LOS ANGELES — The final minutes of Friday night's game against Macalester were a microcosm of the Occidental College men's basketball team's weaknesses in both halves.
After Oxy committed two consecutive turnovers, Kris Montoya (Portland) fouled Pierce Peters on a three with 1:21 left in the game, and the senior made all three to put his team up 75-70.
The story of the game was clear: Oxy committed 29 turnovers overall and couldn't seem to get their hands off Macalester, who made the Tigers pay by sinking 30 of their 32 free-throws to win 81-75 at Rush Gymnasium.
"A lot of our fouls were mental and fatigue fouls," Occidental head coach Brian Newhall said. "Our guys played hard, the energy was sky-high but it was a hard night for us.
"We have to give Macalester credit for coming in here on the road and hitting their shots, but we just turned it over way too many times and dropped our hands too much on defense."
The Tigers (1-1) struggled to find the balance between playing aggressive, energized on-ball defense and playing over-aggressive defense with unnecessary hand-checks and loose ball fouls.
Offense wasn't the problem. Deshun McCoy (Los Angeles) led all scorers with 26 points on 11-15 shooting (and grabbed eight rebounds), while Eric Leider (Las Vegas) had 20 points on 8-15 shooting. Montoya added 12 points in limited minutes due to first-half foul trouble. Collectively the Tigers shot 53.8% from the field and 41.7% from long range.
Leider made critical threes down the stretch in the second half, including one with 6:02 left in the game to put his team up 62-59.
In the first half, Oxy's guards made the right reads in the half-court set against the overplaying man-defense of Macalester (2-1), making them pay with several backdoor cuts for layups, including one that led to a powerful dunk by Ty Cobb (Menlo Park). The Tigers even shot 60.7% from the field in the first half and outscored the Scots 44-30 overall inside.
But the number of points couldn't make up for the number of lost possessions, as Macalester scored 31 of their 81 points off of Oxy turnovers, many of which were unforced.
Peters finished with 23 points, and Dylan Kilgour added 12 points, including a critical three to put Macalester up 70-68 with 2:36 left in the game. Sam Marshall chipped in with 14 points inside.
Many Occidental freshmen reserves saw increased minutes with the starters in foul trouble, including center David Yetenikyan (Glendale), who pulled down eight rebounds in 17 solid minutes of play. Erik Eichinger (Radnor, Penn.) started and played 33 minutes, filling in for the injured Ryan Chong (San Diego).
The Tigers will look to rebound from their first loss of the season tomorrow night against Pacifica at Rush Gymnasium at 6 p.m.
Mirin Fader is the Oxy men's basketball beat writer. She also writes feature stories on Oxy athletes, coaches and alums. She is currently a Team Writer for the Los Angeles Clippers (Clippers.com), and also contributes articles to Dime Magazine (dimemag.com). This past summer, Mirin wrote for the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks. All of her work, including her archived Oxy stories can be found at her website: mirinfader.com