Location: Los Angeles, Ca. | Founded: 1911 | Enrollment: 8,300 | Colors: Crimson, Navy and Gray
Coach: Bill Bayno | Home Court: Gersten Pavilion | Capacity: 4,156 Record:
(5-26, 2-12
West Coast)
FINAL RECORD 5-26 overall, 2-12 WCC, eighth place.
WHAT WENT RIGHT The Lions were almost injury-free. The top six scorers missed only one game among them, and the top three players -- Orlando Johnson, Shawn Deadwiler and Tim Diederichs -- played every game, which is important for a young team that needs experience. Johnson and Diederichs may have exceeded expectations for freshmen. The highlight was the road win over Boise State, which shared the regular-season championship in the Western Athletic Conference.
WHAT WENT WRONG Coach Rodney Tention never duplicated his first-year success and resigned on March 12. A lot of things went wrong, and it was likely LMU was going to give Tention the boot had he not resigned first. The Lions were not in many games and things seemed to get worse as the season went on. They lost 18 of their final 20 games and did not win any conference road games. They were last in the conference in field-goal percentage defense and last in field-goal percentage offense, and that's a bad combination. But the biggest problem was taking care of the ball. Loyola Marymount led the conference in turnovers at more than 18 a game.
QUOTE TO NOTE "It's a nice accomplishment, but I came to win and that didn't happen this season, so the time to start getting better is right now." -- Orlando Johnson, on setting the school record for points in a season by a freshman.
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