Gu Wants To Face Best In Title Quest
As strange as it might seem, Gonzaga men’s basketball coach Dan Monson is rooting for Santa Clara’s Lloyd Pierce to get well in time for Friday night’s key West Coast Conference matchup against his Bulldogs.
Pierce, a 6-foot-3 senior guard who is averaging 11.3 points per game, missed the Broncos’ 78-73 loss at GU last Saturday because of a sore right foot. He is listed as questionable for Friday’s instant rematch at Toso Pavilion, but Monson is preparing his team as if Pierce will be in the starting lineup.
“He’s a senior, he’s their backbone,” Monson said. “He might not be their best player, but he’s their most valuable.
“So, if there’s any chance at all, I know he’ll play - and I hope he does. It’s going to be a heck of a basketball game and I think it should be settled with the best players out there.”
Gonzaga, 17-6 overall, is tied with Portland for first place in the WCC standings at 6-2. Santa Clara (14-6, 5-3) is tied with Pepperdine for second, just one game behind. Friday’s tipoff is 7:30 p.m., and history will not be on GU’s side.
The Bulldogs have lost 13 of their last 14 regular-season road games against the Broncos. And they’ve also had trouble on the road against Saturday night’s opponent, San Francisco, which has won eight of the past 12 meetings against GU at home.
When Santa Clara and USF were last paired as travel partners from 1986-89, Gonzaga was swept on all four of its trips to the Bay Area.
“I read about all of that stuff in the press notes,” said Monson, who is in his first year as the Bulldogs’ head coach. “It made me feel real good. “But seriously, I think it’s just a credit to how good those two programs are year in and year out. That, more than anything, makes it a difficult road trip.”
Straight shooter
The WCC boasts one of the hottest shooters in the country in Loyola Marymount’s Peter Cornell, who broke a 25-year-old record for conference games last week by connecting on 15 consecutive field-goal attempts.
Cornell, a 6-foot-11 junior center, was 8 for 8 in the Lions’ 87-64 win over San Diego last Thursday and 7 for 7 in Saturday night’ 99-81 loss to Saint Mary’s.
Cornell’s hot streak broke the conference-game record of 14 set by LMU’s Richard Dixon and Jim Haderlein in 1970 and matched most recently by Seattle’s Greg Williams in 1973. It also put him within two more makes of matching the overall record of 17 straight set by Pepperdine’s Dana Jones in 1991-92.
Millard finished
Saint Mary’s officials have announced that 7-foot-3, 345-pound junior center Brad Millard will miss the rest of the season with a broken bone in his left foot.
The school has decided to petition for a medical hardship season.
If the hardship is granted, Millard will have two more years of eligibility.
Familiar surroundings
Second-year coach Lorenzo Romar has Pepperdine back in its comfort zone - among the elite teams in the WCC.
The Lions (13-7, 5-3) are tied with Santa Clara for third place in the league standings.
That might not seem so remarkable, considering Pepperdine finished either first or second in the WCC 11 times between 1981 and 1994, winning 10 league games in 10 of those seasons. But in the last three years the Lions have won only nine WCC games, and no more than four in any one season.
3-pointers
Gonzaga’s Martin Centre remains the only WCC venue in which third-year San Francisco coach Phil Mathews has yet to record a victory. … USF’s Ali Thomas, who was snatched off redshirt status earlier this year when several of his teammates went down with injuries, leads all WCC freshmen in scoring with an average of 11.6 points per game.
, DataTimes