MEN’S BASKETBALL ‘mdash; The Tritons enter Spirit Week on a wave of momentum, following their Saturday night upset of then top-ranked California Collegiate Athletic Association squad Cal State San Bernardino. UCSD rebounded from its worst defeat of the season, a 61-39 loss to Cal Poly Pomona on Feb. 13, with a hard-fought 69-63 win against the Coyotes, who entered the game tied for first place in the conference standings. The squad now stands fifth in the CCAA with a 10-6 conference record (13-9 overall) in preparation for the annual Spirit Night game on Feb. 20 against San Francisco State University.
Senior guard Alan Husted provided the opening shot for the Tritons against Cal State San Bernardino, hitting a three off an assist from senior forward Shane Poppen just seconds into the game. The teams battled through six lead changes in the first half, though the Coyotes never led by more than a field goal during the first 20 minutes. Consecutive layups by senior forwards Patrick Dreith and Brett Stuckey kicked off a 12-2 UCSD run with just over nine minutes to play in the half. Husted’s steal and two free throws capped the stretch that gave head coach Chris Carlson’s team the only double-digit lead of the first half.
UCSD dominated the boards, collecting 23 ‘mdash; including nine on offense ‘mdash; compared to just 12 rebounds and no offensive boards for the Coyotes. Starting senior center A.J. Maulhardt and top reserve Stuckey dominated the paint, helping UCSD set the tone early in the contest.
‘[Maulhardt and Stuckey] had first half numbers of 14 [points] and 16 [rebounds] in the first half,’ Carlson said. ‘You get that out of your five spot in a 40-minute game, you’re pleased.’
After Cal State San Bernardino tied the score early in the second half, junior guard Jordan Lawley and Husted each connected from long distances and Poppen put back Stuckey’s missed three to give UCSD a six-point cushion. But Cal State San Bernardino displayed its athleticism with another comeback, taking its first lead of the game after Coyote guard DuBois Williams completed a three-point play with 9:46 left. Maulhardt re-entered the game and followed senior guard Kelvin Kim’s three to tie it with a defensive rebound and jumper to give UCSD the lead again.
‘I just try to get my boards ‘mdash; I score when I can,’ said Maulhardt, who currently shoots a team-leading 69 percent from the field. ‘We knew they weren’t a very good boxing-out team. We were trying to get in, get those offensive rebounds and second shots because we haven’t been shooting as well lately.’
The two teams tied things up five times and exchanged the lead six times over the following six minutes. The Tritons played tough, never allowing Cal State San Bernardino to grab more than a two-point advantage as they limited their mistakes and mustered the energy necessary to bother the Coyotes defensively.
‘We did a pretty good job of contesting shots,’ Carlson said. ‘They went up for a shot, we had a hand in their face. We got the rebounds when we really needed them. They had some really key turnovers late. I thought we did a great job defensively when we needed to.’
Defensive pressure led to four straight turnovers by Cal State San Bernardino with less than five minutes remaining in the game. Lawley drew a foul and connected on both shots from the charity stripe to give the Tritons a 59-57 lead with 3:21 to play. Poppen followed that with another put-back of a missed three-point attempt to push the advantage to four with 2:38. After two more free throws from Kim and a three-point play by Williams, the lead was again reduced to three. The Tritons, shooting less than 40 percent from the field for the second consecutive game, missed a jumper on the other end as the Coyotes grabbed the rebound and quickly cut the lead to one. ‘Our shooting percentages aren’t that great,’ Carlson said. ‘We hit shots when we needed to, but I think we’re a better shooting team than we’ve shown.’
Kim, only 3-of-12 from the field at that point, hit a huge shot when he needed to, knocking down a three off a Poppen pass with just 56 seconds left in the game. Cal State San Bernardino managed only one point in the final minute as UCSD sealed the clutch win.
‘I was struggling from the field, and I knew it, but my teammates were always telling me to stay confident,’ Kim said. ‘It wasn’t going down until the end of the game, when we needed it.’
The Tritons hit only 36.2 percent of their field goal opportunities, but went 20-of-28 from the line and held a 37-35 advantage on the boards. The team also harassed Cal State San Bernardino into a horrid 5-for-23 performance from behind the three-point arc.
‘If we play tough, we can win games like this,’ said Poppen, who finished with 12 points, seven rebounds and three assists. ‘Not everything went our way tonight. I missed a lot of free throws, other people missed some shots, but we stuck together and we kept at it. It just shows that hard work and persistence will pay off.’
Kim led the team with 15 points and four assists, while committing zero turnovers in 34 minutes of action.
‘[No turnovers] is very important, especially for the point guard,’ Kim said. ‘The point guard is supposed to control the tempo; make sure everyone else is under control. I wanted to set that example by taking extra care of the ball and paying special attention to that. San Bernardino thrives off other team’s turnovers and getting transition points.’
As a team, UCSD committed only seven turnovers, while causing 16. The Tritons also had 15 assists on their 21 field goals, compared to only five assists on 22 field goals for the Coyotes. Husted was the third UCSD player to score in double digits with 11 points, while Stuckey finished with eight points, nine rebounds, one block and one steal in 16 minutes off the bench.
‘It was a big win,’ said Maulhardt, who scored eight on 4-for-4 shooting from the field and grabbed 10 rebounds with two assists. ‘We were hoping to get both wins this weekend, but if we’re able to beat a top team in this conference, it just shows what we can do.’
The Tritons were unable to put together the same type of effort on Friday night against Cal Poly Pomona, in a battle of the conference’s top two defensive squads. The teams played a close first half, with neither team leading by more than five and the Broncos taking a slim 25-22 advantage into the break. UCSD then held a one-point advantage in the second half after jumpers by Husted and Lawley and a layup by Poppen within the first three minutes after the intermission. Unfortunately, the Tritons converted only four of their next 22 field-goal attempts. Down only seven with 5:56 to play, UCSD went cold, not scoring during the remainder of the game against the CCAA’s top-ranked defense and suffering its biggest loss of the year and its first conference loss by 20 or more points in over two years.
‘It was just such a disappointing loss on Friday,’ Carlson said. ‘The thing about this league is you have to have a really short memory. You can’t dwell on what happened [against Cal Poly Pomona]. We did not play very well and didn’t deserve to win. We lost to a very, very good Pomona team.’
Only senior forward Darryl Lawlor reached double-digit scoring with 11 points. Kim added five points, fo
ur assists and three rebounds, while Husted scored seven with three assists and two steals. Maulhardt scored six points and grabbed a team-high six rebounds. The Tritons committed 14 turnovers and were outrebounded by Cal Poly Pomona 29-24. UCSD held Broncos leading scorer and rebounder Larry Gordon below his season averages, but allowed the team as a whole to shoot 51.2 percent from the field, including 61.1 percent in the second half.
‘Our execution and urgency just wasn’t there,’ Poppen said. ‘I don’t think energy will be a problem on Spirit Night with all the fans here. We’re just going to work on execution, working really hard on the stuff we’ve been working on all year.’
Last year, a record 3,906 fans packed the stands of RIMAC Arena on Spirit Night. The Tritons will be looking to surpass that total against San Francisco State this Friday as they head into their final weekend at home. UCSD’s regular season home finale will be on Saturday against Cal State Monterey Bay. Both games are slated for 7:30 p.m. tipoffs.
Readers can contact Joe Tevelowitz at [email protected].