CSUN Makes Chapman Its 5th Victim In a Row

For the fourth time in as many games, the Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team shot better than 50% from the field.

Yet it was the Matadors’ defense that deserved much of the credit for a 77-58 win over Chapman in a California Collegiate Athletic Assn. game at The Hutton Sports Center in the city of Orange on Saturday night.

It was the fifth consecutive win for Northridge (9-8, 4-0 in conference play), sixth in its past seven games, and kept the Matadors alone atop the CCAA standings.

Derrick Gathers scored a team-high 19 points for Northridge, Bill Mazurie had 13 and Jemarl Baker added 11.

Northridge hit 32 of 54 shots (59.3%) after a 30-of-52 performance against Dominguez Hills on Friday, but it was the Matadors’ defense that held Roger Middleton, the conference’s leading scorer with a 23-point average, to eight points.

“We knew we had to neutralize him this time around,” Gathers said. “Last year he just killed us. He had something like seven dunks against us in the second game, so this was pay-back time.”

Knowing that Middleton was a high-percentage shooter, the Matadors’ defensive strategy was to deny him the ball, which they did, limiting the 6-foot-4, 225-pound junior to one field-goal attempt (which he made).

Every time Middleton touched the ball, the Matadors’ 3-2 zone defense would collapse on him, forcing him to pass.

“He gave us some problems in the first half,” Gathers said. “But we made some adjustments at halftime and corrected our mistakes.”

Leading, 41-33, at halftime, Northridge went on an 18-4 run to start the second half and put the game away. Northridge hit 12 of its first 20 shots in the second half and took its biggest lead of the game, 69-47, with 5:53 to play.

Frantz Reyes scored a game-high 20 points for Chapman (9-8, 1-3), which beat Northridge twice last year.

After hitting 16 of 22 shots in the second half against Dominguez Hills, Northridge made 17 of 25 shots (68%) in the first 20-minute period against Chapman to take a 41-33 lead at intermission.

Leading, 25-23, with seven minutes left in the half, the Matadors went on a 16-10 run, hitting their final eight shots. Mazurie and Sandy Brown each had six points during the stretch and Baker’s driving shot in the lane with a second left capped the run.

Mazurie had a team-high 10 points at intermission and Brown added six as the Northridge bench accounted for 22 of 41 points.

Middleton scored seven points, but in a preview of things to come, the Northridge defense limited him to the lone field goal.