CSUN Sleepwalks to 76-58 Triumph

When the San Francisco State Gators bused in for Friday night’s game with Cal State Northridge, they were hardly the picture of confidence. Before the game, San Francisco had a record of 2-6. Afterward, it was 2-7. CSUN pounded the Gators, 76-58.

The Matadors used a 17-3 run midway through the second half to put away the overmatched but pesky Gators. It had been a close contest to that point.

Paul Drecksel scored 10 points during the streak, which helped CSUN to its fifth victory in six games.

“I tried to take the lead,” Drecksel said. “We don’t have any seniors on this team and we really don’t have a leader. So I was trying to do that. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but tonight it did.”

In a four-minute span, which started with just over nine minutes left, the 6-4 guard hit five shots and got an assist on another CSUN basket. The Matadors went from a 41-40 deficit to a 57-44 lead. The Gators never threatened again.

“It was an ugly win,” Matador Coach Pete Cassidy said. “We weren’t moving. We’d get the ball inside and everybody just stood around. We were sluggish in the first half.”

Said Drecksel: “It was as if everybody was asleep out there.”

Certainly, neither team played particularly well. Like every opponent CSUN has faced this season, the Gators applied full-court defensive pressure. And the Matadors struggled offensively.

Against a San Francisco zone that Cassidy called “crappy,” Northridge was unable to build a lead in the first half. The Matadors managed to go ahead, 8-4, when guard Troy Dueker scored on a rare CSUN fast break. But San Francisco came back on the play of Larry Wickett.

The 6-5 forward, who is averaging 16 points a game, scored 10 of the Gators’ first 14 points.

After Wickett hit a shot under the basket and drilled two 18-foot jumpers, San Francisco took the lead, 14-12, with 9:46 left in the half.

CSUN seemed stunned. This game was supposed to be a cake walk. An early indication that the Matadors thought they’d have an easy time came at the 12:38 mark of the half. Little-used Alan Gindlesperger was sent in to give Jimmy Daniels a rest. Daniels returned, however, when CSUN lost the lead.

In fact, late in the half, with the Matadors trailing, 24-23, things got heated. After Daniels had given CSUN the lead on a 17-foot jumper, San Francisco guard Peter Overland reached over and stole the inbounds pass and scored.

Cassidy, who is normally mild-mannered, insisted that Overland had fouled on the play. After unloading on referee Tom Wood, Cassidy was hit with his first technical foul in 122 games, dating back to January of 1981.

“I didn’t like the way the game was being called,” the coach said. “I had to say something to shake them up.” And what did Cassidy say? “I said, ‘Damn’ or something like that.”

Then Wickett and Daniels had words and had to be separated. Said Daniels: “He walked by and elbowed me. I didn’t like the way he was acting. Later in the game, he kept talking but I just walked away--I just pointed at the scoreboard.”