Toreros used 3s, ‘D’ to rally against No. 7 Gonzaga

As workhorse guards Adrian McIntyre and Ty-Laur Johnson met with the media late Tuesday night, University of San Diego head coach Steve Lavin stood in the back of the room at the Jenny Craig Pavilion scanning the final statistics of his Toreros’ 99-93 loss to seventh-ranked Gonzaga.

Lavin liked much of what he was seeing. In fact, almost all of it.

Yes, the Toreros had lost to fall to 6-8 overall and 1-1 in West Coast Conference play.

But USD mounted a furious late rally behind the play of guards Johnson, McIntyre and Juanse Gorosito and freshman forward D’Arrae Goodwin and forced the visiting Zags to alter their game plan.

Aside from the Zags’ loss to Michigan, Tuesday night was as close as anyone had come to Gonzaga this season. Two days earlier, Gonzaga won its WCC opener 96-56 at Pepperdine. The Zags defeated both 25th-ranked UCLA (82-72) and eighth-ranked Alabama (95-85) by 10 and 18th-ranked Kentucky by 35 (94-59).

Thanks to a 31-15 run over a span of 7 minutes and 10 seconds, USD pulled to within five points of Gonzaga — 98-93 — with 11.2 seconds to play.

“I saw a lot of encouraging play tonight,” said Lavin. “I’m proud of the way our players fought back and made that late run. Our resilience and pushback was the most impressive part. They are very strong up front … they have dominant frontline players. But I like the 25 points we got off turnovers. I’m really proud of the effort.”

USD’s full-court pressure and collapsing defense when the Zags worked the ball inside to their talented bigs forced 15 Gonzaga turnovers. Gonzaga did score 60 points in the paint, 22 of those behind second-chance points off 15 offensive rebounds.

“But we also forced them to take more 3s (18) than they normally want to,” said Lavin.

Offensively, the Toreros shot 52.4% (33 for 63) and pushed the ball upcourt for layups before the Gonzaga forwards could get back in the lane. Speed on offense and defense was USD’s biggest plus against Gonzaga’s edge in size and experience.

That was evident during USD’s late run. The Toreros hit eight of their final 17 3-point attempts with Goodwin going 3 for 5 from beyond the arc for 15 points, three rebounds and two assists in just 11 minutes.

Meanwhile, Johnson (21 points, two steals) and McIntyre (12 points, seven rebounds, seven assists) played 35 minutes apiece at full speed, while Gorosito (16 points, six rebounds) played 29 minutes. Between them, the three guards went 20 for 30 from the floor.

“We did a good job of bringing energy to what we were doing,” said McIntyre. “We believe in ourselves. We put in a lot of work.”

Added Johnson: “Our game is applying pressure and turning transitions into points.”