Tention puts roar back in Lions
LOS ANGELES – It wasn’t that his players were unwilling to buy into what first-year Loyola Marymount coach Rodney Tention was selling. They just couldn’t figure out how to close the deal.
The methods of payment the Lions eventually went with were hard work and repetition, and the rewards have been remarkable.
Since going a dismal 3-11 against non-conference opponents and pushing Tention’s patience to its limits, they have won eight of 10 West Coast Conference games to establish themselves as a regular-season title contender.
This afternoon, the Lions (11-13 overall, 8-2 and second place in WCC) have a chance to keep their unlikely title hopes alive – and make some noise, nationally, as well – when they play host to fifth-ranked and conference-leading Gonzaga (21-3, 10-0) in a 3 p.m. Gersten Pavilion game that will be televised regionally by ABC.
“It’s been quite a turnaround,” admitted Tention, who was hired off Lute Olson’s staff at Arizona to take over a moribund LMU program last April, shortly after former coach Steve Aggers was let go.
Few have been as impressed by what Tention has accomplished as GU coach Mark Few, whose Bulldogs struggled mightily before turning back the Lions 92-80 in an earlier meeting in the Zags’ McCarthey Athletic Center.
“This is the kind of team we were expecting Loyola to become,” Few said. “They have some really talented kids, but it took them a while to learn how Rodney wanted them to play.”
“The guys were trying to figure out the system I was putting in – how we wanted to go about guarding people on defense, and the kinds of shots we wanted to get out of our offense,” explained the 41-year-old Tention, who was a three-year letterwinner for WCC rival San Francisco in the late 1980s. “I don’t think it was a matter of them not buying into the message. They just weren’t picking it up as quickly as I wanted them to.
“It was tough, because the majority of these kids had been in Coach Aggers’ system their whole careers, and here I am, scrapping everything they’ve been taught and trying to put something in at a faster pace.”
The Lions’ sluggish rate of comprehension frustrated Tention to the point of calling his old boss back in Tucson for a pep talk after watching his team drop close games to Hawaii, Western Michigan and South Florida in the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu.
“I was really frustrated in Hawaii,” Tention recalled, “so I called Coach Olson and talked to him, just to make sure I wasn’t delivering a message I maybe shouldn’t have been delivering.”
So what sage advice did the silver-haired Olson bestow upon his former disciple?
“He told me to go have an apple martini, drink a nice bottle of wine and relax,” Tention chuckled. “That’s not exactly what I was expecting to hear, but he kept it funny and it helped.”
Eventually.
The Lions followed their disappointing Rainbow showing with blowout road losses to UNLV and San Diego State and found themselves riding a five-game losing streak into the WCC portion of their schedule.
“Two days before we opened league play against San Diego, I just blew up in practice,” Tention admitted. “I told ‘em, ‘It seems like you guys have just accepted losing, and that’s something I’m never going to accept. There’s no sense in us still making mistakes on things we’ve been working on since October – unless you simply don’t want to do it.’ “
Following Tention’s tirade, the Lions went out and rallied from a 17-point second-half deficit to turn back San Diego 86-84 in their WCC opener and followed that upset win with an 84-75 double-overtime win over Tention’s alma mater, USF.
Their only two losses since have come on the road against GU, which can clinch at share of its sixth consecutive regular-season WCC championship with a win today, and against Pepperdine.
Senior forward Matthew Knight has been the catalyst for the Lions, averaging 16.6 points and 10 rebounds per game. But Tention has also developed a couple of productive backcourt players in senior Wes Waldrop and Brandon Worth, who are both averaging just more than 14 points.
“Knight is one of the best players in the league,” Few said, “and Waldrop has just been playing great lately. Rodney has done a heckuva job, and their students and fans are as excited about their team as they’ve been since the days of Hank (Gathers) and Bo (Kimble).”
“Finally getting over the hump against San Diego and winning one at the buzzer might have been something that kind of got them started,” Tention said. “Up until then, we were just trying to keep our guys competitive in practice drills, hoping they would finally get fed up with losing and find a way to win.
“It took a while, but we kept stressing hard work and doing things the right way. And that’s what they’ve done. Now, instead of accepting losing, they’re starting to enjoy winning.”