Lions claw back to shock Dons in 90-88 victory

Once down by 19, LMU fought its way back Saturday night to beat San Francisco 90-88 at Gersten Pavilion. The Lions now boast a 8-3 WCC record and remain tied with BYU for third place. Drew Viney led the way with arguable his best game of the season, finishing with 20 points, nine rebounds and five assists.

Getting out to an extremely sloppy start, the Lions found themselves down for the majority of the first half. Hot shooting by San Francisco and sloppy turnovers by LMU gave the Dons a 41-22 lead with three minutes remaining in the first period. The Lions were able to cut it to 13 at the break.

The second half started off much the same for the Lions, who looked like they couldn't buy a bucket. Every time LMU was able to get within nine points of the visiting team San Francisco was able to fight back with three-pointers, at one point hitting three in a row to take a 16 points lead with just over 14 minutes to play.

However, down by 15 points with just over seven minutes to play, the Lions made their final comeback, which proved to be enough. Anthony Ireland, Jarred DuBois and a resurgent Drew Viney put the team on their back and carried them to victory with clutch three-point shooting. DuBois finished with 17 points while Ireland, who struggled from the floor most of the night, still finished with 15.

The Lions put together a 60-point second half show while shooting an astonishing 10-13 from the three-point line.

LMU will now head out on the road to face Portland on Thursday night.