CSUN Provides Cure for St. Mary’s : College basketball: Matadors are an easy mark for troubled Gaels and fall, 93-66.
For St. Mary’s, the timing could not have been better.
Cal State Northridge, galvanized by consecutive victories for one of the few times this decade, came storming into town at a very convenient time--just in time for St. Mary’s to blow out the Matadors, 93-66.
With three losses in a row, St. Mary’s was staggering with its West Coast Conference opener at Loyola Marymount on Friday night looming ominously on the horizon.
To complicate matters for St. Mary’s Coach Ernie Kent, leaders of a black basketball coaches association were calling for a national boycott Saturday, the day the Gaels are set to face Pepperdine, the defending conference champion.
Kent, who is black, spent Tuesday afternoon avoiding questions from reporters wondering if he would support the boycott. Then his team went out and gave him an unofficial night off, routing Northridge before a crowd of 1,576 at McKeon Pavilion.
“I can’t say what I’m going to do without knowing all the details,” Kent said afterward. “The timing of it has us all scattered.”
Northridge can relate.
St. Mary’s hounding defense and athletic post players had Northridge (3-11) seeking cover.
A.J. Rollins produced much of the destruction, scoring 24 points in 19 minutes, all on layups, dunks and free throws. The 6-foot-6 forward had 18 points in 13 minutes during the first half, including 12 in the first six minutes as the Gaels raced to a 16-6 lead.
“Rollins is a far better athlete than anybody we have on the front line,” Northridge Coach Pete Cassidy said.
Certainly better than anyone the Matadors had healthy.
Chris Yard, Northridge’s top scorer and rebounder, did not make the trip. He was home, nursing an injured right knee.
“We definitely missed Chris,” said Peter Micelli, who normally plays the post alongside Yard. “But to tell you the truth I think we just got out-hustled.”
Micelli might well have been speaking from personal experience. The 6-8 junior managed to play 19 minutes without grabbing a rebound.
But mostly the Northridge big men got beat at a running game. The Gaels simply beat them down the floor, time and time again.
“Our big men did not run the floor,” Cassidy said, “and when they did they allowed themselves to get posted up.”
St. Mary’s scored 36 points in the first half--all but two on layups, dunks, put-backs and free throws. The other basket was a 10-foot jumper.
“And after all that we were only down by seven,” said Brooklyn McLinn, who scored a career-high 24 points for Northridge.
It didn’t stay that close for long. The Gaels (7-4) scored 15 unanswered points at the start of the second half, opening a 51-29 lead.
Less than six minutes into the half, Cassidy had every Matador starter seated on the bench. Northridge’s lineup included freshman forward Tom Samson, swingman Brent Lofton, and three guards--Robert Hill, Ryan Martin and Ozan Korkut, an exchange student from Turkey who had played two minutes all season.
Asked if his mass substitution signified a white flag, Cassidy fairly bristled, saying he was merely attempting to “shake people up.”
“I was trying to get something going,” he added.
Korkut competed admirably, scoring five points in 12 minutes while grabbing as many rebounds as Micelli.
“Ozan did a pretty good job in many ways,” Cassidy said.
As for the rest of the crew . . .
“We were out-manned, but mainly we were out-worked,” McLinn said. “They outhustled us, and when we let them out on the break like they were it was a dunk show. They made it seem like they were playing on a junior high court.”
At times, against a junior high team.
Northridge committed 22 turnovers, including four in 19 minutes by point guard Andre Chevalier, who is playing with a broken right hand.
“He really can’t do the things he’s usually able to do,” McLinn said of his backcourt mate. “Even on defense, he can’t swat at the ball or be as aggressive as he usually is because he might hurt it.”
Chevalier’s number of minutes was a season-low, and watching from the bench could not have been much less painful.
Northridge was out-rebounded by the Gaels, 42-31, and out-shot, 53% to 35%.
