WCC champs
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Derek Raivio couldn’t bear the thought of having another streak go down in flames on his watch.
So the senior guard made it clear to his Gonzaga teammates earlier this week that running down league-leading Santa Clara and extending the Bulldogs’ impressive run of consecutive West Coast Conference regular-season titles needed to be at the top of everyone’s priority list.
And those teammates responded in a big way once again Monday evening, slapping down the University of San Diego 74-64 in front of a sellout crowd of 5,054 in the Jenny Craig Pavilion.
The win, coupled with Pepperdine’s 89-82 overtime upset of Santa Clara, gave the Zags a fifth consecutive outright conference title and extended their streak of having earned at least a share of the crown to seven.
It also gave GU the No. 1 seed and a bye into the semifinals of the WCC tournament, which starts Friday in Portland’s Chiles Center.
“I was thinking how I didn’t want to be the one that had it slip away while I was here,” Raivio said. “So I let everyone know what was on the line, and they stepped up big.”
Sophomore shooting guard Micah Downs threw in a career-high 20 points, sophomore guard Jeremy Pargo added 15 and the Bulldogs (21-10 overall, 11-3 in the WCC) got major contributions from several others as they used an 18-5 second-half run to put away the Toreros (16-13, 6-8) in the regular-season finale for both teams.
Afterward, coach Mark Few called this year’s conference championship “the most satisfying we’ve every won – by far.”
And with good reason, considering all the Zags have been through in recent weeks, with the suspension of leading rebounding Josh Heytvelt, a rash of injuries and a second-bout with the flu bug that slowed both Raivio and freshman guard Matt Bouldin on Monday.
“There’s not much left in the cupboard,” Few admitted, “but what’s left is a bunch of heart, character and just great kids who are real battlers.
“To be down (in the league) with three games to go, or whatever, and win this thing again was a great accomplishment, and we can never lose sight of that. The general public does and our fans sometimes do, but our players and our staff don’t.
“This means a lot.”
With Raivio and Bouldin, who threw up on the bench during the game, stricken by the flu and senior forward Sean Mallon fighting a bad ankle and hard knock to the head that he suffered early in the game, Downs was asked to pick up the scoring slack – which he was more than happy to do.
The Kansas transfer made 8 of 10 basket tries, pulled down six rebounds and scored 13 of his points during GU’s decisive second-half run.
“It was all falling for me tonight,” Downs said. “My guys were finding me and I was being real aggressive, because my team needed me to play that way.”
The Bulldogs also got 11 points and six rebounds from junior forward David Pendergraft, nine points and eight big rebounds from Abdullahi Kuso and some productive minutes from junior guard Pierre Marie Altidor-Cespedes, who came out of his recent funk, to finish with six points, four rebounds and three assists.
The only real problem the Zags had was the way they staggered into intermission, giving away a 13-point first-half lead by letting the Toreros lose on a 15-2 run to close the opening period.
USD’s Ross DeRogatis, who finished with a game-high 22 points, scored 11 of them during the Toreros’ big run, but was limited to just five points in the second half.
“The group that came in and really helped us was the one with Micah and Pierre,” Few said. “They got in there and each made a lot of plays and got us off on that run.
“We kind of had some brain lapses and lost DeRogatis a few times, and he’s so good that when you lose him – even for a second – he makes you pay. And he made us pay big time.”
Few said he did his best to get that message across to his team during a stern halftime lecture.
“Coach really fired us up in the locker room tonight – especially at half,” Downs said. “He got on our butts a little bit, and we needed it, because we were kind of slacking there at the end of the half.”
When asked how he felt about helping Raivio and Mallon – the two seniors who suffered the indignity of having GU’s 50-game home-court winning streak end on their watch – earn one last WCC title, Downs said:
“It feels great. Now I hope we can win a couple more during my career here.”
Elsewhere in the WCC
Pepperdine 89, Santa Clara 82 (OT) : At Malibu, Calif., Chase Griffin scored a career-best 34 points, including eight in overtime, to lift the Waves (9-22, 4-10 WCC) to an upset win that cost the Broncos (20-9, 10-4) a share of the WCC regular-season championship.
Griffin, who scored three 3-pointers, shot 11 of 16 from the field. Kingsley Costain had 12 points, all on 3-pointers, and Shane Griffin added 10 for the Waves.
John Bryant had a career-best 26 points and 13 rebounds for Santa Clara. Scott Dougherty scored 16 points, all in the second half, while Sean Denison and Danny Pariseau added 15 points apiece for the Broncos.
San Francisco 70, Portland 67: At San Francisco, Alan Wiggins had 14 points and a career-high 14 rebounds and Manny Quezada made five free throws in the final 36 seconds to lead the Dons (13-7, 8-6) get past the Pilots (8-22, 4-10).
Wiggins, who moved into 22nd place on the Dons’ career-scoring list, had just six points in the first half but came on strong in the second half to post his eighth double-double of the season and help the Dons avoid an upset at home.
Sherrard Watson scored a career-high 27 points for the Pilots, who fell to 1-13 on the road this season under first-year coach Eric Reveno.
Saint Mary’s 63, Loyola Marymount 47: At Los Angeles, Diamon Simpson scored 17 points and had 12 rebounds to lead the Gaels (16-14, 8-6) past the Lions (13-17, 5-9).
Saint Mary’s (16-14, 8-6 West Coast) finished the regular season in third place and will draw a first-round bye in the conference tournament Friday. The Lions finished sixth and will play Portland in the opening round of the tournament.