USD falls short against BYU

Despite a 17 point rally to tie the game in the second half, the Toreros lose to the Cougars, 85-79

Anderson Haigler | Sports Editor | The USD Vista

There’s no way around it. The week leading up to the West Coast Conference Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada was tough for the Toreros. A week that was supposed to have USD in the news for all the right reasons quickly had the Toreros trending for all of the wrong ones. Most importantly, the Toreros lost their head coach, at least temporarily — hardly the ideal situation for a young team heading into their conference tournament.

Nobody on the team, though, looked for sympathy. Far from it. At a practice prior to Saturday’s game against BYU, both acting head coach Sam Scholl and his players stated that they felt the controversy surrounding Lamont Smith brought them closer together as a team. 

Judging by the way they played against Brigham Young University on Saturday, it’s clear they meant what they said. Though the Cougars defeated the Toreros 85-79, they battled all game, and fought until the bitter end. 

In a game that featured 11 lead changes, USD surged back from a 17-point deficit to tie the game at 71 points after trailing for nearly the entire second half. No, the Toreros weren’t able to close it out, but they played a gritty game as a team that speaks to the high character of their players. 

USD isn’t big on moral victories — they’ve said it before this season. This game, however, may warrant that label. Just shy of a week removed from the arrest of their head coach, the Toreros showed an incredible amount of resolve, and set forth an admirable effort in the face of adversity.

The Toreros got off to a hot start to begin the game, jumping out to an 11-8 lead in the first five minutes of play. They did much of that damage with three-point shots, with senior Cameron Neubauer, juniors Olin Carter III, and Tyler Williams leading the way early on. As the half continued, redshirt junior Isaiah Pineiro excelled both offensively and defensively, posting eight points in the first half, as well as grabbing three defensive rebounds. With just shy of 13 minutes to play in the first half, USD extended their lead to 18-10, their biggest of the game. 

Behind 12 first half-points from Elijah Bryant, though, the Cougars quickly mounted a comeback, eventually tying the game at 18, before taking the lead, 19-18. The game quickly turned into a back-and-forth affair, with USD and BYU trading the lead nine different times as the clock wound down on the first half. The Cougars, though, would take the lead, 32-31 and maintain it for the remainder of the half. Entering halftime, BYU led by a score of 39-35.

As the Toreros came out for the second half, it appeared that BYU had made some defensive adjustments that slowed down the USD offense. The fluidity and ball movement from their first-half lead seemed to be gone, and BYU extended their lead as the Toreros went on an 0-10 shooting streak to open the half. 

The game seemed to get emotional for both sides as the second half went on, and a scuffle between BYU and USD players broke out in between possessions, with coaches and players from both benches spilling out onto the floor in argument.

Regardless of the dispute, the game soon began to slip away from the Toreros. A lack of defense and defensive rebounding allowed Elijah Bryant and the Cougars to extend their lead to a 17-point margin with a score of 60-43. 

Foul trouble for Isaiah Pineiro seemed to hamper the Toreros on defense; he entered the second half with three, and perhaps had to play more cautiously early in the second half to avoid potentially fouling out. The Toreros, however, weren’t done yet. 

With under 12 minutes to play in the game, USD came storming back. A flurry of points from Carter III and strong rebounding and consistency from the free throw line from Isaiah Pineiro led the Toreros back into the game. They quickly tied the contest at 71 with three and a half minutes to play, stunning the crowd that appeared to be mostly in favor of the Cougars. 

The Toreros’ second-half resurgence was punctuated by a deep three from Carter III, as he has done so many times this season. Carter III, who finished the game with 20 points, shared his thoughts on the Toreros’ late game rally.

“It was a good stop,” Carter III said. “I was trying to play some defense and try to play to  take a lead. That’s really it. I was just trying to make plays to make sure that we can win. I’m trying to help my team out, and you know we started in on defense, and at the end we didn’t come up good enough on the defensive end.”

After the Toreros tied the game, they battled with the Cougars, though they were unable to retake the lead. They kept it a one-possession game until there were 30 seconds left to play, then fell to trail by four. With 23 seconds to play, an and-one play on an Isaiah Pineiro layup brought the Toreros to within three with a score of 79-76 after Pineiro made the free throw. 

With 17 seconds to play USD was still within striking distance for a three, as the score was 81-78. As time expired, the Toreros had to resort to fouling the Cougars to stop the clock, and BYU was eventually able to seal the win by making free throws, handing the Toreros a 85-79 loss.

Following the game, an emotional acting head coach Sam Scholl said that he was proud of his players and how they avoided distraction and performed in the game. 

“All our emotion right now is because of them, and what they fought through this week, and how they trusted each other and trusted us,” Coach Scholl said.  “And just from the moment we stepped forward into the past week, they just locked arms. At the end of the day, they (BYU) just beat us. And we talked about from day one that we weren’t  gonna use last weekend as an excuse. If we lost, they beat us. And that’s what happened. They showed their resolve, we got it down from 17 to tie the game, they just made a couple plays — they beat us. I couldn’t be more proud of that whole group of 18 young men and tremendous, tremendous coaches.”

Neubauer shared his thoughts on the situation.

“It was definitely tough with the recent news that we received,” Neubauer said. “But you know I think as a team, that adversity that we had has kind of helped us come together as a team, become even closer, share an even closer bond. I think through all this, the relationships that we’ve made with our teammates is probably the greatest thing we can get out of this. You know the group of guys in there, we all fought together, and you know the outcome wasn’t what we wanted, but we fought until the very end and that’s all you can really ask for. I love what the coaches have done, I love what our team has done, and it’s been hard but we’ll make it through, together.”

The Toreros’ loss to BYU brings their final record to 18-13 (9-10 WCC) on the year. While Lamont Smith’s future at USD is unclear, the team itself has a strong young core of players that should provide a lot to look forward to in the future. 

This year, the program’s best since 2008, proved to be a big building year for the Toreros, and is perhaps a year that they can build on for the future. As for the rest of the season, USD can only wait and hope for an invite to a postseason tournament as the week continues.