Feb. 1, 2014

Box Score

(San Diego, Calif.) - The USD Toreros saw their two-game winning streak come to an abrupt end as the visiting Pacific Tigers dealt them an 84-67 loss. San Diego, which was coming off an impressive home win over Saint Mary's, jumped out to an early 12-0 lead, but it was all Pacific (12-9, 3-7 WCC) from there as the WCC's newest member earned its first league road win. Senior Dennis Kramer paced the Toreros (13-11, 4-7 WCC) with a game-high 19 points to go with 8 rebounds.

"It's happened to us a couple of times this season where we have gotten off to a great start and then we relax and kind of lose our edge," said head coach Bill Grier. "They went with a little different lineup and the two guys they took out came in and really played well to help get them going offensively. And then from that point, it didn't matter if we went man or zone, we just could not dig in defensively. It's disappointing after arguably our best defensive effort to follow it up with our worst."

In the 12-0 start to the game, Dennis Kramer scored 7 of the points with his three-pointer at the 17:09 mark giving USD its largest lead of the game. Over the next five minutes of play the Tigers answered with a 16-6 run to get back in the game. A Duda Sanadze three and Thomas Jacobs bucket would give the Toreros a 26-16 advantage, but over the final 9 minutes of the half the Tigers would outscore the Toreros by 20 points and lead 50-40 at the break. Trevin Harris (14 points) and Ross Rivera (8 points) both came off the bench in the first half to spark the Tiger rally. Johnny Dee had 14 points by the break for USD and his 7th point of the game moved him into the #7 all-time spot among Torero scorers.

Pacific continued its solid play to start the second half as they opened on a 15-5 run and the closest USD would get is 13 points (65-52) with 9:47 left on a Johnny Dee three-pointer. The Tigers' Trevin Harris would finish with 16 points off the bench and was matched by guard Andrew Bock. Following Dennis Kramer in the scoring column was Dee (17 points) and Sanadze (15 points). Pacific shot 54.7% from the field for the game and canned 8-of-15 threes; USD shot 50.0% and converted 11-of-21 three-pointers. Pacific cashed in on 18-of-21 free throws while the Toreros struggled (14-26).

USD returns to the JCP next Thursday, Feb. 6th, to take on the USF Dons in a 7:00 p.m. contest that will air on Fox Sports San Diego.