CSUN Ends Season at BYU on a Sour Note

This was not the way the Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team wanted to conclude its second season at the NCAA Division I level.

The Matadors, who started their two-game trip to Utah intent on building on a streak in which they had won three consecutive games and 10 of their past 13, were overwhelmed by Brigham Young, 100-68, in a nonconference game before 17,206 at the Marriott Center on Tuesday night.

The rout, which followed a 14-point loss at Southern Utah on Saturday, was Northridge’s most one-sided defeat since a 108-73 loss at Montana in the fifth game of last season. And it marked the first time this season that the Matadors (11-17) had given up 100 points.

“We were overmatched, there’s no doubt about that,” Northridge Coach Pete Cassidy said. “Our hats are off to BYU. They’re a good basketball team. We played Utah, Stanford and Washington this season, and BYU is the best team we’ve played.”

Northridge played a first half painfully reminiscent of the opening 20 minutes against Southern Utah and trailed by 20 at the half.

“We played way too much one on one in the first half,” said Cassidy, whose team trailed by 17 points at the break Saturday. “I told the guys coming in that we had to pass four, five, six, seven, even 10 times to get a good shot, but we didn’t do that. With their size, we didn’t have much of chance in that kind of game.”

Northridge never got closer than 17 points in the second half and BYU, which shot 59.1% (39 of 66) from the field, led by 33 on four occasions.

Fourteen players scored for BYU (21-6), led by Nathan Call with 18 points. Russell Larson, a 6-foot-10 freshman, and Robert Jones, a 6-6 senior, each added 15 points for the Cougars.

Keith Gibbs scored a team-high 14 points for Northridge, but he was only six of 19 from the field. Shelton Boykin and Percy Fisher added 12 and 10 points, respectively.

Andre Chevalier, who scored a career-high 22 points against Southern Utah, was held to four against BYU. The Matadors were 30 of 73 from the field (41.1%), and only 11 of 30 in the first half.

“It’s sort of a relief to have the season over with,” said Gibbs, whose senior campaign was beset by personal problems. “But I wish I had played a better game. This is not the way I wanted to end my career.”

Northridge trailed, 25-7, with 11 minutes 52 seconds left in the first half but went on a 13-5 run over the next 3 1/2 minutes to trim the deficit to 30-20.

BYU countered with a 10-0 run that gave the Cougars a 40-20 advantage with 5:02 left in the half.

Boykin led Northridge with eight first-half points.

“We wanted to have some fun, and play a good team hard tonight,” Boykin said. “But they were just bigger than us. There wasn’t much we could do to stop them.”