News Scrapbook 1984

San Di ego, CA (San Diego Co.) San Diego Un ion (Cir. D. 217,324) (Cir. S. 339.788) 1 Jlll.r11 '• P. C. B

i . Jl . T • ~<.J Pov. 7 Tough WCAC RacePredicted

By DAVE DISTEL, Tames St.aff Writer

fa t. 1888 / Egan -must replace Whitmarsh for USD to repeat miracle By Brian Brown:1-!(,t/:( his best team won 16 games in 1975• Siarr '\\nter 76 - but consider the handicap he What happens to Cinderella after was working under. Because tall peo- she marries the prince? pie don't fit mto cockpits, Egan That's where the storybook fantasy wasn't allowed to recruit players ends. They all lived happily ever over 6-foot-8. That would be like ask- after, which is also where we left ing a football coach to confine his Coach Jim Brovelli and the Universj- team to players under 200 pounds. ty of San Diego basketbfo team after "It was not that drastic," said the 'l'oteros staged the Miracle of Al· Egan of the restriction. "There are cala Park in March, long before the ways to compensate for size. I was Padres staged the Miracle of Mission always worried about quickness. Valley in October. There's no compensation for lack of In a gritty, magical late-season quickness." charge, the Toreros took their last Egan sees quickness on this USO six games - all of them against team, and he can also look up and West Coast Athletic Conference op- find three players 6-8 or taller and ponents - to earn the WCAC title, seven 6-6 or more. The tallest of the the first since the school stepped up bunch was one of the key figures in to Division I by joining the league for last season's success, 6·11 sophomore the 1979-80 season. center Scott Thompson. Unlike storybook fantasies, real After Thompson joined the start• Cinderella tales go on after the de- ing lmeup for g90d, the Toreros were nouement. Five days after winning 14·6. He avt'I' ged 7.1 points per the league crown on March 8, USO game, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks - lost to Princeton 65-56 in the first totals that made him the choice as round of the NCAA tournament. the WCAC Freshman of the Year. Shortly thereafter, the school lost "I think he has tremendous under- WCAC Coach of the Year Brovelli, standing of the game of basketball," who was chosen to lead the revital- said Egan. "And he's an awfully good 1zation of the basketball program at passer. Most of the time, you throw his alma mater. the Umversity of the ball to the 1ow post to score. But San Francisco. (Scandals involving not onlv can he score, he can also the program prompted the Dons to find the open man on a pass. '

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Standings do not tell the who!e tory in the West Coast Athletic Conf rence. Win and losses are supposed to be the most truthful of statistics, but the 1983-8-4 WCAC standings bowed champion USD with a two-game advantage over sec- ond-place finishers Santa Clara and St. Mary's. USO was 9-3 and the others were 7-5. However, nothing came easily in the WCAC. USD had to beat St. Mary's in the seuon finale to avoid a playoff for the championship. And that was only part of the story. Exactly 50% of WCAC games were decided by four pomts or less. Gonzaga, tied for fourth at 6-6. had eight of Its games decided by three points or less. And it figures to be more of the same this year. "You never know in this league," said Carroll Wilhams, Santa Clara's head coach. "It's a crazy league because it's so well-balanced. You've got to get lucky and wm the close games if you're going to wm the championship. That's what San Diego did last year." USO, m fact, was 5-1 In games decided by two points or less. Santa Ciara 1S probably the fa- vorite this time around, mainly because of the presence of 7-2, 255-pound center Nick Vanos and 6-3 guard Harold Keeling. Vanos and Keeling might be called typical WCAC players "Neither one of those kids were highly recruited," Williams said, "but I think they'll both go high m the NBA draft." The WCAC is known as a coach's league, and Williams is the dean of WCAC coaches. He has been at Santa Clara for 15 years. The others· Jack Avina at Portland, 14 years: Jim Barrick at Pepperdine and 8111 Oates at St. Mary's, 5 years: r-::d Goorj1an at Loyola-Marymount, 4 y ars, and Jay Hillock at Gonza- ga, 3 years. . Indeed, the only new face this year is USD's Hank Egan. a 13- year veteran as the Air Force Academy coach. "The coaches in this conference are not people who are flamboyant or well-known nationally," Egan said, "but they're well-respected by their peers." The WCAC itself is not well-known nationally, at least not smce the glory days of the Univer• sity of San Francisco. It is anot~er of those western conferences ig- nored by folks back east. Egan, of course, is making the switch from the Western Athletic Conference to the WCAC. "From top to bottom," he said, "the WCAC is better than the WAC."

The San Uiego Union/James Sk?vmand US!U's Mario Coronado (left) tries to slap away the ball from teammate Scott Thompson.

surprise last season, partly as the re• suit of a weight program between sophomore and junior year that beefed his 6-7 frame up to 210 pounds. Reuss was the best shooter in the WCAC with a .553 percentage and shot .619 overall in 28 games. "He's a very, very strong player," said Egan. "A good offensive reboun- der, quick to the ball. He can go in- side to score '' Guard Bostic (10.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg) was voted the team's best defensive player and got honorable men ion in the All-WCAC selections. "A very good athlete, a good com• bination of speed and size," said Egan of the 6-4. 190-pound senior Guard Carr (5.8 ppg, 52 assists) will be expected to lead the charge when it comes time for the team to run. "A good-range shooter, and awful• ly quick," said Egan. The last position in the starting lineup could be called the Whitmarsh spot. Egan is thinking of usmg a com- bination of players to platoon there. The roach has two squads in mind.

His small, quick team JPiebt in two transfer from Mesa Community College in Arizona, 6-1 guard Kiki J ck on, who scored 14.1 points a game last season, or 6-4 guard Peter Murphy. The bigger team could in- clude 6-8 sophomore forward Steve Krallman, 6-7 sophomore forward Nils Madden or 6-4 junior forward James Knight, a transfer from John- son County Community College in Kansas. "We've got some speed, we have some depth," said Egan. "But there • are questions no one can answer now. 'Will we find a pace that's com- fortable? "Will we come together? "Will the ball bounce right?" Right now, Egan is tired of prac- tice, practice, practice. He anxiously awaits the start of the season with a simple philosophy. "I don't want to score a lot of points or a few points," he said. "I ju~t want to score more points then the other team." .Z"

suspend basketball following

the

The Toreros will have to find a way to replace the production from three key players who have depart- ed. Forward Mike Whitmarsh (18.8 ppg, first-team WCAC. team MVP) and guard John Prunty (5.0 ppg) have graduated; guard John Moscatel (6.2 ppg) transferred to the University of "No one can replace Whitmarsh," said Egan who also knows he must Of the returning starters, three are ~emors: Reuss. Bostic and Carr. As Egan puts it, "They've been through Forward Reuss (11.9 ppg, 6.5 re- bounds per game) was an unexpected find someone who can. the wars.'

1981-82 season.)

Brovelli has left a tangible legacy to new coach Hank Egan Eight play- ers from last years 18-10 team are back, and four of them - Chris Carr, Mark Bostic, Scott Thompson and

Anthony Reuss

were starters.

Part of the Brovelli legacy is in• Washmgton. tangible, tQO. Increased expectations. E-gan 1s not shrmking from the challenge of The Season After Cin•

derella, which opens tomorrow at the USO Sports Center against Missouri "I expect to win them all," he said. Egan wasn't able to do that in 18 years at the Air Force Academy - Baptist.

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El Cajon, CA (San Diego Co.) Dally Californian (D . 100,271)

NOV 2 9 1984

Thursday No\·ember 29, 1984

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) Union

Jl/len '• P. c. B

hr. 1888

USD: Toreros nip Ren?t Continued from E-11..,"( that season-opening 97-89 victory The Wolfpack's full-court press forced USO into 12 errors in the first half, and Reno sprinted to a 37-32 halftime lead behmd the outside shooting of marksman guard Curtis High, who finished with a game high 37 points on 13-for-19 shooting. 'Tm not sure why we reacted so poorly to the press in the first half," said Egan 'It was panic. I think we might have been a little in awe of Reno for what they did to Las Vegas. "But we made ome adjustments at halftime and they seemed to help. • In the second half, USO turned the ball over only once against the con- stant Reno pressure The key was Jack on, one of the key additions to the cast that gave USO its first West Coast AthletJc Conference title last year 'K1ki settlel:i us down and gave us poise and pace agamst Reno's pres- ure," said Eg n. Jackson al o gave USD one ingred- ient lacking on last year's team - . leady firepower from the point guard. He hit his la~t four hot and fin- i h d with 22 points one le ·s than Reuss' team-high 23. r had the shot going, so I kept !mn Jackson said. "I was either going to miss or pull them out of their tacked d fense outside" mcc he didn I miss Reno came out and Jack on hen pa ed the hall ins1d to 6-foot-11 Scott Thompson and t~e 6-7 Reu s

Toreros ~)<. urpnse !:H~.!r~.~~- doing all the dirty work. He would score double-digit totals, and pull down about ~l~.1 • rebounds a game for the UnlversltY. of &·::i Diego, but the spot- light was usually left shining on teammate and friend Mite Whitmarsh. Well, Whitm;irsh is now in the stands watchtng the team be led to its first-ever Wl!st Coast Athletio Confe reqce title and NCAA Division I tournament berth. Gradu- ation claimed Whitmarsh. It is nqw Reuss' tum to shjne mostly in that spotlight. Wednesday night in the Toreros' gym Reuss, who was 'selected the team's most improved player last season , scored a team-high 23 ·points and hit a couple of 1 clutch free throws down the stretch as the Universitv o( San .QiP.go beat highly-re- garded Nevada•Ren~ 80-75 before a crowd of 2,175. • Reuss was bac~ed by a 22-point per• fonnance from jurtiot college transfer Kiki Jacbon . This was the same Wolfpack team that disposed of llth-rapked Nevada-Las Vegas e1• five days earlier, : "This is a very gopd win,' 1 said first-year Torero basketball coach Hank Egan. You bet it is. University of San Diego, which finished 18-10 a year'ago, is. now 2--0. It hosts Saq Joie St.ate Monday at 7:30. The Toreros take oo crosstown rival San Diego State one week from tonight at the Sports Arena , Reuss, who earned all-WCAC honors. a year aso with Whitmarsh to become -the second Torero player ever to make the all- league team (Whitmarsp was the first) . is a tri-<:aptain this year. He showed his leader- ship Wednesday night. The &-foot-7 forward out of Christian High bit his last five shots t

(D. 21 7,324) (S. 339,788) Z

f.)84

J Uf~rr 's P. C. B

I ,r 1888

owe by Reno By~;£ Staff Writer The winning basketball tradition at the ~ersity of San Diego isn't very long, but it seems to be fairly strong. Pressed to the point of panic in the first half and down by nine points with 13 minutes to play, the Toreros rallied last night to defeat potent Ne- vada-Reno 80-75 before 2,175 specta- tors at the USO Sports Center. "We've got a little tradition now that we didn't have at this time a year ago and it makes a difference," forward Anthony Reuss said after hitting his last five shots to lead the USO rally with transfer point guard Kiki Jackson. "I thought we came through in this game," said first-year USO coach Hank Egan. "This is a very good win." On Friday, the Wolfpack outran and outgunned a Nevada-Las Vegas team ranked 11th in preseason polls. Reno started out last night's game as though it was f°ing to duplicate See USO o_, Page E-6

USD's·chris Carr tries to stop Reno guard Curtis High. Thompson d,dn't score for the

"In the first half I was very con- cerned," said Egan, who called three timeouts (in addition to two radio timeouts) during a 10-minute span that. saw Reno outscore USO 25·10 en reoute to a 29-18 advantage. "I thought the game was slipping away from us. If it's going away from me, I'll do anything I can to reverse the trend. Once (at the Air Force Academy) I used all five of my timeouts in the first half." Alter the third timeout, USD mounted a rally to get to within five points at intermission, then settled itself down at halftime. USO hit 17 of 30 field goal at- tempts in the second half. The Toreros are off until they host San Jose State next Monday night On Dec. 6, they play crosstown rival San Diego State in the Sports Arena.

game's first 28 minutes. Then he hit two baskets in a 19-second span to bring the 2-0 Toreros to 49-44. Reuss then took charge, scoring on two inside power moves, a 10-foot jumper and a rebound basket to force USO into a 58-57 lead with 5:53 to play When Reno's defense dropped back ' in on lop of Reuss and Thompson, Jacksc 1canned three straight jump- ers from the top of the key to push the margin to 66-62. Reno then played on USD's Achilles' heel of 1983-84 free throws. The Wolfpack foule to re- gam posse ion but USO ca, ~ed 12 of 15 free throw tnei d wn the stretch, mcluding eight str 1bht in the final 39 seconds after Reno had crept to w1thm 74 73.