Box Score SAN DIEGO – Point Loma's Golden Gymnasium will be the site for next month's Pacific West Conference Basketball Tournament. The Chaminade University men's basketball team hopes that if they qualify as one of the top six teams who earn a berth, the results will be a lot more satisfactory than Tuesday night's result.
The Silverswords suffered an 83-62 setback to Point Loma, dropping them to 13-9 overall and 10-4 in the PacWest. The loss, coupled with Dixie State's overtime win against BYU-Hawai'i in which the Red Storm hit a 3-pointer with less than a second left to force an extra period, dropped Chaminade to third place in the standings. The top two finishers in the regular season standings receive a first-round bye in the tournament.
Tyree Harrison led the 'Swords with a career-high-tying 16 points while
Kuany Kuany, the reigning Hawai'i Tourism Authority PacWest Defensive Player of the Week, had 15. Harrison and Kuany had eight and seven rebounds, respectively.
Rhys Murphy and
James Harper contributed with eight points each.
Hayden Lescault poured in 30 points for the Sea Lions (14-8, 9-8).
The 'Swords' only lead of the contest came in the game's first three minutes on a Kuany layup and a Harrison free throw, making it 8-5. The Sea Lions would recapture the lead for good at 10-8 on Junior Morgan's layup with 15:30 left in the half.
Chaminade trailed by as many as eight, but cut the deficit to 24-23 on a pair of
Kevin Hu free throws. Later in the half, Harper's 3-pointer knotted the game at 32 with 5:07 left before Point Loma built the lead back to seven at 40-33 with just over two minutes left. But two Harrison free throws followed by a Murphy 3-ball would make it a 40-38 Chaminade deficit at halftime.
Point Loma shot over 55 percent from the floor in the first half while holding Chaminade to just under 46 percent, although the 'Swords had the advantage on the glass, 19-13.
The turning point of the game came midway through the second half. With the Silverswords down, 53-49, with 14 minutes left, Lescault's 3-point play triggered an 11-0 run, giving the Sea Lions a 64-49 advantage. The 'Swords would come no closer than 10 the rest of the way.
Point Loma shot nearly 61 percent (14-of-23) from the floor in the second half while holding Chaminade to only 6-of-22 (27.3 percent). The Sea Lions shot 58 percent from the field overall, the second-highest percentage by a CUH opponent this season. The Silverswords managed to control the rebounding totals, 33-26, but also committed 20 turnovers, allowing PLNU to turn those into 30 points.
The 21-point margin of defeat is the largest suffered by Chaminade since losing to then-11
th-ranked Gonzaga last Nov. 26 at the EA Sports Maui Invitational. It's also the largest against a Division II foe since an 87-63 loss on February 20, 2012 at California Baptist.
"We were not very good with the ball tonight," Silverswords head coach
Eric Bovaird said, referencing the 20 giveaways. "Part of the reason is not having our all-conference point guard, but we have to make better decisions with the ball.
"Point Loma runs great things on offense, but we struggled with fundamental defense."
The schedule doesn't get any easier for the 'Swords as they head to Riverside, Calif., for a showdown with conference-leading and 13
th-ranked California Baptist on Thursday. They wrap up the road trip on Saturday at Dixie State.
