March 7, 2008

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SAN DIEGO - Dior Lowhorn scored 26 points and Manny Quezada added 24 to lead San Francisco to a 79-60 win over Loyola Marymount in the first round of the West Coast Conference tournament Friday night at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.

Lowhorn, the league's leading scorer, scored 14 of his points in the second half and Quezada had 19 as No. 5 seed San Francisco (10-20) slowly pulled away in the final 10 minutes. The Dons, who collected their fourth win in five ballgames, will face No. 4 seed Santa Clara in Saturday's quarterfinals.

"We did a nice job for the most part inside," USF interim head coach Eddie Sutton said. "If I had to criticize something in the second half, we made too many fouls, but I think offensively we did a good job of executing. Manny (Quezada) had a hot hand. He had some big time shots. I thought a real key tonight was the play of Hyman Taylor. Hyman hasn't given us that kind of effort and he had a real nice night with eight points and eight rebounds in 14 minutes of playing time. I thought he played real well so that was a real asset to us."

Lowhorn finished the night with 626 points on the year and is in sixth place on the USF single-season scoring list after passing names like Pete Cross (615, 1968-69), John Cox 621, 2004-05) and Bill Russell (622, 1955-56). The Texas Tech transfer needs just three points for sole possession of fourth place on the all-time list. Ollie Johnson (627, 1964-65) and Winford Boynes 628, 1977-78) are up next on the list.

Orlando Johnson led eighth-seeded Loyola Marymount (5-26) with 19 points as he broke the Lions' 35-year old single-season freshman scoring record. Johnson also grabbed five rebounds to tie the school's freshman single-season rebounding mark.

Loyola Marymount lost in the first round of the WCC tournament for the eighth time in 11 seasons. The Lions finished the season on an eight-game losing streak and dropped to 0-4 against San Francisco in the league tournament.

Lowhorn made 10 of 15 shots from the floor and had nine rebounds. Vince Polakovich scored 11 points for the Dons, who shot 16-for-19 from the foul line.

Sutton, the winningest active Division I coach, recorded his 804th career victory.

"We've played a lot better the last five ball games. We're playing better basketball than we were earlier. It's taken some of these young men longer to get adjusted to my yelling and barking. But I'm really pleased," Sutton said.