Victim No. 49

The Gonzaga Bulldogs used veteran-like performances from several of its younger players Monday night to offset some early rebounding indifference and turn back the University of San Diego 91-82 in a grinder of a West Coast Conference men’s basketball game.

Sophomore Jeremy Pargo and freshman Matt Bouldin each scored 18 points and sophomore Josh Heytvelt added 15 as the Zags (15-7 overall, 6-1 in the WCC) retained sole possession of first place in the WCC standings and upped their nation’s longest home-court winning streak to 49 in front of a vocal sellout crowd of 6,000 at the McCarthey Athletic Center.

The win also lifted GU’s home winning streak against conference opponents to 27, with their last home league loss having come at the hands of USD back on Feb. 19, 2003.

Pargo, a thick-bodied, 6-foot-2 point guard, turned in one of the top efforts of his young career, adding seven assists and six rebounds to his impressive statistics line, while Bouldin, a 6-5 wing who scored 16 points in Saturday’s 72-56 win over San Francisco, continued his torrid shooting by knocking down seven of eight basket tries, including a pair of 3-pointers.

San Diego (13-9, 3-4) got a game-high 23 points from senior guard Ross DeRogatis and outplayed the Bulldogs throughout most of the first half. But down the stretch, the Toreros had no answers for the exuberance – and production – of GU’s youth.

“When those two (Pargo and Bouldin), when they get on like that, they can really make plays off the dribble,” Zags coach Mark Few said of his young guard tandem. “They usually make good decisions whether to move it or score it, and that’s when they’re at their best.

“They both played terrific tonight.”

USD coach Brad Holland liked his team’s effort, but admitted the early foul problems encountered by sophomore point guard Brandon Johnson were difficult to overcome, especially with the way Pargo and Bouldin responded.

“When B.J. got in foul trouble, they did a very good job of taking advantage with their bigger guards, Pargo and Bouldin, and posting him up,” Holland explained. “Jeremy is a special talent. The improvement he’s made from his freshman year has been phenomenal. I thought he was good as freshman, but he’s great as a sophomore.”

And of Bouldin, who also had three assists and couple of rebounds, Holland added, “Coming in, I thought, ‘That’s great. He gets hot against USF, so now he comes into our game confident.’

“But he’s a really good freshman guard, whether he has his confidence or not.”

Despite falling behind 50-39 early in the second half, San Diego refused to go away. The persistent Toreros used back-to-back buckets – one of them a 3-pointer – by Nir Cohen to launch an 11-2 run that tightened things in a hurry.

But GU was able to regain control behind the outside shooting of Downs, who drilled three 3-pointers in a span of 63 seconds. Micah Downs’ three big buckets, coupled with one from Heytvelt down low, put the Zags up 67-59.

“That sure didn’t hurt having him throw in those 3s,” Holland said of Downs, who finished with nine points. “He looks like a Richie Frahm-type out there – tall, with good extension on his shot and, obviously, great range.”

The Bulldogs led 42-34 at halftime, but didn’t really get any meaningful separation until Pargo took the game over for a brief 90-second span about 13 minutes in. With his team holding a 27-25 lead, the sophomore point guard slipped a nice pass inside to Boudin, who scored on an uncontested layin, and on GU’s next possession fed Abdullai Kuso on the low block for another easy bucket.

Pargo then sprinted to the defensive end, came up with a steal and led a run-out break that ended with another nifty assist to senior Sean Mallon, who finished with 11 points.

That 8-2 run ignited the crowd and put the Bulldogs up 35-27 with 4 minutes, 38 seconds left in the half.

GU shot the ball remarkably well in the early going, making 9 of its first 14 shots. But the Toreros managed to hang throughout most of the first half by abusing the Bulldogs on the boards.

At one point, USD had an 8-3 advantage on the boards and eight of their first 11 rebounds came at the offensive end, which was a main reason the Toreros were able to put up 11 more first-half shots than GU.

“They really hurt us,” Few said. “The key to that first half was that we got a nice defensive half going, but we just did not do a good job of blocking out and securing the basketball.

“They had 14 offensive rebounds, which is way too many. If we would have just kind of shored up that end, I think we would have had a nice little cushion at halftime, because our defense was pretty solid.”

Still, the Zags’ 64 percent shooting (16 of 25) was enough to give them the eight-point halftime lead, which could have been a bit bigger had USD’s DeRogatis not thrown in a desperation, off-balance 3-pointer to end the period.

GU gets only a short rest before leaving for Palo Alto on Wednesday to take on Stanford in a non-conference showdown in Maples Pavilion that night.

Around the WCC

Santa Clara 77, Pepperdine 55: At Santa Clara, Calif., Scott Dougherty scored 14 points to lead six players in double figures as the Broncos beat the Waves.

Brody Angley had 12, Joey Kaempf added 11 and Danny Pariseau, John Bryant and Sean Denison each had 10 as Santa Clara (15-7, 5-2 WCC) won its fourth in five games.

Kingsley Costain scored 13 to lead Pepperdine (6-17, 2-5), which had a modest two-game winning streak snapped.

San Francisco 66, Portland 65: At Portland, Alan Wiggins Jr. had 24 points and the Dons held off a furious second-half rally by the Pilots.

San Francisco (8-14, 4-3 WCC) seemed in control when Armondo Surratt hit a layup to give the Dons a 65-52 lead with 4:40 left.

But the Pilots (6-17, 2-5) closed with a 13-1 run, a stretch that included consecutive 3-pointers by seldom-used Parker Emerson.

Portland also got a pair of inside baskets by Jamie Jones, who led the Pilots with 16 points. His final basket cut San Francisco’s lead to 66-62 with 2:10 left. Sherrard Watson then picked up a steal and a dunk to cut the deficit to two with 1:33 remaining.

Saint Mary’s 69, Loyola Marymount 54: At Moraga, Calif., Wayne Hunter scored 15 of his career-high 22 points in the second half to lead the Gaels to a win over the Lions.

Diamon Simpson added 15 points and nine rebounds for Saint Mary’s (13-10, 5-2 WCC), winners of seven of eight.

Matthew Knight and Adoyah Miller had 17 points apiece for Loyola Marymount (9-14, 1-6 WCC), which failed to capitalize on momentum from Saturday’s 74-71 upset win over Santa Clara.