Bad Shooting, Impatience Doom CSUN at Evansville

Courtesy of Cal State Northridge, a crowd of 8,256 was rewarded for sitting through one of the worst shooting performances in Roberts Stadium history.

By scoring fewer than 50 points in a loss to Evansville on Monday night, the Matadors enabled the Purple Aces’ fans to cash their ticket stubs in for chicken dinners at a local chain of restaurants.

The 60-44 loss represented the Matadors’ lowest scoring output since UC Riverside held them to 42 points on Jan. 24, 1986. CSUN shot 28.1% from the field.

“I don’t know what happened,” forward Keith Gibbs said. “We just stunk it up. Some of it was their tight defense but not a lot of it.”

Particularly frustrating was the Matadors’ inability to take advantage of an Aces team that missed 10 of its first 12 shots and turned the ball over seven times in the first 10 minutes.

“We definitely should have beat them,” Gibbs said. “We didn’t and everybody is frustrated by it. We know we’re better than this but we didn’t prove it.”

Gibbs missed six of seven attempts, center Percy Fisher missed 12 of 15, guard James Morris missed five of seven and point guard Andre Chevalier missed five of six.

“We just couldn’t throw a pea in the ocean tonight,” said Chevalier, who would not subscribe to the theory that CSUN (0-3) was fatigued by playing its third game in four days.

“That’s just an easy excuse,” Chevalier said. “I don’t know about the other guys, but once you get on the floor you forget about being tired. You gotta suck it up and just play.”

CSUN Coach Pete Cassidy praised the Aces’ defensive efforts and criticized his team’s lack of patience.

“We weren’t making the backdoor screens and the cuts,” Cassidy said. “The (45-second) shot clock was never in danger of going off.”

The Aces’ main force on defense was 7-foot-1 center Sascha Hupmann. He blocked four shots, altered several others and kept Northridge’s little men, Morris and Chevalier, from driving the lane.

“He was a little bit intimidating,” said CSUN forward Shelton Boykin, who hit four of eight shots and grabbed seven rebounds.

Evansville shot only 24.1% but led 21-18 at intermission.

While Northridge missed 14 of its first 16 shots in the second half, the Aces built a 34-22 lead.

David Swanson’s three-pointer cut the lead to five points (37-32) with 7 minutes 16 seconds left in the game, but the Aces’ Todd Cochenour answered with a 12-foot jump shot.

On the Matadors’ next four possessions they turned the ball over three times and Swanson missed a three-pointer, allowing the Aces to increase the lead to 43-32.