Nov. 7, 2009

Final Stats

By Stacy Hinklin
USFDons.com Beat Writer

(SAN FRANCISCO) The University of San Francisco men's basketball team kicked off the 2009-2010 season with a 91-77 exhibition win against California State Monterey Bay on Saturday night in War Memorial Gym.

The Dons used 12 players with eight seeing more than 10 minutes of court time. Senior forward Dior Lowhorn scored nearly a third of the Dons' points with a game-high 30 points along with 10 rebounds.

Sophomore Angelo Caloiaro finished with a double-double as well, totaling 15 points, 10 rebounds and three steals after playing a game-high 33 minutes. True freshman Perris Blackwell chipped in with 10 points and eight rebounds with Blake Wallace adding 11 points off the bench.

"Angelo made a lot of winning plays out there," USF head coach Rex Walters said. "I thought Blake came in and gave us some really good minutes and knocked down some shots. Perris did a good job, but played more minutes [30] than I would have liked to play him."

USF took a 14-point lead into halftime; extending it to 65-40 just five minutes into the second half on the tail of three consecutive baskets from Dior and back-to-back 3-pointers from Wallace.

The Otters kept the Dons from landing the knock-out punch -- responding with a 17-6 run to stay in the game. With 4:36 remaining in the game, Monterey Bay cut the lead to single digits at 77-68. The closest the Otters got, however, was within seven points before the Dons pulled away again.

"We got the lead and got content and started backing off a bit," Caloiaro said. USF held Monterey Bay to just two field goals in the final four minutes of play while outscoring the Otters 14-5 during that stretch.

"I thought we did some good things for about 25-30 minutes and then we got away from what we were doing," Walters said. "Monterey starting making some shots, which gave them some confidence and we got further way from what we were trying to do. We couldn't find our way back until the very end where we made some shots and some plays. "

USF dominated under the basket, out rebounding Monterey 46-24.

"It's good for our guys to get some success on the court, but I hope they see we have some more work to do," Walters said. "We just have to get better on the defensive end as a whole."

The Dons open their regular season against Cal-Poly at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13 at War Memorial Gym.