Nov. 23, 2008

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The Loyola Marymount men's basketball team will begin a tough three-game road swing that will see them travel 8,804 miles and play three games in just over a week. The trip starts with a 2,438-mile trek to Staton Island, New York, to take on Wagner on Monday, Nov. 24 at 4:00 p.m. (PT) Wagner enters the game at 2-1 while the Lions (0-4) are coming off a tough 65-54 setback to No. 8 Notre Dame. The game can be heard on KXLU 88.9 FM and online at LMULions.com.

Bill Bayno
Loyola Marymount University Athletics has announced that Bill Bayno is taking a leave of absence, effective immediately, as the head coach of the LMU men's basketball team. Assistant Coach Max Good will serve as acting head coach during Bayno's leave. "Recently, I was diagnosed with a serious medical condition, in part, related to the stress and anxiety of head coaching," says Bayno. "It will require treatment which will force me to take a leave of absence. It is unfortunate and I feel badly for the University, the coaching staff and most of all my players and their families, all of whom I will miss very much. I ask for privacy for myself and my family and I thank you for your prayers and support." "The LMU Family's greatest concerns are for the wellbeing of Bill and the team," said LMU Atheltics Director Dr. William Husak. "His health is the most important thing he needs to focus on right now. He has done great things in his brief time at LMU and has earned the love and respect of all. I have asked Max Good to be our acting head coach during this time period and I have great confidence that Max and the rest of the staff will continue the process Bill began. All of us at LMU are concerned for Bill's wellbeing and he and his family are in our thoughts and prayers."

INSIDE THE LIONS
Growing pains have become an understatement for the 2008-09 LMU Men's Basketball team. Already with the absence of their head coach due to health issues, LMU's roster, which has six newcomers and just three seniors, has gotten much slimmer. They started the season with just 10 eligible scholarship student-athletes, including five new to a Lion uniform. Junior transfer Larry Davis (Seton Hall) and sophomore Drew Viney (Oregon), who give LMU eight new players total on the roster, will redshirt the season due to transfer rules while redshirt sophomore Terron Sutton is out for the year due to a torn ACL suffered in practice this October. The line-up has gotten even slimmer as Tim Diederichs, who has played limited minutes due to an injured shoulder, missed the first game of his career against Notre Dame. There is more. Leading scorer, rebounder and assist man Vernon Teel broke his right foot against the Irish and will be out four to six weeks. Despite the roster that has just eight scholarship athletes healthy and eligible, two of which were walk-ons that earned scholarships this season, they pushed No. 8 Notre Dame until the final minutes in a 65-54 setback.

MORE ON THAT YOUTH
Five newcomers on LMU's roster, including four true freshman, have been asked to carry the load for the Lions this season. Sophomore transfer Vernon Teel and freshmen Jarred DuBois, Ashley Hamilton, Kevin Young and LaRon Armstead have combined to play 525 of the 800 minutes played in four games this season, that is nearly 66 percent. DuBois leads the group with 32.5 minutes per game, on pace to snap the record by a freshman set by Forrest McKenzie with 29.8 minutes in 1981. The group has also combined for 156 of the 215 points (73 percent) and 84 of the 131 rebounds (64 percent).

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR PETE NEWELL
Pete Newell, the Hall of Fame basketball coach and 1940 alum of LMU (then known as Loyola) who won an NCAA championship and Olympic gold medal and later tutored some of the game's greatest big men, died Monday. He was 93. A private funeral and mass will be held in San Diego on Monday with a private grave side burial to be held the following day. A public memorial and celebration for the hall of fame coach will be held on the campus of Loyola Marymount University at Sacred Heart Cathedral Monday, Dec. 15, 2008. The service will begin at 9:00 a.m. In honor of Newell, donations may be sent to: Pete Newell Scholarship Fund; c/o University of California; 195 Haas Pavilion; Berkeley, CA 94720-4422

RECORD SELLOUT
For the first time in program history Loyola Marymount played their home opener against No. 8 Notre Dame in front of a sellout crowd of 4,534, breaking the all-time Gersten Pavilion record. The record was originally set with 4,525 on Feb. 20, 1988 in a 142-127 win over Pepperdine. It is the 16th sellout in LMU history, just the third in a non-conference game and the first in a home opener. The sellout was the first since the Lions hosted fifth-ranked Gonzaga on Feb. 18, 2006 and joins Oklahoma and UC Santa Barbara as the only sellouts against a non-conference foe in the 29 years of Gersten Pavilion. In the second game of the 1989-90 season, the Lions had their first-ever sellout against a non-WCC foe when they drew a capacity crowd of 4,156 in a 104-101 win over UC Santa Barbara on Dec. 9, 1989. Then on Dec. 23 the Lions drew a standing room only crowd of 4,210 as the Lions fell to ranked Oklahoma 136-121.

INSIDE THE GAME
The Lions will head to Staton Island, New York, for a return game against Wagner of the Northeast Conference. The teams met for the first time last season at Gersten Pavilion and a senior laden Wagner squad earned an 83-79 win in overtime. Wagner and LMU will once again be a complete opposite in looks. While LMU will rely heavily on their freshman, Wagner will start four seniors and a junior. Senior Llewchea Radford leads the team in scoring and rebounds with 18 and 11.3, respectively. They are 2-1 on the season with a season-opener setback to Lafayette, 73-67. They have won their last two, 59-44 over Saint Peters at home and then a 65-62 win over Stony Brook on the road Saturday.

DEFENSIVE SHOW
While playing one of the tougher schedules in the West Coast Conference early in the 2008-09 season, the Lions are holding their own on the defensive end. The Lions are fourth in the league in scoring defense at 67.8 points. LMU and Portland are the only two teams in the WCC through Nov. 23 to have not played a non-Division I program.

MAKING A POINT
Freshman Jarred DuBois is one of the big reasons the Lions defense has fared well so far this season. The true freshman point guard turned heads with his defense against No. 8 Notre Dame on Friday, holding first-team All-Big East performer Kyle McAlarney to zero points. The senior McAlarney averaged 15.1 points a year ago and hit 108 three-pointers (hitting 44 percent). DuBois held him to 0-for-7 from the field and 0-for-4 from long range, forcing him into four turnovers. DuBois added offense to that effort, going for a career best 16 points, hitting 4-of-6 from long range. DuBois is second on the team in scoring at 11.0 points per game and has nine assists to just three turnovers.

TAKE A GOOD LOOK
The Australian forward Marko Deric is the only senior on the Lions' roster who came to the Lions on a scholarship. He enters the Wagner game with 86 games as a Lion, averaging 4.2 per game in his first three seasons. Fellow senior guards Corey Counts and Chris Kanne are former walk-ons who earned scholarships this summer. Kanne is a fifth-year senior who earned his Business degree in May and is now in graduate school at LMU for Business Law. Kanne turned heads this offseason with his shooting and is expected to play more as he enters the Wagner game with 35 career games in three-plus seasons. Counts had a breakout year last season, starting 22 games, leading the team with 88 assists while hitting on 39 percent from the three-point line (37-for-95). Counts has played 63 games as a Lion, hitting 58 three-pointers with 134 assists. Take a good look at seniors this season as Counts, Kanne and Deric will be the only three seniors in the LMU men's basketball program for the next two years as the roster has only one junior and that is redshirt Larry Davis.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
While very young, the Lions do have experience on their roster. In addition to Marko Deric, Chris Kanne and Corey Counts, the Lions also return Tim Diederichs and Brad Sweezy. The two sophomores combined to start 40 games a year ago, including all 31 by Diederichs. The true sophomore from Seattle, Wash., became the first freshman in program history to start every game. He is the team's top returning scorer from a year ago after going for 255 points and 106 rebounds to rank 10th and eighth, respectively, in the freshman record books. He continues to be slowed with an injured shoulder and has averaged 14.7 minutes per game, down nearly 13 minutes from his average as a freshman. As for the redshirt sophomore Sweezy, he started nine games and played in 29 of the 31 games a year ago and has become known for his defense and intensity, frustrating his opponent.

HISTORICAL THREE
Since the three-point field goal was introduced in the 1986-87 season, LMU has had just one game where they have not had a three-pointer. Well, in the first game with the three-point line pushed back a foot they had their second, snapping a streak of 375 games snapped. The Lions went 0-for-8 against Wisconsin-Milwaukee, marking just the second time they went without a three. The only "miss" came on Dec. 19, 1995 when the Lions went 0-for-6 in an 82-80 win over Hawaii. That game snapped a 271 consecutive three-pointer streak for the Lions. In the 652 games the Lions have played since the three-point line was instituted, the Lions have hit three-pointers in 650 of them. The Lions have never gone without a three-pointer in WCC play.

MAKING THEM COUNTS
Senior Corey Counts made sure the Lions didn't go long without a three-pointer, going 5-for-6 from long range against Iowa State. It was the second time in his career he has hit five in a game, hitting the mark while going for 21 points against Gonzaga in the WCC opener a year ago. Counts is 9-for-15 from the three-point line in 2008-09 and is now 58-for-145 (40 percent) in his career. He entered the season 11th in career three-point percentage at 37.7 percent and is currently ranked fifth.

MORE ON THE 3
The move of the three-point line did not seem to bother LMU's opponents at the world Vision Classic as they went 34-for-83 (41 percent) with all three opponents hitting more three-pointers in a single game than they did in any one contest the year prior. Wisconsin-Milwaukee hit 14 while Iowa State and UC Davis hit 10 each.

THE TEEL DEAL
Sophomore Vernon Teel was named to the World Vision Classic All-Tournament team after an impressive opening act for the Lions. The native of Jamaica Queens, New York, averaged 19.3 points and 9.3 rebounds in the three games in Ames, Iowa. He finished with 58 points in the tournament, going for 23 points, six rebounds and three assists against UC Davis; 17 points, 13 rebounds and three assists against Iowa State; and putting in 18 points with nine rebounds and two assists in his debut against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

CHARITY STRIPE
In the first three games, the Lions went to the free throw line 64 times, hitting 41 (64.1 percent). They were averaging 21.3 attempts per game and Vernon Teel led the way, going to the free throw line 39 times, an average of 13 times per game. Through three games the Lions had made more free throws than their opponents attempted. However, that changed against the Irish as they did what LMU had been doing to their first three opponents. Notre Dame went to the charity stripe 32 times while opponents went to the line 38 times in the first three games combined. Through four games LMU is 47-for-72 while their opponents are 47-for-70.

FSN PRIME TICKET
The LMU-Notre Dame game was the first of eight games for the Lions on FSN Prime Ticket and FSN West. The Lions and FSN Prime Ticket have agreed to do three of LMU's home games this season, starting with Friday's game. The other two will be the Parent Weekend game against Santa Clara on Feb. 14 at 7:30 p.m., and the final home game of the season against Saint Mary's on Feb. 28 at 5:00 p.m. Additional games that FSN Prime Ticket/FSN West will carry for the Lions will be Dec. 2 at Arizona (FSN-PT/6:00 p.m.), Dec. 17 at UCLA (FSN-PT/8:00 p.m.), Jan. 1 at Seattle (FSN-PT/7:30 p.m.), Jan. 24 vs. Gonzaga (FSN-PT/5:00 p.m.) and Feb. 19 at Gonzaga (FSN-West/6:00 p.m.).

- GO LIONS -