A WCC stunner

LOS ANGELES – Loyola Marymount shook up the West Coast Conference title race in a big way Monday night, stunning league-leading Gonzaga 67-61 in front of a national television audience and a small, but vocal crowd of 3,815 at Gertsen Pavilion.

The Lions (11-14 overall, 3-6 in the WCC), who were expected to challenge GU for the regular-season title prior to losing senior guard Brandon Worthy to a knee injury early in the year, played, on this night, like the team they were supposed to be.

Even without Worthy, a two-time All-WCC performer, Loyola Marymount was able to match the Bulldogs (17-8, 7-2) on both ends of the court, dropping them into a first-place tie with Santa Clara in the league standings.

The Lions got 21 points from Adoyah Miller, 13 from Matthew Knight and a season-high 12 from John Montgomery, who teamed with Miller to knock down several key free throws in the final minute to hold off the Zags.

“This is maybe the best feeling we’ve had since we’ve been here,” second-year LMU coach Rodney Tention said following his team’s upset victory. “To beat a great team like them takes a total team effort, and that’s what we had tonight.”

Gonzaga, which was plagued once again by untimely turnovers and its inability to generate easy baskets off the break, got 18 points from Josh Heytvelt and 16 from Jeremy Pargo, who also had his team-high five assists tempered by six turnovers. Derek Raivio added 11 points for the Zags, but didn’t find much in the way of good looks against LMU’s aggressive, smothering defense.

Tention felt controlling GU’s break and locating Raivio on every possession were the key to his team’s success.

“Our No. 1 priority was transition defense,” Tention explained. “They are so good in transition and get you on your heels that we made an unbelievable effort in practice and this game to make sure we got back, knew who we were guarding and found Derek.

“Without a doubt, he’s one of the best shooters in the country, and we just couldn’t let him get any looks.”

GU coach Mark Few agreed with Tention’s assessment.

“We didn’t get a good push out of the backcourt and didn’t really generate any kind of transition,” he said. “Part of that was maybe not getting consistent stops on defense, but our guards could never back them up enough.

“And then we couldn’t find Josh enough. He was starting to go to work, but we didn’t have a great enough conviction to find him – particularly those perimeter players.”

Heytvelt looked at times to be the answer to LMU’s defensive pressure, but ended up with only 12 shot attempts.

“They did a nice job all around,” Few said of the Lions. “They pretty much outtoughed us all night on every possession.”

Following a poorly played, but evenly contested first half, GU and the Lions matched baskets throughout much of the second half, as well.

The Bulldogs seemed ready to take the game over when Pargo set up an easy bucket for David Pendergraft and then knocked down a pair of 3-pointers on his own. But LMU answered everything the Zags threw its way, thanks to some solid, aggressive work on the defensive end.

The game featured 17 lead changes, with the last one coming when Miller hit a pair of free throws to put the Lions up 58-57 with 3 minutes, 2 seconds remaining. LMU then scored the rest of its point from the foul line, while Gonzaga was able to score on only two of its last six possessions.

LMU outplayed the Zags throughout much of a ratty first half that ended with both teams sitting on 32 points. And the Lions were able to match GU almost bucket for bucket during a rare 20-minute stretch when Knight, their leading scorer and rebounder, wasn’t very productive.

Knight, a 6-8 senior forward, who came in averaging 17 points and 8.3 rebounds, made only three of eight first-half field goal tries and finished with just six points and three rebounds.

LMU’s big gun was Miller, who finished the period with 14 points on 3-of-3 shooting from 3-point range. Heytvelt had 10 first-half points for GU, which shot 40.7 percent (11 of 27) following another slow start.

Neither team was able to accomplish much on the offensive end early. Gonzaga made only two of its first eight shots, while LMU started a mere 3 of 12 from the field. And precious few of those early misses were the result of great defense.

Of the Bulldogs’ seven first-half turnovers, two were the result of offensive fouls and three of the others were relatively unforced. But the Lions still managed to score seven points off GU’s miscues.

GU, with only one more WCC road trip remaining, returns home to play Saint Mary’s at 5 p.m. Saturday, with a chance to avenge what had been its only conference loss of the year prior to Monday.