McLinn Makes Stetson Tip Its Hat, 65-61 : College basketball: Junior guard converts all five three-point attempts as Northridge rallies in second half.

Pete Cassidy doesn’t have much in the way of offensive weapons. At least, that’s the way he tells it.

The Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team has two starting guards charitably listed as 6-feet tall and another at 5-8.

None of the three would show up on some schools’ radar screen.

“We don’t have aircraft carriers,” said Cassidy, the Northridge coach. “We have P.T. boats.”

That’s not the whole story. He also has a long-range bomber.

Junior guard Brooklyn McLinn made all five of his shots from three-point range Saturday night to lead Northridge to a 65-61 victory over Stetson in the consolation final of the L.A. Classic at Loyola Marymount’s Gersten Pavilion.

McLinn, a junior from Taft High, pulled an abrupt about-face. In a first-round loss to Loyola on Friday, he was held scoreless on zero-for-nine shooting. Against Stetson, he made six of seven and finished with a team-high 18 points.

Alas, such is the unpredictable fate of the perimeter gunner. This night, however, P.T. stood for prime time.

“I just keep shooting,” McLinn said with a shrug. “(Friday) night, I think I was just rushing. This time, I tried to be more relaxed.

“And the first one went in.”

More important, so did the last two.

In keeping with its season-long pattern, Northridge (2-4) took a second-half lead, then fell asleep. This time, the Matadors failed to score during a 5 1/2 minute stretch of the second half, by which time Stetson (0-5) had turned a five-point deficit into a 58-52 lead.

McLinn, however, hit a three-pointer with 4:08 remaining to pare the lead to 58-55, ending the Matadors’ zero-for-six shooting drought.

“We tend to play well in spurts,” McLinn said. “We get up for five or 10 minutes, then relax. We were able to turn it on again this time.”

His three-pointer seemed to awaken his teammates. Freshman swingman Josh Willis made a three-pointer with 3:18 left to tie the score, whereupon Stetson went into a coma.

Over the final 4:19, the Hatters missed four of five shots and scored only three points.

Stetson wasn’t any better at the line in crunch time. Senior forward Donell Grier who finished with a game-high 24 points and 13 rebounds, missed a pair of free throws after Willis’ three-pointer, and Northridge guard James Morris (10 points) made him pay. Morris made two free throws to hand Northridge a 60-58 lead with 2:45 left.

Bryant Conner’s layup and free throw gave the Hatters a 61-60 lead, but McLinn again found the range--and finally put Stetson away for good.

He made another three pointer, this time with 1:22 left, to give Northridge a 63-61 edge and a lead it could finally protect.

Andre Chevalier (11 points) missed the front end of a one and one and Anthony Moten missed a pair of free throws over the next 24 seconds, but Stetson couldn’t capitalize.

“We can’t seem to do anything easy,” Cassidy said.