloud of Dust, 115-75

The young University of San Diego basketball team came apart Friday night for the first time this season, and the timing wasn’t good.

The training wheels fell off early in the first half and the Toreros wobbled to a 115-75 loss to high-flying Loyola Marymount in a West Coast Athletic Conference season opener in front of 3,150 fans in Albert Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles.

USD committed 21 first-half turnovers and trailed, 57-29, at halftime. After that, the only question was whether or not the Lions, the nation’s second-highest scoring team, would be able to match their season average of 106.5 points per game.

Loyola (11-3) reached the 100-point mark with 7:20 to play and went over the 106 mark with four minutes left en route to its eighth-straight victory.

“It all started badly at the beginning and we just couldn’t get it turned around,” USD guard Danny Means said. “We didn’t execute anything and we wound up playing Loyola ball.”

Loyola basketball calls for a full-court pressing defense to force turnovers, and a running offense that pays little attention to the 45-second shot clock.

It hardly mattered that Loyola’s top scorer, center Hank Gathers, didn’t start because he missed a team meeting earlier this week. Gathers entered the game with 9:40 remaining in the first half, but by that time Loyola led, 29-11.

Gathers still finished with a game-high 21 points and Bo Kimble came off the Loyola bench to add 18. Mike Yoest had 17 points and 15 rebounds and Enoch Simmons scored all of his 16 points in the first half, including four three-pointers.

“When we get our defense going well, it can be hard to slow us down,” Loyola Coach Paul Westhead said. “They are young and inexperienced and we were really after them.”

USD (8-6) played without starting point guard Efrem Leonard, who is out with an injured ankle, and starting forward Mike Haupt, who stayed in San Diego because of a death in his family.

Haupt will not play and Leonard is doubtful for tonight’s 7:30 game in Malibu against Pepperdine.

Both players would have helped Friday night, but it is doubtful that either could have helped enough to change the outcome. Loyola, which lost three times to USD last season, seized the momentum early.

“What happened is that the game got busted early,” USD Coach Hank Egan said. “We got antsy and our shots started going up too quick.

“Once we got down big we had to try and play their style in order to get back in the game, but we couldn’t do it. We’re young and this kind of experience can only help us in the long run.”

This was of little solace, however, Friday night. USD finished with a season-high 29 turnovers and a season-low field goal percentage of 38% (30 of 79).

Craig Cottrell, starting in place of Leonard, scored 12 points and John Sayers, Danny Means and Kelvin Means each had 11.

“They looked like they had a lot of young players who hadn’t been together long,” said Yoest, a senior. “Our defense seemed to be able to read what they were doing and we seemed to have an extra step on them.

“But I’ve played against Coach Egan’s teams before and I know they’ll get better as the season goes on. They were fighting an uphill battle in this game and that’s not their style.”