Lions Finally Earn Win

It seemed bleak for Loyola Marymount before its game with UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday.

Comparisons were being made to the 1993-94 team that started 0-9. To add insult, some Santa Barbara fans in attendance could be heard referring to Gersten Pavilion as the “Lions’ Dim.”

But Loyola Marymount was able to snicker last after beating the Gauchos, 81-68, in front of an estimated 1,122 Wednesday.

Loyola Coach Charles Bradley, whose team is 1-4, was the first to acknowledge that it was nice to win one for a change.

“It is nice. It’s amazing what a win can do for you,” Bradley said. “I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t.

“We didn’t do anything different, it just clicked tonight.”

There was one difference--the lineup.

Bradley started Willie Allen in place of senior Kenny Hotopp, the leading returning scorer for the Lions who was weakened because of flu.

Whether the move was also intended to create more scoring off the bench--not likely, since Hotopp’s scoring average was 7.3 in the four games he started--or to create more quickness in the lineup is debatable. But when you finally win, you can take either answer, especially since Hotopp contributed 11 points off the bench.

But it was Allen and point guard Haywood Eaddy that sparked the Lions, scoring 16 points each. Eaddy also had 10 assists.

Still, the 5-foot-4 Eaddy, who is the shortest player in the West Coast Conference, and the 5-11 Allen created a defensive combination that was a first-half feast for Santa Barbara’s Raymond Tutt.

Tutt, who is 6 feet 4 and is being touted as an All-American candidate by the Gauchos, scored 19 of his game-high 25 points in the first half.

Whenever the Lions made a run, Tutt ran with them. But too often, the rest of the Gauchos (1-3) did not join him.

“In the first half, I was able to get a lot of my points in transition or when they had shorter guys on me in man-to-man, I would try to exploit that,” Tutt said.

“But in the second half they used a lot more zone defense that was shading my way so I wasn’t able to get the ball as much.”

But he couldn’t do it by himself and the Lions were able to take control midway through the second half.

Ben Ammerman and Peter Cornell each scored 12 points for the Lions.