So. Utah Too Much for USD

SAN DIEGO —  Hey, who’s in charge of the itinerary? Somebody forgot to tell Southern Utah State College that Tuesday’s nonconference men’s basketball game at the University of San Diego was supposed to be a tuneup for the home team, a chance for John Jerome to break the single-season scoring record in his final home game and a chance for the athletic department to honor athletes in other sports at halftime.

All three eventually happened, but the halftime show went the smoothest.

SUSC (12-14) wasn’t willing to cooperate. It was trying for its third victory in a row and sixth in eight games to reach .500.

SUSC actually came to “play” and and did--darn near upsetting the hosts.

What was going on? Stick to the program.

The Thunderbirds were supposed to be sparring partners, but instead slapped USD around and came close to knocking it out, before falling, 100-91, in front of 1,631 in the USD Sports Center.

USD (15-12) was only looking for a scrimmage before heading to Los Angeles this weekend for the West Coast Conference Tournament, where it will play San Francisco Saturday at 8 p.m. It got a tightly contested game that wasn’t comfortably put away until Wayman Strickland made a pair of free throws with 39 seconds left to give USD a 96-89 lead.

USD was looking for a confidence booster after finishing third in the WCC by dropping games to Loyola Marymount (131-119) and Pepperdine (102-89) Friday and Saturday. It eventually got one, but a loss according to Jerome and “the morale of this team would have been shot.”

Jerome, who had a game-high 23 points, became USD’s single-season points leader with 527 points. The record came on a nifty inside move with 3:12 remaining and pushed USD’s lead to 86-77.

Mike Whitmarsh had held the record of 525 set in 1983-84.

Said Jerome, “It’s a good thing, I guess. But I wasn’t even aware of it.

“Maybe down the line sometime I’ll think of it, but now I’m only concerned about the next game.”

Said Torero Coach Hank Egan, “John has been very much a part of the team, and I think that everything he did was in trying to win. I don’t think John cares very much about the scoring record.

“Scoring is the thing he happens to do best.”

Against SUSC scoring was not a problem, but USD found it difficult to pull away nonetheless.

The game was tied 14 times in the first 30 minutes. After Strickland made a short jumper to go ahead, 68-66, with 9:50 left, USD never trailed again, but the Thunderbirds threatened.

After scoring eight in a row, SUSC pulled to within 90-85 with 1:55 left. But baskets by Anthony Thomas and Pat Holbert and free throws by Strickland iced the game.

Holbert punctuated it with a two-hand slam with one second left to give USD its first 100-point victory in three years.

With the possibility of games against Loyola and Pepperdine coming up, maybe Tuesday was a nice tuneup after all.

Holbert (17 points), Strickland (17), Kelvin Woods (16), Craig Cottrell (12) and Thomas (11) gave USD six players in double figure scoring. SUSC was paced by DaVor Marcelic with 23. Marcelic is from Zadar, Yugoslavia.