Men struggle at home

By CHAD ALVES

The Broncos suffered a disappointing loss to Pepperdine on Friday night 71-60, but then came back to pull out a close 79-75 win against Loyola Marymount Saturday night at Toso Pavilion.

In their first game of the weekend against the Waves, the Broncos committed 19 turnovers, but they kept the game close despite playing one of the league's top teams. Behind the hot first half shooting of senior Nathan Fast, Santa Clara remained in the game and were trailing only 42-36 at halftime. The intense pressure of Pepperdine's defense, including the use of a full court press, flustered Santa Clara down the stretch as the Waves pulled away for the victory. The Broncos shot just 26 percent from the field in the second half, and they had trouble getting into a consistent rhythm offensively all night.

"Since I've been here we haven't really gotten into our offense against them," Fast said. "Their defense is to take you out of your offense."

The defense did its job, and combined with a balanced offense, led by Tommie Prince's 14 points, Pepperdine proved to be too much for the Broncos. Fast's game-high 19 points and his team high eight rebounds were not enough to help Santa Clara overcome their mistakes.

"I was very impressed with the way Pepperdine played," Head Coach Dick Davey said. "They created all kinds of problems for us with their defense. We just couldn't get on track. This was a big game for us, and it's something we're going to have to work hard to recover from."

Although they continued to struggle the following night against Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara did recover just in time to post a victory over the Lions. Led down the stretch by junior Jamie Holmes, who had a career-high 17 points, the Broncos overcame a seven-point deficit in the second half to even their conference record at 2-2.

"We got some defensive stops, that's really what turned it around," Holmes said. "We got those stops and then hit some shots."

Their ability to hit those shots kept the Broncos from starting 0-2 at home in league play. However, Santa Clara was not very satisfied with their performance against a team with a 2-14 record and one who had lost 13 straight games heading into Saturday's contest.

"We didn't have a great game," Fast said. "As a team, our timing together is off. We need to fix that before we get to the [WCC Tournament]. That's the goal for all the teams, to go to the tournament and win three straight."

The Broncos started off slowly against Loyola and allowed the Lions to stay in the game. It was only a one-point game at halftime, and Santa Clara needed to shoot a solid 46 percent from the field in the second half to prevail. After jumping out to their biggest lead of the game at 50-40 with just over 14 minutes to play in the game, the Broncos fell victim to their pattern of inconsistent play, allowing the Lions to go on a 21-4 run that put them ahead 61-54 with eight minutes left.

Santa Clara did not buckle under the pressure of a possible embarrassing loss, and they finished the game with a 25-14 burst to come out on top. Holmes capped his best performance of the season with 12 of his 17 points in the last 10 minutes of the game, and Fast shook off a poor first half to finish with 17 points as well. Junior Brian Jones also gave the team a much needed lift, as he showed some signs of breaking out of his slump with 16 points on 6-10 shooting. Despite pulling out the win, however, Santa Clara still feels that they have a lot of room for improvement.

"We're focused on what we need to do to get better," Davey said. "Obviously, we're not at a level of the teams that are considered the best in the league right now. We need to have better shooting skills. We didn't work hard enough to stop them from scoring. We have to play better."

Santa Clara's next chance to play better will be another shot at the Lions, as the Broncos travel south to play Loyola Marymount next Friday night. The Broncos will then head to Malibu where they will square off with Pepperdine, who currently shares the conference lead with Gonzaga.