loses season opener
By Seth Rubinroit / Special to The Malibu Times
Goliath invaded Malibu, and while David was not able to knock Goliath down, he delivered the lion a good shot to the chops.
The mighty University of Connecticut Huskies men’s basketball team, ranked third in the country, marched into Firestone Fieldstone on Friday in front of a sold-out crowd of about 3,100 to challenge the underdog Pepperdine University Waves, defeating them, 75-56.
“They’re in a rebuilding process,” said Connecticut freshman Marcus Johnson, who grew up in Los Angeles. “They’re an OK program. It’ll cause a good match-up for us, but, in L.A., they’re not necessarily a high-major but more of a mid-major type school.”
After loosing Alex Acker, who was drafted by the Detroit Pistons, Glen McGowan, and Yakhouba Diawara, the Waves are without 66.7 percent of their scoring from last season. This year Pepperdine will field the youngest team in the West Coast Conference. Conversely, Connecticut is one of the elite teams in the country this season, led by sophomore sensation Rudy Gay and junior Josh Boone.
“They [Connecticut] are always very talented,” said former Laker and NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West, who was at the game to do scouting for the Memphis Grizzlies. “But, their [Pepperdine] backcourt is a little bit of a concern to me. Once they get the players back in the backcourt they lost, they will be a very talented team.”
West was referring to guards Marcus Williams and A.J. Price, who were suspended for participating in the theft of four computers from campus housing over the summer, prompting Waves fans to jeer, “Where’s my laptop?” throughout the game.
With Williams and Price out, Pepperdine was able to exploit Connecticut’s weakness at guard by using Michael Gerrity, a six-foot freshman from Mater Dei High. He was able to overwhelm the Huskies with his speed and ball handling ability.
“I was told to pressure the point guard,” Gerrity said. He harassed Craig Austrie, Connecticut’s starting point guard, from the beginning and forced him to make a turnover right out of the gate. Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun was so frustrated, he took Austrie out after only 17 seconds.
Gerrity finished the game leading all scorers with 19 points, and he had a team high four assists.
“That little guard [Gerrity] gave us fits,” said Calhoun, who was recently elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame. “Everybody we tried on him didn’t work.”
Austrie wasn’t ready to give his counterpart any credit. “We gave them momentum,” he said. “We made them look good early in the game. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good team. They came out here and fought us hard, but I think if we came out and asserted ourselves it would have been a lot easier to win this game.”
While the Waves outplayed the guards from Connecticut, the Huskies’ forwards were in a league of their own. Gay scored 15 points, which should have been higher except that he only made five of 14 shots, and also grabbed 10 rebounds. Boone, who was a dominant force on both offense and defense, poured in 18 points, and was a monster on the boards, snatching 12 rebounds.
“I think he’s [Gay] terrific,” Pepperdine coach Paul Westphal said. “I can see why everybody is talking about him being such a high draft choice. I think he’ll have a great career if he wants to.”
Overall, however, not everyone was convinced that Connecticut should be the No. 3 team in the nation.
“I was a little disappointed,” said NBA legend Reggie Miller, who sat courtside at the game. “For the No. 3 rated team in the country, I wanted to see a little more. I’ll tell you what. If Duke would have been up here or if Texas would have been up here… I was a little disappointed.”
Ironically, Pepperdine was more satisfied with their performance than their counterparts, despite the loss.
“We’re only going to move forward from this,” Gerrity said. “I wish the score could have been a little closer because I think it was a closer game than it showed, but we’re going to take steps forward. We’re moving in the right direction.”
“We take a whole lot of positives [out of the loss],” Westphal said. “We played very hard, we played together, we played good defense. We did a good job on the boards. We really did everything well except shoot the ball. That’s the way basketball is sometimes. If you don’t make baskets, you’re going to end up losing, but it doesn’t mean you didn’t play well. I’m very happy with our team.”.