By Jeff Faraudo
#WCChoops Columnist | ARCHIVES
2020 WCC HALL OF HONOR PROFILES
 
Terrell Lowery was the perfect point guard for the fastest college basketball team in history.
 
“Our belief was if you run with us, there ain’t no telling what we can do,” said Lowery of the 1989-90 Loyola Marymount team that set a still-standing NCAA record by averaging 122.4 points per game.
 
Lowery was a sophomore on that historic team, and a mighty contributor although not even a starter. He averaged 14.5 points and a team-best 6.3 assists, and by the end of his career had become the only player in West Coast Conference history to compile at least 2,000 points and 600 assists.
 
“His job was to speed dribble to the other end of the court as fast as humanly possible,” former LMU coach Paul Westhead explained. “Terrell had an incredible ability to do that. He had great foot speed and that kind of Oakland drive in that nobody was going to stop him. He'd blow by anything that got in his way.”
 
Three decades later, Lowery, 49, is Loyola Marymount’s 2020 inductee into the WCC Hall of Honor, which will bring him to Las Vegas for this year’s conference tournament. “It was a surprise. I didn’t expect it,” Lowery said. “Jubilation followed. It's an honor for any type of acknowledgment. You’ve got to be thankful.”
 
College basketball fans who saw the 1989-90 Lions play had to be thankful for the chance to witness something they might never see again. The Lions were a force of nature, scoring 100 points or more 28 times that season, but their two record-setting performance came the year before and the year after.
 
On Jan. 31, 1989, during Lowery’s freshman season, Loyola beat the school then called U.S. International 181-150, setting a record for most combined points (331) in a Division I game. Then, on Jan. 5, 1991, Lowery contributed 34 points and 16 assists to LMU’s 186-140 win over the same willing opponent. Kevin Bradshaw scored 72 points for U.S. International, which is now a for-profit school named Alliant International University and no longer plays Division I sports.
 
The Lions’ 186 points remain an NCAA record, but it wasn’t what they had in mind that day. “We tried to get to 200,” Lowery said.
 
No Division I team since has successfully emulated what the Lions did, and Lowery believes there is a reason for that.
 
“It required you to rev at 100 miles an hour all the time,” said Lowery, who briefly wondered as a freshman whether he could handle it. “It takes a lot of sacrifice to be able to do that with your body and conditioning and the pounding on a day to day basis. That's a commitment that I don't believe everybody is ready to tackle. I think it’s that simple.
 
“The way we conditioned was insane. We did track workouts, sand dunes and hills. Everything we did was for a purpose.”
 
Westhead, who guided the Lakers to an NBA title during Magic Johnson’s rookie season of 1980, quoted Shakespeare to his Loyola players and gave them the ultimate green light on the floor.
 
In “the system,” there was no such thing as a bad shot. The Lions coaxed the other team into playing as fast as possible, convinced their opponents would eventually run out of steam.
 
“Nobody’s telling you when to shoot, when not to shoot,” said Lowery, insisting the apparent chaos had a structure to it. “There was a method to coach's madness.”
 
Sadly, LMU’s sprint through the collegiate record books was interrupted by tragedy.  With 13 minutes left in the first half of the 1990 WCC tournament semifinals against Portland, everything changed.
 
Lowery had just completed an alley-oop pass to senior Hank Gathers, who dunked the ball for a 25-13 Lions’ lead. Moments later, Gathers collapsed near midcourt and died in front of a packed house at LMU’s Gersten Pavilion.
 
The entire college basketball world was in shock.
 
“That’s a lot for everybody. It was a lot for me,” Lowery said. “I saw Hank as a brother. It’s tough losing any teammate, but when you consider yourself rather close to someone and that happens, it’s tough. Being so young, you don’t know to handle that. You’re just kind of out there in space. It’s hard to digest. Too hard.”
 
Gathers was a transcendent star. He had led the nation in both scoring and rebounding the year before. But he was not, it turned out, invincible. He fainted during a game earlier that season against UC Santa Barbara, was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and prescribed medication intended to keep him healthy.
 
But he didn’t like how he felt while taking the medication, so he lowered the dose and paid the ultimate price.
 
The WCC tournament was halted and LMU — the regular-season champion — was awarded the league's automatic NCAA berth. Seeded No. 11, the Lions were a national curiosity but not expected to go far.
 
“We always thought we were one of the better teams in the country. We were not lacking confidence,” Lowery said. “When Hank passed away, it heightened our emotions and gave us something greater to play for than ourselves.”
 
The Lions were astonishing in the NCAA tournament. Bo Kimble shot his first free throw of each game left-handed to honor his Philadelphia childhood pal, and as the nation was pulled into the story, the Lions crushed defending national champion Michigan 149-115 in the second-round to advance to the regional semifinals in Oakland, Lowery’s home town.
 
The run finally ended with a 131-101 loss in the Elite 8 to UNLV, which went on to win the national title. 
 
“When we finally lost to UNLV up in Oakland, you were struck with now the real world has hit us,” Westhead said. “We had to deal with Hank’s death, our loss. The honeymoon had ended. It took a long time.”
 
A year later, Westhead and most of the Lions’ key players were gone. Jay Hillock took over as coach and LMU continued to play fast. Lowery became the centerpiece, averaging 28.5 points and 9.1 assists as a junior, including 48 points in a game against Idaho State, then scoring 26.0 points per outing as a senior. He finished his LMU career with 2,201 points, 689 assists and 231 steals.
 
But the Lions never dominated again, and haven’t returned to the NCAA tournament since 1990.
 
Ultimately, Lowery left basketball for baseball, partly because he was drafted by one sport, but not the other. A part-time baseball player at LMU after the basketball season ended, he was surprised to be selected by the Texas Rangers in the second round of the 1991 draft. Lowery chose the security of the contract baseball provided him over the uncertainty of a possible future in the NBA.
 
Westwood believes the in the right situation Lowery might have made it in the NBA, given his speed and defensive abilities. Lowery agrees, but he has no second thoughts about choosing baseball.
 
He played 10 professional seasons, hitting 92 home runs, stealing 129 bases and batting .276 as a minor-league outfielder. As a major leaguer, he hit .282 in 123 games spread over four seasons. Lowery cites a ruptured right Achilles tendon he suffered while working out in the 1995 offseason as preventing him from reaching his potential.
 
Married with three kids and living in Sacramento, Lowery owns a sandwich shop, works in real estate and operates a non-profit with his wife. In other words, Lowery is moving as fast as ever. “Life is good,” he said.