LMU to host Fullerton Wednesday

As expected, the Lions were left out of the NIT today, but did accept an invitation to play in the CollegeInsider.com Tournament for the second time in three years. LMU's first game of the tournament will be Wednesday, when they host Cal State Fullerton. The tournament matches up teams by region, not seeding.

Fullerton finished its season 21-9, with a 12-4 mark in the Big West. The Titans will travel to Gersten Pavilion for a 7 p.m. game Wednesday, which can be seen live here. Fullerton is led by D.J. Seeley and Kwame Vaughn, who is very familiar to the WCC. Vaughn played two season with USF, after originally committing to LMU and then-Head Coach Rodney Tention out of high school.

For a full list of the 32 teams in the CIT and the matchups, click here. The only other team of note for Lions fans is UCSB, who is led by former Lion Orlando Johnson, who also left LMU after the Rodney Tention coaching change. Johnson, despite playing just three years at UCSB, is the Gauchos all-time leading scorer. I'm sure an LMU/UCSB matchup would be a lot of fun to watch, but clearly LMU has to take this thing one game at a time.

In other WCC news, the conference got three teams into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008, as Saint Mary's, Gonzaga and BYU are all in. BYU plays first, with a game against Iona on Wednesday.

Saint Mary's ends impressive regular season with exclamation mark

Congratulation to Saint Mary's for their overtime victory over Gonzaga tonight to win the West Coast Conference championship. It was an incredible basketball game, but Matthew Dellevadova and the Gaels pulled it out in the end.

Props also have to be given to Gonzaga, who played its butt off, highlighted by a game-tying three by Elias Harris with four seconds remaining in overtime to force the game into the extra period. Gonzaga and Saint Mary's both hate and respect each other tremendously, you can tell by the way they play, and it sure does make for some exceptional basketball.

Both teams will be a threat when the Madness begins, as it's time to become a "WCC" fan for us Lion faithfuls. According to ESPN's Joe Lunardi, BYU will likely make the Tournament as well.

LMU, on the other hand, will wait to hear its fate, but after falling to No. 118 in today's RPI rankings, NIT no longer seems likely for the Lions. CIT seems probable.

Road warriors strike again

LMU upset No. 16 Saint Mary's tonight with a 75-60 victory. The Lions finish their conference road season with an astonishing 7-1 record and hand the Gaels their first home loss of the year. It was also the Lions first win over the Gaels in six years.

LMU practically led wire-to-wire, with guard Anthony Ireland and forward Drew Viney getting the team out to a hot start, scoring the team's first 13 points. Ireland finished the game with 16 points, seven assists and three rebounds, despite playing with some foul trouble. Viney finished with a team-high 17.

Jarred DuBois contributed 15 points of his own off the bench, and Ashley Hamilton added 11. With the win the Lions boast a a 10-4 West Coast Conference record. LMU has also gotten the best of three ranked opponents this season.

The Lions will finish out their WCC schedule by hosting San Diego and Santa Clara next week, but will first appear on national television Friday to host Valparaiso in a BracketBuster game. The 6 p.m. game can be seen live on ESPNU.

Updated Conference Standings

LMU looks to shock No. 20 Saint Mary's

Tonight's matchup pits the conference's two best point guards against each other.

The Lions will host No. 20 Saint Mary's tonight, looking for their first WCC home win against a team that is currently undefeated (8-0) in West Coast Conference play. The Lions last played at home on Jan. 14, when they lost a tight one to Gonzaga. LMU then went on the road to win two straight at BYU and then Santa Clara Monday night.

Saint Mary's has looked like the cream of the crop in the WCC thus far this season, getting out to an undefeated record that includes decisive home wins against Gonzaga and BYU.

The key matchup of the night will clearly be that of the point guards, who are arguably the two best point guards in the WCC. Here's how they stack up against each other, with WCC ranking in parenthesis.

                                  Anthony Ireland                                       Matthew Dellavedova
Scoring                             15.9 (3)                                                          15.8 (4)
Assists                               5.2 (3)                                                            6.5 (1)
Minutes per Game              36.1 (2)                                                          36.5 (1)

It will clearly be fun to watch these two go at it.

The key for the Lions tonight is going to be focus. They showed at BYU last week that they can play good basketball, but they have often times shown a lack of focus and drive during home games. LMU can not get complacent, not even for a couple minutes, against this strong Saint Mary's team and expect to win.

The Lions will also have to find an answer for Rob Jones of the Gaels, who is leading the conference in rebounding with an impressive 10.7 per game. Drew Viney and Ashley Hamilton will need to match Jones on the boards, but also attack him on the offensive end and hope to get Jones in foul trouble. Furthermore, if the Lions can pound the ball inside like they have been the last couple of games, LaRon Armstead, Jarred DuBois and Ireland will become even stronger outside scoring threats.

Game tips off at 7 p.m. 

Lions hope to make surprising WCC Tournament run

The Lions left for Las Vegas this morning, and in about 31 hours will be taking the court at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas to kick-off the men's portion of the West Coast Conference Tournament. The Lions have gone 2-2 on that court since the WCC Tournament moved there two seasons ago.

This season was, as many Lions fans know, a huge disappointment. Expected to finish in the top-three of the conference, LMU instead went just 2-12 in WCC play and will enter the tournament as the eighth, and last, seed. To make matters worse, they will face an unlikely draw of Portland - Santa Clara - Saint Mary's if they wish to get to the WCC Tournament finals. Portland and Saint Mary's have been the two toughest teams for the Lions to match-up against, as they have deadly three-point shooters.

But first up for LMU is the Portland Pilots, who have beaten the Lions twice this season. The first time the two teams matched up, LMU forced the Pilots into double-OT, before falling 79-78. Drew Viney came up huge for the Lions in that game, contributing 24 points.

In that initial game, the Lions did a nice job defending the three against a Pilots team that is one of the best long-range shooting teams in the nation. Portland went just 7-22 from three in the game. The Lions interior defense, however, left a little to be desired, as they allowed WCC All-Conference player Luke Sikma to score 24 points, the majority of which came in the paint.

The second meeting between the two teams was a game the Lions would like to forget, as they fell 71-48 in what many feel was the Lions' worst game of the season. Playing without leading scorer Drew Viney, LMU struggled to score. Freshman Anthony Ireland and senior Larry Davis were the only two Lions to score in double figures, with 10 and 11 points respectively.

LMU's three-point defense was again stellar, holding the Pilots to just four threes, but was outscored in the paint 32-16.

Facing the Pilots tomorrow, LMU is going to have to find a way to shutdown Sikma, who has topped 20 points in both meetings against the Lions this season. A combination of Drew Viney, Ashley Hamilton, and Tim Diederichs should get the nod against Sikma, and are going to have to do their best to stay out of foul trouble, something that has been difficult for Hamilton all season long. 

Another key for the Lions is going to be to continue shutting down the Pilot's long-range shooters, Jared Stohl and Nemanja Mitrovic, who had all four of the Pilot's threes in the two teams last meeting. LMU again did a good job in the majority of the team's last game against San Francisco in defending the three, before giving up two to lose the game in the closing minutes. Defensive rotations, and not leaving Mitrovic or Stohl open for a three, will be key.

On the offensive end, the Lions need to play better team ball. Moving the ball around more and playing less one-on-one isolation is extremely important to LMU's offensive success.

The game tips off tomorrow night at 6 p.m., and can be seen live on ESPN3.com and byutv.com. You can also keep it here for a live chat from press row.

Three Lions honored with conference awards

Three Lions were honored today by the West Coast Conference as it announced its end of the season conference awards. Freshman Anthony Ireland was named to the WCC All-Freshman team, while Drew Viney and Vernon Teel were both named to the Honorable Mention team. Both Viney and Teel were on last season's All-WCC First Team.

Ireland is averaging 10.1 points per game, second best in the league among freshmen. He is also eighth in the league in assists per game at 3.1. The Lions have now placed someone on the All-Freshmen team three years in a row, with Ashley Hamilton being named last year and Jarred DuBois being named the year before.

Viney is tied for second in the league in scoring, with 16.8 ppg, and was obviously hurt by the fact that the Lions finished the season just 2-12 when it comes to the conference awards. He also missed two and a half games due to migraines.

Teel stuffed the stat sheet once again this season, averaging 12.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3.8 assists per game in his final season.

Saint Mary's Mickey McConnell won Player of the Year while his Head Coach Randy Bennett won Coach of the Year.

LMU to host WCC's best to open conference play

Guards like Larry Davis are going to have tough defensive tasks tomorrow against the Gaels | Courtesy of Facebook

The Lions (7-7) welcome the Saint Mary's Gaels to Gersten Pavilion tomorrow to open WCC play at 6 p.m. The Gaels come in with the WCC's best record at an impressive 12-2, having won six straight decisions. The Lions, on the other hand, had the conference's fifth best record in non-WCC play, and are coming off of a road victory over UC Irvine.

LMU went 0-2 against Saint Mary's last season, when the Gaels went on to win the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas before eventually making it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Overall the Lions have lost eight straight games to the Gaels.

The Gaels, having lost big man Omar Samhan to graduation after last season, have not lost a step in his absence. Saint Mary's has been led by spectacular guard play coming from Mickey McConnell and Matthew Dellavedova, who are averaging a combined 27.2 points per game and are first and second in the league in free throw percentage, respectively. Dellavedova is also first in the conference in assists per game with six, while McConnell is not far behind in second with 5.4.

Rob Jones has also become a surprising star for the Gaels, after transferring from fellow WCC school USD in 2009. Jones is averaging 13.7 points per game (good enough for second on the team) and a team-leading 5.5 rebounds per contest.

LMU has had a full week off to prepare for Saint Mary's.

The Gaels have played only two road games thus far this season, and have a 1-1 record to show for them. With school still not back in session for LMU, a large crowd is probably not expected in Gersten tomorrow, but could be important for a Lions team looking for a major upset. A win tomorrow for LMU would definitely start its conference season off in the right direction, and could really determine where this team goes in WCC play.