News Scrapbook 1985

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San Diego, CA (San Diego Ca.) Evening Tribune lCir. D. 127,454) ffB 1 98 Jlll~" '• P. C. 8

I tr I 8S8 oreros drop a game they probably should have won B M 1 ~"1 a~ goals (28-24) than their opponents. That figure might have been even Until then, USD looked nothing like the club that lost opening confer- Tr,bun portswnter more lopsided if not for several easy breakaway baskets by the Gaels. ence games to Pepperdine and Gonzaga. The Toreros played well defen- They had been b at n before, . o this was really nothmg new They had • In rebounds, USD outboarded its opponent 26 to 19. And St. Mary's sively, worked for good percentage shots, and even managed a 49-45 lead v n looked downri ht pitiful at times along the way. But this particular came into action this week leading the conference with a 6.9-plus re- on Carr's layup with 11:38 remaining. g m wa d1ff •rent from the re t, much different. bounding margin. But the biggest difference was that they didn't let things get out of Wh t thcJ.!.SDba k th 1 team did 1 t mght was imply lose one on its "It was our best effort all year," said Torero guard Kik.i Jackson, who hand in the early going. And they easily could have when St. Mary's took home floor·1tprobably hould hav won And about the only thing that finished with 13 points - 11 in the opening 20 minutes - to tie Chris Carr a seven-point lead late in the first half. mad th lat t d tsion h rd r to digest is that 1t m1 ht well have been for team-high honors. "We played hard, we played together, we played On previous occasions, the Toreros had lost their composure during the Toreros' all-aroun performance of the season well most of the game. We just didn't get the wm." that stretch going into the lockerroom. Against the Gaels, they cut the The final ore a t ' 75, USD 65. It was the Toreros' third loss So where did the Toreros get beat? In two areas - at the free-throw deficit to two and it was anyone's game from that point. 111 four W AC gam nd. i conf rcnce leader Peppcrd10e having won line and by the press. . "What it came down to was that a few breaks didn't go our way," said It fourth in five, only placed the defending champs in that much more of St. Mary's ended up hitting on 27 of 31 free throws, while USD attempt- Carr, who is hitting 50 percent of his shots from the field in conference ho! . ed just 11 all night. Gael center David Cooke, who was 15 of 18 last- play after struggling badly beforehand. "Last year, that was the kind of "No doubt th1 was an important game for us," said USO coach Hank Saturday against Pepperdine, connected on all seven of his tries. That game we pulled out. If two teams are playing hard, one will usually get Egan, wbos team slipped to 12-7 overall "The way we're playing, they was two Jess than the entire Torero team managed. the breaks it takes to win." arc all important. I'm really not sure tf three lo · put you out of the The press, which has given USD problems all season long, contributed St. Mary's was led by Bryan Shaw's 16 points and Cooke's 15. The Gaels r Probably not. But ven if it did, we'd still come out Saturday partly to 18 turnovers. But the killer was a series of mistakes during the improved their conference mark to 3-1 - 11-8 overall to remain in a (again t Sant Clara) and play our tails off." middle stages of the second half led to three straight slams by St. Mary's second-place tie with Santa Clara and Gonzaga. Egan c rtamly couldn't have n too di pleased with the effort he got within a 57-second stretch. The Gaels took a 55-51 lead and never trailed Where this leaves the Toreros, of course, remams to be seen. About all I t mght. And for wh tever it' worth, one might even contend that the from there. that is known is that it doesn't look promising. USD bas already lost as Tor ros d rv d a bctt r fat against the Gael . Afew obvious notes on 'We were up by two points and then turned it over three times against many WCAC games as it did all last year and, with eight left to play, th fmal t t h t would help support such a claim. their press - a press we were handling pretty well," satd Egan. "I don't would almost have to go unbeaten the rest of the way. Con id r th t: understand it. That killed us. We're just not the kind of club that can lmpossible? • USD bot a izzling 62 percent from the floor for the game - explode back. We have to execute every time down the floor." "I don't think so," said Carr. "We're playing our best ball of the year mcluding an impr ive 15 of 22 sho In the first half. St. ,fary's finished "It was that one stretch - those three straight dunks," added Carr. right now and I think the conference is balanced enough that people will t 51 percent. "And dunks are the sort of thing that gets you fired up. They are a be knocking each other off. So that's definitely in our favor. We just have • Not urprismgly, the Toreros actually ended up with four more field confidence builder. Until then, we were right there." to start beating people ourselves."

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Palo Alto, CA (Santa Clar• Co.) Penlnaula llmea•Trlbune (Cir. D. 82,873)

FEB 2 - 1985

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a t Clara's foe tonight has faced high expectations

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t d t f m though he had to cope with a multitude of bu1lt-m disadvantages. "Sure, it's possible to win there," be a ~·t People think the fact we can't get "We've progressed well individually, but said "I never thOught for a minute that it that too much was expec e oo soon ro . . . this group ·

Co st basketball cognoscenti by winning the WCAC championship in only their fifth The championship and the Toreros' 18-10 overall record earned coach Jim Brovelli · · ·

The Toreros still have Anthony Reuss,

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sea on as an NCAA Division I member. with a 12-pomt sconng average, and 6-foot-

11 sophomore center Scott Thompson, a not collectively,'' Egan said, "and that's

skillful all-around. play~~ whose. floor ~igskids in was the main problem, but that the recognition many of his peers felt was awareness and passing ab~llty are s1m1lar where, and we're still at the stage of estab- wasn't even a factor. The academic stand- long overdue It also lifted what had been to those of Santa Clara s Nie~ Vanos, lishing our relationship. ards are higher than most schools, the a largely anonymous program into the whom Thompson must guard tonight: . "Basically, Jim and I agree in substance k'1ds have to make a five-year commitment forefront of tile sports scene here Still. 1t woul have been a rebu1ldmg on the way to run a program, but he's th A' F ,, · · f USD 'f B ell bad stayed more reserved than I am. Our personal to e 1r orce. Since then, B~ove)h has d~parted to take year or even I rov I . . E n however never was bothered by the head coachmg Job_at ~IS alma. mater, The Toreros are 12-7 overall,_owing mostly styles are different, and the kids had to get the rbstacles· in f~ct, he says they parallel San Francisco, when it reinstates its pro- to a weak nonconference schedul~, but used to th at." the standards Ile attempts to set for his gram next season. Mike Whitmarsh, the are only 1-3 in 'CAC play after Jos1~g to Egan came to USD from the Air Force ram He is a disci le of Indiana coach best player In the program's history. was St Mary's here, 7 5-~S. on Thu rsd ay mght. tec:~e:i~t~~:;ea!1 ;::s~~d ~a![t~: f~! ~~gby K~ight who refommended him for graduated, and Mark Bo ·tic, who would (Santa Clara, which defeated Loyola USD ·ob ~nd while he is not as animal- have been the team's floor leader, suf- Marymount. on Th_ursday night, 91-70, be- Western Athletic Conference. Egan was ~e or vofauie as Knight he runs his pro- !ered a fractured ankle before tile start of hind Vanos 44 points, 1s _14-6 ov;rall_ and the head coach at Air Force for 13 years, . h th , the season and was redshlrted. 3-1 in the conference.) It 1s Egans opm100 and kept his program compelitive even gram in muc e same way. really a concern. There's newness every-

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D . San ieg ' l5an Diego Ca.I Evening Tribune lCir . o. 127,45.41 0

*Torero~--------------:---------1 co:i!~"''tf~ -1

FEB 2 1985

"He's big, strong and he's got a nice soft touch from inside" said Thompson of Vanos "He's very good funda- menblly . , . very good on the boards. But I'm looking forward to playing him. I just seem to play better against guys my own size." . Thompson wasn't kidding. The sophomo:e from C1~rus Heights has had difficulty all year matching up aga!nst smaller qwcker lineups. Earlier in the season agamst San Diego State's 6-10 Leonard Allen, for i!15tance he led both tea!Il9 in scoring (16) and. reboundmg (10). Allen finished with just six points and 11ve rebounds. . Another.J>I:oblem is that Thompson was a relatively unkno quality a93und the WCAC la.st season. Now op- posing tearrls' repeatedly have been throwmg tight zone defenses at him in an attempt to deny him the ~all. What he's become is a marked man, something Vanos has learned to grow accustomed to. "Once you go around the league once or twice, you get a reputation," said Vanos. "And once you get a reputa- tion, people are going to know what you can do and_how to stop'you; I thi~ that's what ~dtt must be exp~r~~nc- ing this year. You Just have to find a way around It. plisbed. _One, of course, is to beat the Toreros tonight; another IS to capture the WCAC championship. The Bron- cos couldn't do either last season. "Actually, I haven't thought much about it," said Vanos. "But I'm sure when the time comes, revenge will be on everyone's mind. You have to remember they're not the same team they were a year ago. They're missing guys like (~ke) Whitmarsh and {John) Prunty. We just have to go m there and play a solid game." One thing's certain - Vanos personally never has had much trouble getting ready for USD. In last ear's two losses, he combined for 39 points and 30 rebounds. Little doubt Vanos has more of a future playing the game than he does recruiting.

~st;''. v'i'no5 wasn't all thal convincing. Thompson signed witb..iisn shortly after, has had his moments ever s ce, and Vanos has proceeded to obliterate (he rest of theWCAC. . · h The two will find themselves on opposite sides tom~ t when ,the Toreros {l-3) take on the Broncos (3-1) begin- ning' at 7:30 'at the USD Sports Center. And if you r_e ex~~g a battle underneath between a couple of g1- a,:i that's exactly what it should boil down to. Io one corner will be the 7-foot-2, 260-pound Vanos, who was so ghl ded that he . ic pa ed in last spr' 's Olympic rials. In the ot~er will be the 6-foot-11, 24 pound Thompson, who was simply voted the confer- ence's Freshman of the Year last season. May the best big man win. • "I think Scott probably had a little better freshman year than I bad," Vanos said yesterday from Los Ange- le$ where the Broncos defeated Loyola Marymount 91-70 Thursday night to improve their record to 14-6 ove~all. "From what I saw, he played pretty well. He certamly held his own against us." Suffice to say, Vanos has managed. In Santa Clara's four conference games, be had 20 points ana 19 rebounds a ainst Gonzaga, 21 points and 13 rebounds against Port- land. 20 points and 13 rebounds against Pl!pperdine, and i _coming off a 44-point, 13-rebound effort against the Lions. Entering this week's action, Vanos was third in the conference in scoring average (16.2), first in rebounds (10.8) third in field goal percentage (.533) and third in blocked shots (1.9). The senior from San Mateo is the Wost Coast's most dominant big man and been pro- Jected as a certain firs round pick in this yeAr's NBA draft. But first, there are most pressing goals to be accom-

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SCOTT THOMPSON

NICK Vil ·os

Stopling Vanos USD's mission By Mfcnl~J anepa n ·

ut. because he himBelf had two years of eligibility re- mamln_g, Vanos' ch,mces weren't very good from the I actual1y consicfererJ going there," said Thompson rec ntly, 'but I really dJdn't want to be in bis shadow I kn w I wouldn't gel to play very much right away ~I- though h~ tried to ti ill_ me that we might be able to play together m the sami! h neup I just didn't think that would have worked out too well. Then or now." begmnmg

Tribune Sportswriter C O 1 It R

J'O WII

ome might believe the

most d1ff1cult as ignment pr ented

to Nick

Vanos two ye

a o probably wa n't gu rdmg a

c rtam player or ttacking a particular defense. It might well have been hlS efforts to help lure Scott Thompson to wa already a star center for the Bronco b ketball team and Thomp on wa considered one of the state' mo t promising prep center pro pects. S nta Clara Really. Back th n, Van

Pl ase see TORERQf B-7