Past scandal doesn’t dampen San Diego’s mission to improve

To those that remain loyal to the University of San Diego basketball program, 2008 must seem like a lifetime ago.

That year, the Toreros won the West Coast Conference tournament, then upset No. 4 Connecticut as a No. 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament's first round. They were the toast of the town, and coach Bill Grier was a pseudo-celebrity.

Fast forward to Saturday. The Toreros are 6-7 after falling to Oregon State 86-79 at the Holiday Hoops Classic in the first basketball game played at the MGM Grand Garden. They are trying to put a 2011 point-shaving scandal behind them. They no longer are the top dog in their own city. These days, San Diego State dominates on the court and in the headlines.

"I feel like we're headed in the right direction," said Grier, in his sixth season at USD. "This group has been as close as any team I've been associated with (at USD), and it's a group that does what it's supposed to do, both on and off the court. They go to class. They work hard in practice, and they compete and never give up.

"We had a tough stretch a couple of years ago where guys didn't do the right thing on or off the floor. We don't think about (the scandal). It never comes up. We've moved on from that."

Perhaps. But things need to get better if the Toreros don't want to become even more irrelevant than they are. Attendance at seven home games this season has averaged 1,377. When they played the Aztecs on Dec. 15 at a sold-out, 12,414-seat Viejas Arena, USD was on the short end of a 72-56 spanking.

"We're using it as motivation to get better," said senior center Chris Manresa, who had 18 points Saturday against Oregon State (9-2). "It just shows you how fast things can turn around. We've been on top. Right now, they're on top."

San Diego, which was picked to finish fifth in the WCC preseason coaches poll, returns to Las Vegas on March 6 for the WCC tournament at Orleans Arena. Grier hopes the team's play in the second half, when it cut Oregon State's lead from 50-35 with just under 16 minutes to play to 74-72 with 3:59 to go, will be a building block moving forward.

"I don't know why we were so tentative in the first half," said Grier, whose team trailed 44-29 at intermission. "They have tremendous size and posed a lot of matchup problems for us. But we tried to get out and run with them more in the second half, and we got some stops. But I think we may have run out of gas at the end, and we couldn't string together enough stops to come all the way back."

USD plays James Madison (5-6) at 3:30 p.m. today at the Grand Garden as the two-day event concludes. Boise State (8-2) faces New Orleans (3-7) at 1 p.m.

The Toreros have battles awaiting in conference play, particularly at Gonzaga, Saint Mary's and Brigham Young.

Said Manresa: "We've got a lot of games left, and everyone's together on this team. We're not discouraged.

In the second game, James Madison got 18 points from A.J. Davis, all in the second half, and the Dukes (5-6) used a 13-0 run to wipe out a 10-point halftime deficit and beat San Jose State, 77-68. San Jose State (5-5) was led by LaVanne Pennington with 16 points.

Attendance for Saturday's doubleheader was 840.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.