In its first game without freshman guard Ronald Gray, who is out for the season with an eye injury, Glendale broke its two-game losing streak by thrashing West Los Angeles 101-76 on Jan. 24.
Glendale (15-9, 3-3 in division play) put the game away by outscoring the Oilers 27-8 to start the second half. That stretch also included a 25-0 run started on a three-pointer by guard Michael Schnyder. Schnyder also had two slam-dunks, one on an alley-oop from Dejon Lee. Schnyder had 13 points, eight points below his team leading average. In that seven minute stretch, Glendale shot 11 for 21 (52.4%), whereas West L.A. (9-14, 1-5 in division play) missed 10 straight shots.
“They give you opportunities to run, and we did,” coach Brian Beauchemin said. “They wanted to run, and we can run, so it worked to our advantage.”
Glendale used a full-court press to force West L.A. into 10 second-half turnovers, and 19 for the game.
“We tried to full-court press them, and make them do things they didn’t want to do,” forward Marc Walters said. “We wanted to run our offense, and put pressure on defense, and make defense into offense.”
Walters had 20 points, and six rebounds.
West L.A. hung around in the first half, taking an early lead. Two early fouls by Michael Schnyder allowed Donell Williams to penetrate to the basket. Williams, the conference’s leading scorer had 34 points.
“They only had one guy,” Schnyder said. “He is their only real athlete, and we took advantage of that.”
Center Tim Taylor had a team high with 21 points and 14 rebounds, and Nathaniel Johnson added 11 points.
Gray is “a big loss for the team,” Taylor said. “From now on, every game we play we say we’re going to do this for Ron.”