Northridge Gets What It Wants--an Upset Victory

The seed was planted nearly a month ago.

And Thursday night it blossomed into Cal State Northridge’s 74-56 upset of Montana State in the first round of the Big Sky Conference basketball tournament before 1,483 at Northern Arizona’s Walkup Skydome.

Although the critical stretch was a 25-6 Northridge run in the final 11 minutes, the Matadors started prepping for the victory the moment they picked up the newspaper on Feb. 9.

They read a quote from Montana State’s Dante Rabb, who said after the Bobcats’ four-point victory at Northridge that his team had won because it wanted the game more.

Northridge senior Keith Higgins, first to take the microphone in the postgame press conference Thursday, wasted no time in jabbing the Bobcats.

“We just wanted it more,” said Higgins, turning and giggling with his teammates. “That [quote] motivated us to play harder. We kept seeing that quote all over the place.”

Down the stretch, the Matadors seemed to get to every loose ball, every rebound.

“I think we probably played as solid of basketball as we’ve played all year during that last 10 minutes,” Northridge Coach Bobby Braswell said.

Northridge (13-14), which was the sixth-seeded team in the six-team tournament, advanced to a semifinal matchup against Northern Arizona (21-5), the regular-season champion, at 8:35 tonight in Flagstaff.

In several games this season, including both regular-season losses to Montana State (16-14), the Matadors dug themselves a double-digit hole in the first half.

Not Thursday.

Neither team led by more than four points and there were 24 lead changes before Derrick Higgins hit a three-pointer to give the Matadors the lead for good, 52-50, with 10:55 to play.

Weber State 68, Idaho State 58--Jimmy Smith scored 25 points on 6-for-6 shooting to lead the Wildcats (15-12) past Idaho State (14-13) in the other first-round game.

Weber State will play Montana (19-10) in a semifinal tonight.