LOS ANGELES – In a season where few things have come easy for USF, the Dons dropped an early hammer on Loyola Marymount and raced to a dominating, 72-45 wire-to-wire victory over the Lions Thursday night in Gersten Pavilion.
 
Mark Tollefsen scored a team-high 21 points while Tim Derksen added 19 to pace USF's scoring efforts. Kruize Pinkins and Devin Watson finished with 12 and 11 points respectively, as the Dons improved to 11-16 overall and 5-10 in the West Coast Conference.
 
Tollefsen also added 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season.
 
USF shot 50 percent from the field for the game and limited the Lions to just 29.8 percent shooting from the floor. The Dons also controlled the boards, outrebounding LMU, 41-27.
 
USF's win over the Lions, coupled with Santa Clara's loss at Pepperdine, moves the Dons into a tie for seventh place with the Broncos in the WCC standings.
 
Godwin Okonji scored a game-high 22 points for the Lions, who played the game without the services of their leading scorer Evan Payne and Ayodeji Egbeyemi, the team's third leading scorer who averages close to 10 points a game.
 
The Dons jumped on the Lions early as USF connected on nine of its first 11 shots from the floor to open a 21-8 lead midway through the first half. The Dons lead grew to as many as 26 points at 36-10 with 6:26 left in the first period.
 
Tollefsen made his first five shots from the floor and scored 15 of his 21 points before intermission as the Dons took a 39-20 lead into the locker room at the break.
 
As the teams exited the floor at the end of the half, a skirmish broke out resulting in four technical fouls and the ejection of LMU's Patson Siame. Devin Watson made both technical foul shots before the start of the second half to extend the lead to 41-20. Tollefsen then scored on the Dons' first two possessions of the second frame to increase the lead to 45-20.
 
The Lions could get no closer than 15 points in the second half as the Dons outscored LMU 14-3 over the final 7:06 of the game to salvage a split in the season series and win for the fifth time in six years at Gersten Pavilion.
 
The win also improves USF's record to 24-14 in the month of February dating back to the 2009-10 season.
 
USF will return to action on Saturday afternoon when the Dons face the Pepperdine Waves in Malibu beginning at 1:00 p.m. The game will be televised in the Bay Area on CSNBA as the WCC's Game of the Week.
 
Rex Walters' Post-Game Comments
 
 "We were very efficient offensively. We moved the ball and found the open man and were as good as attacking the zone in the first half as I've seen all season."
 
"We also rebounded very well, especially in the first half. For us to outrebound them by 14 and hold them under 30 percent shooting for the game, that adds up to a pretty good defensive effort."
 
"Some of our traps gave them problems which led to easy buckets for us."
 
"Mark was fantastic tonight and Tim had a real solid game, as well. Kruize might have had 30 tonight if he didn't get into foul trouble. Devin did a fine job in controlling the pace and running the team. We continue to see him grow and get better and take over some leadership duties."
 
"I thought we played as well against them (Pepperdine) as we've had all season at our place. Stacey Davis is a very difficult matchup and they are getting good guard play. We got our work cut out for us and I know they are probably licking their chops getting ready to play us."