Effort Is One of Things Egan Will Look for Next Season at USD

SAN DIEGO — Sometime during halftime Saturday, in a locker room under the stands in Santa Clara’s Toso Pavilion, the University of San Diego’s basketball season ended.

That it would end early in the postseason was no big surprise. USD was trying to replace four starters off a championship team with a group that included five freshmen, one junior-college transfer and four returnees with little previous experience. The Toreros were 11-17 overall and 3-11 during the West Coast Athletic Conference regular season.

What was surprising was that USD’s season ended halfway through a game. Sure, the Toreros went out and played the second half of their WCAC first-round playoff against St. Mary’s, but something was left in that locker room.

USD trailed by only 28-23 at the half, but St. Mary’s then switched to a higher gear, and the Toreros failed to respond. St. Mary’s ran away with a 68-48 victory.

Since then, USD Coach Hank Egan has been trying to figure out why his team didn’t show up for its biggest half this season.

It has bothered and confused him. After all, he is the same guy who before this season said: “We’re going to be getting after it at all times.”

USD didn’t get after it Saturday. And there were other times this season, too.

Egan, along with anyone else who followed this team, is well aware that USD was young and probably not as talented as most of the other WCAC teams. He will attempt to deal with that in the next few months with recruiting and adjustments.

But he first wants to deal with things that are harder for him to put a finger on, such as what happened Saturday. So his first task was to meet individually with each of his players.

“I can understand the poor shooting games, and I can understand getting some bad breaks,” Egan said. “But one thing I can’t understand is a lack of effort. I want to find out why we didn’t have it (Saturday).”

After his meetings, after he has heard from his players, Egan will begin working on more tangible items. Such as:

- Coming back from a season in which USD won 13 fewer games than it did the season before and went from first to seventh in the conference.

- Continuing to force-feed players who next season will have more experience as sophomores than most second-year players but still will be young.

- Trying to find some more leadership from an upper class that is going to remain thin. Marty Munn and Jim Pelton, the two seniors lost from this year’s team, will be replaced by only two more seniors, Danny Means and Efrem Leonard.

USD figures to improve some only because eight of the top 10 players from this year, however young, will return. Also, nobody figures to be devastated by the 1987-88 season. The fall was expected; most even expected it to reach the depths it did.

As the Rev. Patrick Cahill, USD’s athletic director, said: “This season wasn’t so disappointing in the sense that we didn’t expect a lot this year.”

But that is of small consolation to Egan, who, like most coaches, says it’s ridiculous to be in the business if you’re going to satisfied with defeat.

So what to do? There is still that lack of experience, and USD’s tough academic standards will make it difficult for Egan to recruit junior-college transfers.

“With so many new players this season, we felt it would be best to keep things similar from the season before because of the players we did have returning,” Egan said. “But now that we’ve had a chance to see what everyone can do, we can better make the adjustments we need to for next season.”

Forward John Sayers was the WCAC freshman of the year this season, and center Dondi Bell did have flashes of aggressiveness and dominance in the middle.

Randy Thompson, another freshman, proved himself a capable role-player, and Kelvin Means worked his way into a starting guard position alongside his brother by season’s end.

“All of the freshmen at times played better than we thought, at times played worse than we thought and at other times played right where we expected,” Egan said. “I think that was our season right there. We played well and beat Pepperdine, and we played terrible and lost to Portland.”

So what’s needed next year is consistency. And a strong team leader can sometimes help in that respect.

Danny Means struggled with the role this season, although Egan says that’s because Means was adjusting to a new position, point guard, at the same time.

“Next year, I think we’ll try and get him back to where he’ll be more comfortable, shooting the ball,” Egan said.

Means, whose season ended with 8:31 remaining against St. Mary’s when he was benched by Egan, already is looking ahead to his next challenge.

“I didn’t do all the things I needed to do this season for us to be successful,” Means said. “Now I have a whole summer to evaluate the things I didn’t accomplish.

“I think one thing we need is for all of our players to stay here and get to know each other better. We seemed to have a lot of guys going in opposite directions, and we’d pull it together for a while, and then it would fall apart again.”

Saturday provided an excellent season capsule. USD, looking a bit nervous in the first playoff game for a lot of its players, fell behind early, 23-11.

The Toreros followed with hustle and strong play during a 12-0 run that tied the game at 23-23.

But then came halftime.

“It was just such a nonchalant attitude we had so often this year,” Means said. “And in the second half, we gave up.”

That’s something Egan is not used to, and he now has a few months to do something about it.

“This year would really be a mess if we didn’t learn from some of the things that happened to us and do something about them next year,” Egan said. “This year’s gone, and I’m not happy with the way it went. But we can’t worry about that anymore. We’ve got to look ahead.”