Despite its losing record, Portland was able to down the USD men’s basketball team for its first conference win Thursday at Jenny Craig Pavilion.
The Toreros (13-6, 4-3 West Coast Conference) lost 55-49 to the Pilots in front of a 2,047 home crowd on Military Appreciation Night. Portland just seems to bring the worse out of the Toreros. Two weeks ago, USD needed to go to overtime at Portland to beat the Pilots.
Thursday night, the Toreros were playing in a deficit for most of the game and only able to take the lead at 46-44 with 6:25 left in the game. That lead was short-held and USD battled back to take the lead again at 48-46 with just under three minutes to go. The Pilots (7-13, 1-6 WCC) then went on a 9-1 run from there to close out the game.
“When you play a team like that, 0-6 in league and haven’t won in awhile, they get a little desperate,” USD coach Lamont Smith said. “They started getting some confidence and they knew they could play with us having taken us to overtime in their building. I just thought our defense needed to better tonight, especially in the first half. We learned a big lesson tonight.”
Isaiah Pinero scored a season-high 26 points and had 11 rebounds, his second double-double of the season. Tyler Williams scored 8 points and Isaiah Wright, who had 30 points in the overtime win at Portland, scored 3 points.
For the game, USD shot 35.7 percent from the field, making 20-of-56 shots and just 4-of-23 from the three-point line.
Up next, the Toreros travels to Utah to face BYU at 6 p.m. Saturday.
