Nov. 19, 2008

Box Score

Stockton, Calif. - Behind a dominating effort in the post from senior Anthony Brown (Sacramento, Calif.) and sophomore Sam Willard (Pierre, S.D.), the Pacific men's basketball team defeated UC San Diego, 66-58.

The win evened the Tigers record at 1-1 on the season, while UC San Diego fell to 0-2 overall.

Willard set the tone for the evening, crashing the board on Brown's shot to put the ball in the bucket for the first points of the game. Junior Joe Ford (Altadena, Calif.) grabbed a block from sophomore Terrell Smith (Federal Way, Wash). and chipped in a second basket two minutes later to bring the score 4-0 in the Tigers' favor. For the next minute, Brown put up an offensive display and sealed Pacific's 8-0 run as UC San Diego remained scoreless until the 14:37 mark, when Shane Poppen made a lay-up for the Tritons. UC San Diego kept whittling away at Pacific's lead, to eventually come within one point, as Alan Husted sank a jumper with two minutes remaining in the half and brought the score up 26-25. By 1:56, both teams matched shots for a score of 28-27 in favor of the home Tigers. That was as close as Pacific would allow the lead to get, and pulled away with five more points to head into the locker room up 33-27 at the end of the first half.

After playing nearly even for the first four and half minutes of the second half, the Tigers held a 41-34 lead. Over the next four minutes Pacific took control, using an 8-0 run keyed by four points from Willard to take a 15 point lead (49-34) with 11:54 left in the game. The Tritons then slowly got back into the game, outscoring the Tigers 15-5 over the next seven minutes to cut the Pacific lead to 54-49 with 4:09 remaining. Senior Chad Troyer (Seattle, Wash.) and junior Joe Ford (Altadena, Calif.) each scored inside baskets to extend the lead to 58-49. After trading free throws, Alan Husted hit a three-pointer for UC San Diego to cut the lead to 59-53 with 1:13 left. The Tritons would not get any closer as Pacific hit seven of nine from the free throw line to close out the victory.

Brown led all scorers with 19 points, while Willard finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double. His 10 boards were a career high.

Jordan Lawley led UC San Diego with 14 points in the loss.

Pacific returns to the court on Wednesday, Nov. 26 as the Tigers travel to Reno, Nev. to take on the Nevada WolfPack at 7:05 p.m.