Zags kick off WCC with Lions

The West Coast Conference wasted no time in giving its men’s basketball fans the best it has to offer.

Even though Loyola Marymount and Gonzaga University, the two preseason favorites in this year’s WCC title chase, have been crippled by early-season injuries to key players, today’s 1 p.m. showdown in the McCarthey Athletic Center promises to be both intriguing and entertaining.

LMU (8-8) comes in having dropped three games in a row after losing returning All-WCC selections Brandon Worthy and Matthew Knight to knee injuries.

Worthy, a 6-foot-2 senior guard who was averaging 18.5 points per game before tearing the ACL in his left knee in an 84-82 double-overtime win over Boise State back on Dec. 19, will miss the rest of the season.

Knight, a 6-8 senior forward averaging 17.2 points and 8.7 rebounds, strained his left knee three nights later in a 66-65 loss to Long Beach State, prompting second-year coach Rodney Tention to admit, “I’ve never been a part of a team that lost its two best players in back-to-back games.”

Fortunately for the Lions, Knight is expected to be ready for this afternoon’s WCC opener against five-time defending conference champion Gonzaga (9-6), which has been dealing with some injury problems of its own.

The Bulldogs, losers of four straight, have been short-handed all season because of injuries to sophomores David Burgess (knee), Micah Downs (foot) and Larry Gurganious (back), and freshman Theo Davis (shoulder).

Burgess and Downs, who both transferred to Gonzaga during the middle of the 2005-06 season, became eligible in mid-December, but neither had played until Wednesday night, when Burgess, a 6-10 center, logged a few minutes in the Zags’ 108-87 loss at Virginia.

Downs, a 6-8 shooting guard, and Davis, a 6-9 forward, were recently cleared to start practicing without restrictions, but neither is expected to play this afternoon. Gurganious is out for the season with a stress reaction in a lower vertebrae.

Still, LMU’s Tention sees the Bulldogs as “the team to beat and the class of the league, until somebody knocks them off.

“They’re a little different this year in that they don’t have guys who score 28-29 points a game like (Adam) Morrison and a horse down low like they had with J.P. (Batista),” Tention added. “But they’re probably a little more difficult to prepare for because they’re playing more as a team – with all six or seven guys involved – than they were last year.”

Tention has not been pleased with the way his team has responded since losing Worthy and Knight, but noted that Knight’s return to practice has helped.

“We went back East and played a couple of games (against Akron and Monmouth) and just didn’t compete,” Tention explained. “We were looking around to see if those two kids were going to show up. We’ve got to stop feeling sorry for ourselves.

“Like I told our kids, nobody else is going to feel sorry for us. Nobody’s going to play their second- or third-string guys just because Brandon and Matty aren’t playing. But we’ve had a couple of good practices the last couple of days, so we’ll see – bright and early (today) – if we’re over that or not.”

The loss of Worthy might still be more than the Lions can overcome, however, putting the responsibility of running down the Zags on the shoulders of another quality WCC team that has managed to remain healthy.

Among the best qualified, it would seem, are Santa Clara (10-5), Saint Mary’s (8-8), San Diego (9-5) and San Francisco (4-11).

But USF, despite boasting three transfer guards from the Big East Conference – Armondo Surratt (Miami), Antonio Kellogg (Connecticut) and Manny Quezada (Rutgers) – has been one of the WCC’s biggest disappointments, having lost its last seven games.

Which leaves Santa Clara, Saint Mary’s and San Diego among the most likely to unseat GU.

“Maybe Santa Clara is a surprise to other people, but not to me,” Tention said of the Broncos, who have beaten the likes of Utah, San Jose State and Utah State. “I always thought in the back of my mind they’d be pretty good, because they brought back a young group of guys that are older and playing well this year.”

Saint Mary’s struggled early while trying to replace Daniel Kickert, the school’s departed career scoring leader, but enters WCC play having won its last two games.

San Diego, which beat California, Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan during the impressive seven-game winning streak it put together prior to last Saturday’s 68-65 loss at Fresno State, is playing as well as anyone in the conference.

“And even with the teams that aren’t playing well, Portland (4-12) and Pepperdine (4-12), I think it’s just a matter of time,” Tention said. “Those teams have new coaches (Eric Revino and Vance Walberg) and new systems in place.

“It’s kind of like us last year – starting out 3-11 but knowing that once league play starts, everybody is 0-0. The league, as always, is going to be very difficult.

“There’s not going to be many nights you can take off.”

Gonzaga coach Mark Few concurs, and hopes he can get his young team to realize as much.

“It’s always tough for us,” he said of the start of WCC play. “And this group has had a hard time understanding we’re still everybody’s biggest game. It was a very, very big game for Virginia (Wednesday) and we just didn’t get to that level.

“Every time we play somebody, it’ll be a very, very big game. And teams in the WCC are very well coached and have skilled players – maybe not as great as athletes as North Carolina or Texas, but very skilled. And that presents a lot of problems.”

As for today’s WCC opener against LMU, Few expects the Lions to rally around the return of Knight, who averaged a team-high 16.2 points and 10 rebounds as a junior last season.

“He’s the best low-post player in the conference, without a doubt,” Few said. “They played their last two games without him, and you can see what a difference he makes.

“He’s very skilled and really is a load on the blocks. And now that becomes a huge key for us in how we deal with him.”