San Francisco State Edges Disorganized Northridge

SAN FRANCISCO —  In his 17 seasons as coach of the Cal State Northridge basketball team, Pete Cassidy has taught a lot of basketball.

The names may change, but the system remains basically the same.

Which is the only reason he remotely recognized what the Matadors were trying to do on offense during much of Saturday night’s game against San Francisco State.

For some reason, the plays his team was running were not turning out as designed. Which is one reason why San Francisco State won, 72-70, in a nonconference game in its gym.

The Golden Gators could be partially credited for CSUN’s disorganized look on offense. San Francisco unleashed a full-court press in the second half that threw a lasso around the Matador running game.

Not a good excuse, said Cassidy, who chose to place the blame closer to home.

“I thought we played like dog meat,” he said. “We were awful.”

Mostly, Cassidy was referring to his team’s performance in blowing an 11-point lead in all of 2:37 during the second half.

In the process, he also summed up the rest of the game. Even when Northridge led, it wasn’t pretty.

Still, had a tip-in try fell at the buzzer, the Matadors could have forced overtime.

With 6 seconds left, Northridge called a timeout and set up a play. It never came off.

Jemarl Baker tried to force a 15-foot turnaround, but it was partially blocked by San Francisco State’s Robert Thrower--right into the hands of CSUN’s Darren Matsubara, who was wide open but tried to hurry in a tip and missed an easy shot.

On this night, CSUN would have taken luck over being good.

The Matadors (6-2) committed 12 turnovers in each half. Northridge managed to hold a 38-30 advantage at the half because it had 1 more field goal than it did turnovers.

In the second half, CSUN didn’t even do that well. The Matadors were 10 of 35 (28.6%) after intermission and 24 of 62 (38.7%) for the game.

San Francisco (3-4) shot 48.3% for the game but was almost equally sloppy, committing 21 miscues.

The Gators trailed by 11, 56-45, with 9:48 left. San Francisco then ran off 11 points in a row to tie the score, 56-56.

A free-throw by Derrick Gathers put Northridge ahead with 7:27 left, but a 15-foot jump shot by Thrower 27 seconds later gave the Gators the lead, 58-57.

San Francisco stretched its advantage to 65-59 with 3:43 left on another jump shot by Thrower, who finished with 18 points.

Northridge came back to score its next 5 times down the floor, outscoring the Gators, 10-2, to take a 69-67 lead on a pair of free throws by Gathers with 2:03 left.

A jump shot by Mike Niggli put San Francisco back in the lead for good, 71-69, with 1:10 left.

Northridge never got off another good shot. An attempt by Matsubara after a drive through a congested key was blocked by the Gators’ Henry Browne with 18 seconds left.

Cassidy said that effort was par for the course.

“We had people going off on their own, playing very selfish ‘I’m-going-to-be-a-hero’ basketball--and that’s going to stop. . . .”

“Yeah, we designed that, him trying to drive through a congested key and then putting up that shot,” Cassidy added, his voice dripping with sarcasm.