News Scrapbook 1984

San Diego, CA (Son Diego Co.) Evening Tribune (Cir. D 127,454)

San Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) Union

.JI.II~"'• P. C. B ht 1888 / USD center proved his point fP Despite the loss, Thompson tossed in 16 By Michari-~anepa --- TnbuM Sportswriter HERF. W httle consolation

(D. 217,324) (S. 339,788)

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ne ekwood ontrary to Don~f.ierhng's ego, the Clippers did not take ba ketball to Los Angeles v.1th them The ame I alive and well al the Sports Arena more live tnan evt.nl of those seasons the Clippers leepv.alkcd through. at any rate. San Diego S a e and the qniversity of~n Diego de rated that la ·t night before a lively turnout of 5 0 t watche,J the Aztrcs make off with a hard earn d :i, 3 victory o~cr their crosstown rivals. Yes >kC) Games, cros ·town rivals. T an Diego tale coach has tended to play do_wn IS comp I I n over the years pointing out that little of th pop e e med stirred by it and neither team appeare profit by the annual game beat them five years ma row and we didn't get to the NCAA tournament five year in a row, o I'd have to sa our eonfcrence games re more important · runs one of Smokey's favorite rationales But he was weakening last night fter an enthusiast c 1f not terribly artistic contest that had the largest er wd in the history of the SPnes on its feet more ofte than not. If all the games were like this cnr, and 1f we starting gl tmg more crowds hkc ti • one and keep" going up t 00 then Id ~ay 1 v. s a real nvalry, Game,; allowct. I will d) these were probably the best two teams who have pla) cd m the hi tory of this series. "We beat a good team, and a good coa:h We had to come from behmd to do it. rt•~ very gratifying when you can do that." IT IS ALSO GRATIFYil'IG that the Aztecs are now 3~0 in the AC (after Cage) Era. . The Tor cros, meanwhlle, were losing for the first lime after three victories. Toss in the fact that San Diego State' nationally ranked women·s team 1s 7-0 and you are left with the prospect of an enterlammg winter of basketball NBA or no NBA. . USD, despite the loss of Coach Jim B~ovell1 to the University of San Francisco, may have its best team . vet. The Toreros have an able replacement for Brovelh in Hank Egan and the team obviously has benefltted from its WCAC championship and NCAA tournament appearance last spring. . In every area but one, the Toreros did what they wanted to do in this game. They outshot San Diego Stale from the floor, 25-24. They outrebounded the . taller Aztecs, 37-31. They controlled the tempo, holdmg the run-and-gun Aztecs 69 points under their previous wmning total agains1 Morgan State. . And USD had the best player on the floor m sophomore center Scott Thompson, who led both teams with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Only at the free-throw line did the Aztecs have an edge. But it proved to be enough . San Diego State made 9 of 13 attempts while the Toreros could manage just 3 of 12. "Ifs a mystery," said Egan. "Nobody knows what .. goes through people's minds when they get to the line.

a far a Scott Thompson was concerned, no moral victory of any kind. For the second straight )ear the Q§P ccole..-had faced San Diego State, and for the econd time th Toreros again had managed to come up short Thompson, quite obviously, had n better moods But then again, he probably hasn't played many better games. And while the 6-foot-11 sophomore from C1tru Heights, Calif., wasn't exactly thrilled with the final r ult, he might well find something posllive m n otherwise n gative everung for the Toreros What Thompson did was outplay, outmu cle and outscore Aztec center Leonard All n for both halves on both ends of th floor nd, m case you haven't noticed thats hardly con 1dered a routme chore nowa- In thmldng that I was gomg to have a good game," said Thomp on, after Suite came from hmd an held on for a 57-53 wm ov r USD last ni ht at the Sports rena 'I thought I played pretty w JI agarn t him last year I thought I did all right tonight," Actually, Thomp on did even bet- ter than thaL In 35 minutes of action, he I d both teams rn scormg (16) and rebounding (10) In comparison, Allen fmi bed with six points and live re- bound . That's hardly a rap against Allen, who e athletic ability has never been que tioned If anything, perhaps Thomp on is fmally beginning to how his. Early eVJdence uggests that thi 19-year-old is starting to Mature mto the kind of player many bad env1s1oned when he signed with the Toreros out of Mesa Verde High near Sacramento. •Scott Just had a great game," said his USD teammate, Anthony Reuss. "I think we all knew it would just be matter of time before he turned into one of the best centers on the est Coast. If he's not there already, he'll be there in the few more games or so. 'ff. just been a matter of him g.iining the confidence," Reuss add :d Ie has that one big year days "I cam

Tnbune photo by Peter Koeleman

TORERO CE TER SCOTT THOMP 0. LOOKS FOR A SHOT Leooard Allen of San Diego State applie defensive pressure

under bi belt. I don't think he's awed by anything a more. He knows what to e pect. When Thomps n arrived at USD last fall, he was simply billed as the top recruit in the school's history He started 20 games for the Toreros, av- eraging 7.1 pomts and 48 rebounds in being selected the We t Coast Athlet- ic Conference s Freshman of the Year In four games this season, Thomp- son has increased those numbers to 15.5 points and 10 rebounds and is one of USD's mo t improved players More importantly, be has emerged as an mtimidatmg figure under the basket and has managed all this with much more poise and control. "He's a strong man and he has that nice little jumper" said Allen, who has faced some qf the nalion's best centers during his four years at State. ''He was makmg shots with my hand in his face. He gave me a lot of trouble. He frustrated me. "I think I might have been too anx- 10us to block his shot Coach (Smokey Games) kept telling me to settle down and not go for his fakes. But he kept getting me in th air and mak- ing his shots." In all, Thompson hit eight of 14 shots from the floor - including four of six in the first half when USD took a 28-24 lead at the intermiss10n. That advantage was increased to six pomts before the Aztecs eventually pulled even and took the lead on

back-to-back Bobby Owen baskets. From there, the Toreros never re- ally regained their momentum. Thompson did get USD back withm two on a six-foot hook with 34 sec- ond remaming, but State freshman Mike Haupt subsequently put it out of reach with a pair of free throws. "We were playing welL but we did some things down the stretch that hurt us," said Thompson. "We made some key turnovers and we had trou- ble with our free throws. I think we Just got kmd of excited and lost con- trol of ourselves. We let it slip away.'' And that the Toreros did for the sixth time in the last six years against their cross-town rival For a program that appears on the verge of bigger things after going to the NCAA tournament last March, It wasn't the kind of showing they had anticipated. "It's tough to lose, but we'll get over it," said Thompson. 'We've got a long sea on to go . . . a lot more games coming up and it's going to be a tough conference race again. So it's one of those thmgs we would have liked to win, but we d1dn 't. Life goes on. "I do think that we did gain a little respect from them I think we gave them a much tougher game than they expected "

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IT WAS EASY to tell what was on the USO coach's mind however. "It hurts," he said. 'It's hard for me to see anything good in a lo s, even though we did most of the things we wanted to do. Aloss is still a loss." But both coaches could see one thing: There were two good teams on the floor Gaines has been coaching against USO for six seasons and ranks this year's band of Toreros as clearly the best. ''You can see the difference that going to the (NCAA) tournament has made in them," says the San Diego State coach. "I know from my years at (the University of) Detroit. You get a confidence from that. You find out you can play. You think you're better, so you play better_!' Egan, meanwhile, ranks this as good as any San Diego State team he has seen since Gaines arrived, and he should know. He coached against the Aztecs at the i\1r Force Academy until this year. "They have an awful lot of firepower," said Egan. "I think they're better balanced than they were when Cage was there. I like their ballclub better. "They've got a lot of players they can go to with the basketball and a lot of ways they can beat you. "Finding a place to cheat on them is hard to do. The holes aren't as easy to find as they were in the past." Neither team found many holes, except for the gap m USD's free-throw shooting. It was, in short, a highly intense, exciting competition by two good basketball teams. "For a game that's not supposed t See L

Continued from D-1 .;;?!I "They've got a lot of players they can go to with the basketball and a lot of ways they can_ b~at J~u. do The "Finding a place to cheat on them is ~r o . " holes aren't as easy to find as they_wer~ m the past. Neither team found many holes m ~his one, except for the gap in USD's free-throw shooting. . "For a game that's not supposed to be a rivalry, things looked pretty tight out there to me," observed Egan dryly. .. t' tt' there "It might be," Gaines conceded. I s ge mg · "Hey. nobody would like to see 1~,000 people out there for this game more than ~e'. They're halfway there, and gaming. Goodbye, /' Chppers.