LOS ANGELES — The Occidental College men's basketball team knew they would have to protect and defend the ball with 40 minutes of intensity against No. 13 Whitworth (Spokane, Wash.), a team who reached the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Division III tournament last season.
Despite a career-high 13 points and 11 rebounds from junior Ty Cobb (Menlo Park), his first collegiate double-double, the Tigers couldn't overcome 25 turnovers. The disciplined Pirates scored nearly half of their points off of them in a 95-66 win at Rush Gymnasium.
"Ty [Cobb] was a bright spot for us," Occidental head coach Brian Newhall said. "But we were just sloppy. Whitworth is very sound—a Final Four team, but those 25 turnovers were us traveling, dribbling into traps, making incompetent offensive plays.
"We gave up too many layups, but it was a good learning experience for us."
Deshun McCoy (Los Angeles) contributed 18 points and six rebounds, but collectively Oxy (2-5) couldn't get a rhythm going on offense, shooting just 30.9 percent from the field on limited possessions.
The first 13 minutes of the game went as well as Oxy could have hoped for. Neither team led by more than five points and the Tigers even raced out to a 7-2 lead in the opening 3 minutes.
But the game-changer came when Whitworth (6-1) went on an 11-0 run, scoring easy layups in transition once they beat the first line of Oxy's full-court man press. Like the second half, they scored almost half of their points off of Oxy's turnovers, and forced Oxy into shooting just 26.7 percent from the field.
Though the Tigers cut the lead to single digits on an and-1 layup by McCoy with 5:53 left in the opening period (36-27), Whitworth would lead by 21 at the half (48-27).
The Pirates scored 56 points in the paint and shot 53.8 percent from the field, with four players reaching double figures. Dustin McConnell had a game-high 20 points, Robby Douglas had 15 points, Wade Gebbers had 11 points (three threes) and Zach Payne added 10 points.
After dropping three games to the top three SCIAC teams and one to a nationally ranked opponent, the Tigers might be eager for a change of scenery. The team heads to Las Vegas next weekend to face Northwestern Ohio and Washington and Jefferson on December 20-21.
"We always want to play the best competition, and I love playing against the top Division III teams to see where we stand," Cobb said. "Everyone's a little disappointed, but we know we have to work really hard the next couple of days for Vegas.
"SCIAC's right around the corner, and we can't let any days slip by where we aren't getting better," he said.
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