The WCC Tournament has become an upset party. Obviously the Toreros felt bad for crashing the party with their defeat of #7 Pepperdine in the second round. To make up for their mistake they went out and upset #3 BYU in the semifinals. My question is this, can it really be considered an upset considering, with this win, San Diego won the season series 2-1? I'm gonna say yes because it rained in Vegas today and this parade doesn't need any more rain.
"We got off to a really good start to the game, had a good flow" San Diego's Bill Grier said after the game. He wasn't kidding. The Cougars led 2-0 for the first 1:06 but they wouldn't manage to retake the lead until the 16:18 mark in the second half. San Diego would push the lead to ten at one point during the first half. The Cougars would make it a one possession game on multiple occasions, they even tied the score at one point but couldn't get the lead until well into the second half.
Once the Cougars took the lead back they started looking like the BYU team that earned the #3 seed in the WCC Tournament. Dave Rose played his whole roster in the first half looking for any way to get back into the game. In the second half it was all his big three of Brandon Davies, Tyler Haws and Matt Carlino. Those three combined for 53 points in the game with Davies and Haws contributing 20 each. "Tyler's such a good player," coach Grier said, "Brandon has always been a handful for us and for other teams in the league so we knew we weren't going to shut them down." Once again, he was right.
Coach Grier said the Toreros game plan was to "Do the best job we can on Brandon and Tyler... but then not let one of those other guys have a real big night." From "but then" on the Toreros executed that game plan. Carlino, Davies and Haws aside the Cougars shot a meager 36.8% from the field and had only two free throw attempts (Nate Austin made both).
Down the stretch of the game it was those three who came up big for the Cougars. Every time though, the Toreros would answer. Matt Carlino drained a three with 4:25 left that gave the Cougars a two point lead. On the next possession Christopher Anderson's sent the lead back to San Diego. A Tyler Haws jumper followed, but Johnny Dee promptly hit a three to give the Toreros the two point lead with 2:42 left.
From there it was foul time. Brandon Davies tied it up at 62 with 2:31 left in the game but a quick three point play by Johnny Dee would give the Toreros the lead for good. Dee went to the line three times in the final minute and hit five of six free throws, Christopher Anderson would hit both of his attempts in the final minute as well.
Matt Carlino hit a three with eight seconds left to make it a one point game but the Cougars had to foul to stop the clock. Dee didn't miss either shot. Carlino heaved up another three at the buzzer that would have sent it to overtime, and nearly did, but the shot bounced around off the rim and backboard without hitting the inside of the net.
All season long San Diego has been something of an enigma. The Toreros entered WCC play with a sub-.500 record. They ran out to a 4-0 start to conference play but then went on a four game losing streak. The losing streak almost ended at three but the Toreros couldn't hold on against the Zags and ended up losing (but only by two). They did manage to hang on against BYU a week later, a game they won by six. That win was followed up with another losing streak, this time five games. Now though, they're on a three game winning streak and find themselves in the WCC Tournament Semifinals.
I'm not sure if it was an upset, but I am sure it was a win, and because of that senior Ken Rancifer's career lives to play another game. He went 5-9 from the field for 15 points and hit 3-5 three pointers.
San Diego will face #2 Saint Mary's on Saturday at 8:30 PM PST.
No comments:
Post a Comment