Double debuts make tonight a notable one at the Jenny Craig Pavilion where the USD men's basketball team will host Nevada.
The home opener for the Toreros also marks the initial 2008-09 appearance, delayed one game due to suspension, for All-West Coast Conference forward/center Gyno Pomare.
Toreros coach Bill Grier ruled Pomare out of Saturday's season-opening game at UNLV, a 65-60 loss, for an unspecified breach of team rules more than a week earlier during the preseason practice period. As of yesterday, Grier hadn't determined how the reintroduction of Pomare into the Toreros scheme was going to go.
“I don't know if he'll start. How many minutes he'll play, I have no idea,” Grier said. “But obviously he's a huge part of this team and I certainly want him to play.
“My guess is that he'll come off the bench and we'll see what happens from there.”
Pomare, a 6-foot-8, 240-pound fifth-year senior was the team's second-leading scorer (14.1 per game) and leading rebounder (7.4) on last year's 22-14 team that won the West Coast Conference Tournament championship and upset Connecticut in overtime in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Pomare (El Camino High) scored 22 points in the win over Connecticut and had 20 points and nine rebounds in a second-round loss to Western Kentucky.
Pomare is the first of three suspended Toreros players who might return by the end of the month. The reinstatement of sophomores Clinton Houston and Trumaine Johnson, disciplined for unspecified separate infractions of team rules, will be addressed by Grier upon USD's return next week from the Paradise Jam Tournament in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where it will play three games starting Friday.
Whether tonight's game will mark the 2008-09 debut for junior guard De'Jon Jackson, hero of the victory over UConn with his last-second basket in overtime, remains to be determined. Jackson has a strained medial collateral ligament in the left knee, incurred in a preseason game 10 days ago, that prevented him from playing at UNLV.
“It's a mystery,” Grier said. “He had another MRI on Friday and there was no sign of a tear. It's literally day-to-day. We'll see how he is in practice today and know more about it tomorrow.”
Like UNLV, Nevada has talent in depth at the guard position, where 2008 Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year Armon Johnson operates. Unlike UNLV, the Wolfpack doesn't live-or-die from the three-point line and tends to mix defenses rather than apply constant pressure like the Rebels.
USD senior guard Brandon Johnson played a full 40 minutes at UNLV, something Grier said he'd like to avoid tonight.
“I'm hoping that we'll have De'Jon available, and if we do he can spell Brandon at the point for a few minutes,” Grier said. “If not, I'm going to have to have confidence in those other guys (sophomores Devin Ginty and Matt Dorr) because BJ is going to need some rest sometime.”
Hank Wesch: (619) 293-1853; hank.wesch@uniontrib.com
