Matadors’ Trip Didn’t Have Snowball’s Chance

As a former member of the Big Sky Conference, Cal State Northridge knows weather problems can cause havoc on a December trip to Montana.

But that didn’t help them on their odyssey last weekend. They spent all of Friday and Saturday stuck in Salt Lake City as the Utah capital was hit with two feet of snow in a 48-hour period.

Northridge’s men’s basketball game against Montana last Saturday was canceled because the Matadors were unable to find a connecting flight with enough seats for their 21-person party Friday. The snowstorm continued Saturday, causing the airport to shut down.

“I don’t think a lot of people realize how serious it was,” Coach Bobby Braswell said. “The headlines in the papers read, ‘Killer Storm.’ ”

Even getting to Salt Lake City was an ordeal. The Matadors’ plane circled the airport three times before landing roughly on a runway blanketed by snow. The team stayed all day at the airport, unsuccessfully trying to find alternate transportation, before lodging at a nearby hotel.

Braswell said the team made the best of a bad situation. Members gathered in the coach’s hotel room Friday night for an impromptu talent show. On Saturday, the team trudged downtown to watch a movie.

But he couldn’t help but think about the Oklahoma State men’s basketball tragedy in 2001, when 10 were killed, including two players and the team’s radio announcer.

“Not only did I think about it but I discussed it with my team,” Braswell said. “There were five seats on one plane and two on another, but I didn’t feel comfortable separating this team. We looked into getting a couple of buses but that would have been a 13-hour drive in the mountains in horrible conditions. We literally had zero options.”

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Big West Conference teams finished the nonconference portion of the season with mixed results.

There have been a number of notable victories -- UC Santa Barbara winning at UCLA, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo defeating California and USC, and Utah State defeating Brigham Young.

But three conference teams -- UC Riverside, UC Irvine and Long Beach State -- have lost to Cal State Sacramento, a perennial Big Sky doormat. Overall, the Big West has improved its stock nationally with a strength-of-conference rating of 14, up from 22 last season.

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Long Beach has lost 19 in a row on the road. The 49ers, whose next away game won’t be until Jan. 8 at Pacific, haven’t won a road game since Feb. 16, 2002 -- at Northridge.

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Long Beach’s Anthony Coleman, a 6-foot-11 transfer from Xavier, is eligible to play but has not been able to because he is still recovering from a stress fracture in a leg.

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West Coast Conference

Pepperdine is awaiting final word from the NCAA on the status of junior forward Yakhouba Diawara, who has been held out of action while the NCAA investigates whether he played in a league with professional players in his native France.

“Hopefully, they will make a decision soon,” Diawara said