Box Score

(San Diego, Calif.) - The USD Toreros held off a late rally by the Santa Clara Broncos to earn a hard-fought 69-64 victory before 2,369 fans at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. Freshman guard Vasa Pusica came off the bench to score a season-high 16 points and the Torero bench combined to outscore the Broncos bench 39-6. The Toreros held a 62-49 lead with 57 seconds left and then watched the Broncos score 15 points to close out the game. Pusica was 4-4 from the field (2-2 in threes) and a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line.

"Fortunately this is not gymnastics, there is just one number, do you have more than them," said head coach Bill Grier. "Bottom line is we found a way to get the win. Could we have finished it off better? Sure we could, but the most important thing is that we won. That is two straight games that Vasa has played terrific. He forced the action, he finished plays, and he made his shots from the outside as well as at the free throw line."

A Jito Kok dunk gave USD a 65-55 cushion with 32 seconds to go, but Santa Clara answered with a bucket from Denzel Johnson, a three from Brandon Clark and a basket from Jared Brownridge over a 110 second span to pull to within 65-62 with 22 ticks left. Johnny Dee was fouled with 14 seconds left and converted his only free throws in two games to extend his streak of makes to 24. Brownridge added two free throws of his own to make it 67-64 a second later, but Thomas Jacobs calmly sank two free throws with 9 seconds left for the final points of the game and 5-point victory.

For the game USD shot 51.2% from the field (21-41) and played solid defense for the first 38 minutes of the game. The Toreros also canned 7-of-10 threes and 20-of-25 from the charity stripe. Dee followed Pusica in double figures with 11 points, while USD received solid efforts from Brandon Perry (8 points), Duda Sanadze (7 points), Christopher Anderson (8 points, 4 assists) and Jito Kok (4 points, 4 blocked shots). Now with 61 blocks on the season he needs just 3 more to break his single season mark set last year, and only 5 more to set the new Torero career mark of 184.

Santa Clara received a game-high 22 points from guard Brandon Clark, last week's WCC Player of the Week. The Broncos (11-11, 5-5 WCC) saw their 4-game winning streak snapped. USD (11-11, 4-6 WCC) will put their 2-game win streak on the line this Saturday when they host the USF Dons at 5pm.