Aggie men complete disappointing road trip with 73-61 setback at Cal State Northridge
Talented Matadors take an early lead and never look back as UCD suffers second straight loss
NORTHRIDGE - It was not the kind of road trip Aggie men's basketball head coach Jim Les envisioned.
After dropping a 75-64 Big West decision at Cal State Bakersfield Thursday night, the Aggies went 0-2 on their southern swing Saturday afternoon with a 73-61 loss at Cal State Northridge.
The two losses dropped UC Davis to 2-2 in league play and 8-7 overall. Northridge is now 3-1 and 11-4 and served a strong message that it plans to be a serious contender for the conference championship.
The Aggies, who had opened league play a month ago with impressive home wins over Cal Poly SLO and UC Santa Barbara, simply had no answer in the early going for the talented Matadors who gradually pulled away before a crowd of 411 at the Premier America Credit Union Arena on the CSUN campus.
"I didn't like our start on defense," Les said.
"When we lock in on defense, we can be pretty good, but we let them get some rhythm and some confidence early on their home floor and then they started feeling pretty good about themselves and that's hard to stop. Once an offense like theirs gets rolling, it's hard to shut off the faucet."
Keonte Jones, a 6-6 senior from Madison, Wisconsin, put on a performance for the ages with a remarkable 20 rebounds to go along with 13 points, six assists, three steals and a block. Six of those rebounds came on the offensive boards, leading to a number of second-chance buckets for the Matadors.
Marcus Adams, a BYU transfer, had five 3-pointers in a 28-point afternoon as the Matadors' five starters did all the scoring while shooting 47.4 percent from the field and held the Aggies to just 30.2 percent accuracy.
The Aggies led briefly in the early going at 9-6, but Northridge responded with a 20-5 run and never slowed down, taking a 34-25 lead into intermission. The Aggies came no closer than six points the rest of the way.
TY Johnson had 17 points for the Aggies and Connor Sevilla 11.
"This is Division I, big boy basketball," Les added emphatically.
"It's a big, tough game and we can't be soft like we were today. We have to get better. I challenged everyone afterward that we need to get back to playing Aggie basketball. Today, our concentration just wasn't what it should be."
Northridge coach Andy Newman, meanwhile, was ecstatic with an impressive win over a team and a coach he highly respects.
"It was really fun to see our guys compete today," said the second-year CSUN coach.
"That was an incredible defensive performance. If we keep this up, we're going to be tough."
Added Newman, "Today's win was huge. Coach Les is an established coach and a mentor of mine, and if I could have half the career he's had, I'd be really happy. It's always fun when you beat a really good team that's really well coached and that's what we did today."
The Aggies will have a chance to right their ship at home Thursday (6 p.m.) against Cal State Fullerton and Saturday (2 p.m.) against Long Beach State.
Reach Bob Dunning at bobdunning@thewaryone.com