A strong first half not enough

Toreros battle with No. 3 Gonzaga, taking a 30-30 tie into halftime, but eventually suffer a 79-67 loss

Anderson Haigler / Sports Editor / The USD Vista

For exactly one half of play, the University of San Diego men’s basketball team appeared poised to turn the college basketball world on its head. In front of a sellout crowd of over 4,700 people — comprised of the most USD students attending a game in recent memory, a healthy contingent of Zags fans, as well as a national audience watching on ESPN — the Toreros did what very few outside of themselves and their most faithful fans believed they could do: keep the third-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs in check. For precisely 20 minutes, the Toreros set forth a thrilling performance against the nation’s best, taking a 30-30 tie with the Bulldogs into halftime. As the game wore on and the Gonzaga offense caught fire, though, USD let the game get away from them, as so many of the Zags’ opponents have done this season, eventually suffering a 79-67 defeat at the hands of perhaps the most elite team in college basketball.

The game began with the Toreros winning the tipoff courtesy of 6-10 forward Yauhen Massalski. Mere seconds after Massalski batted the ball downcourt to his teammates, senior guard Olin Carter III tossed in a layup to give USD a 2-0 lead. It would be the only lead the Toreros had on the night. What ensued after USD’s short-lived advantage was a well-played first half on both sides that saw the Toreros go blow-for-blow with the team that is number one in the NCAA Evaluation Tool ranking (NET). 

USD played with a hard-nosed, scrappy style of play, challenging the Bulldogs with a press each time they attempted to dribble the ball downcourt. It was during these early stages of the game that the Toreros demonstrated their determination to upset Gonzaga as they crashed to the floor in desperate dives for loose balls, ripped away rebounds from the Zags, and electrified the crowd with a number of deep threes. 

Redshirt senior forward Isaiah Pineiro described the atmosphere in the Jenny Craig Pavilion. 

“It was great,” Pineiro said. “We love it when we get some fans here, we love playing in front of them. We hope they come back.”

They were kept afloat by a big first half from Carter III, who dropped a team-high 12 points shooting 5-9 from the field. Carter III’s performance was contrasted by an uncharacteristically quiet one from the Toreros’ leading scorer Isaiah Pineiro, who found himself sitting early on after picking up a quick three fouls. Even without Pineiro, who played just 11 minutes in the first half, USD managed to keep up with the Zags, answering their scoring runs each and every time, rallying from a deficit that was as large as seven at one point. The most decisive score of the night for the Toreros came with just under a minute to play in the first half, when Carter III did what he has done countless times in his four-year career as a Torero: sink a clutch 3-pointer. His deep three knotted the score at 30-30, and brought the entirety of the USD Bull Pit to their feet as they cheered boisterously. USD head coach Sam Scholl discussed Carter III’s early effort.

“He’s a guy that can score from a lot of areas,” Scholl said. “He can make big shots, make big plays, and compete defensively. He means everything to us.”

Carter III’s last-minute score was nearly outdone by a desperate jumper from redshirt first year Joey Calcaterra in the half’s final seconds that spun, bounced, and eventually rattled its way out of the rim before the final buzzer sounded. After one half of play, the Toreros found themselves mere inches away from a 32-30 lead over the number three team in the country. Instead, they headed to the break with a 30-30 tie with the Zags. Scholl spoke about his team’s stellar first-half performance.

“We showed great resilience, and we had a great defensive identity,” Scholl said. “We put some stops together, we had a great fight in the paint, and then some great execution offensively and guys were able to knock down some shots.”

When the second half began, however, both USD’s success on offense and effectiveness on defense appeared to be gone. The Bulldogs came out of the intermission making 10 of their first 12 shots, good for a nine-point lead, their largest of the night at that point. Their advantage would eventually swell to be 15 points, largely fueled by a monster second half from junior forward Rui Hachimura, who scored a game-high 22. As the second half progressed, USD quickly ran out of answers for the Zags on defense, allowing them to shoot 69 percent from the field in the second period enroute to a 58 percent shooting night overall. Scholl described Gonzaga’s late-game offensive surge, referring to Hachimura and forward Brandon Clarke.

“They were just going to the paint, going to the lottery pick, going to the first-round pick, giving them some space and some areas to work with,” Scholl said. “Coach Few does an unbelievable job of that, just spacing offensively. It’s very, very hard to find areas where you can attack from somewhere or give strong help, because if you do, you have a long, long closeout to somebody who can really make a shot.”

Pineiro weighed in on the Toreros’ defensive struggles in the second half.

“We just couldn’t get stops,” Pineiro said. “In the second half I think they shot 69 percent from the field and you can’t win games like that. Especially against them.”

Adding to USD’s woes on defense was a flurry of foul calls against them, none of which appeared to sit particularly well with the Toreros. Warranted or not, the referees’ whistles had a profound effect on the early stages of the second half on both sides, leading to a far slower and more fragmented pace of play compared to the opening period. 

But even with an 18-point second-half performance from Pineiro, who was finally able to make an impact once the second half began, USD simply couldn’t keep up with the Bulldogs. Gonzaga did what top-five teams often do: force their opponent to make mistakes on offense, and take advantage of mistakes on defense. 

After seeing the Bulldogs pull away a bit in the middle of the second half, USD was able to tighten things up a bit in the game’s final minute, cutting the Zags’ lead to just eight with one minute left after an Isaiah Pineiro jumper made the score 73-65. After successfully forcing a 10- second violation while Gonzaga was attempting to inbound the ball, however, senior guard Tyler Williams was called for a technical foul after attempting to call a timeout that the Toreros didn’t have, allowing Gonzaga to add two points to their already perilously-large lead. A pair of successful free throws from Pineiro seconds later again cut the Gonzaga advantage to just eight points, but it would be too little, too late. Forced to try to stop the Bulldogs from running down the clock on their ensuing possession by fouling, the Zags took full advantage, making their final four free throws to seal a 12-point, 79-67 victory over USD. The loss marked a slight improvement from the Toreros’ 16-point defeat on the road to the Zags at the beginning of February, but it marked a loss nonetheless.  

Scholl assessed his team’s overall effort.

“We had a lot of momentum (going into the second half), but unfortunately a team that’s going to have every opportunity to win a national championship came out and showed all the reasons why,” Scholl said. “They got us on our heels and came with a full-fledged attack that our defensive identity wasn’t ready for.”

Despite the defeat, Scholl said that he did identify some positive aspects of his team’s performance.

“It gives us great confidence to know that we have the parts, we have the tools, we have the elements to go make a run,” Scholl said. “We just have to put it together, we have to have that buy in to all of those things, those details. Taking care of the ball. Battling in the paint. Battling for every loose ball. All those little plays that (the Bulldogs) do a tremendous job of, playing with great confidence. We’ve gotta execute those things each game.” 

The Toreros’ loss is their third consecutive defeat, their first string of such games since February of 2017. It moves their overall record to 16-11, and 5-7 in West Coast Conference (WCC) play. Ahead of the Toreros is a critical pair of final regular-season WCC home games, the first of which being a matchup with the Portland Pilots. With the end of WCC play, and their regular season rapidly approaching, the Toreros must put together a series of wins if they are to head into the conference tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. on a high note.

“We have to win,” Pineiro said. “Our back’s up against the wall right now, and we have to fight for our season, and we have to fight like this every game, these next four games. And then carry that into the conference tournament.”

The Toreros continue their homestand with a West Coast Conference game against the University of Portland Pilots on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Jenny Craig Pavilion.