After a 10-1 start to the season, the Tritons have gone cold, showing no signs of returning to their early-season form.
On Thursday, Jan. 15, UC San Diego men’s basketball (14-5, 4-3 Big West) fell to Cal State Northridge (11-9, 4-4 Big West) 84-79 for its third Big West loss. In a back-and-forth game, the Matadors leveraged their physicality to pull off a late scoring run, resulting in a narrow 5-point victory. Thursday’s game marked CSUN’s first-ever win against UCSD since the Tritons transitioned to Division I in 2020.
The loss follows a recent wave of turbulent games for the Tritons, who have been trading wins and losses since kicking off conference play. The Tritons managed to beat first-place Hawai’i on Jan. 5 but fell against lower-ranked Cal State Fullerton on Jan. 8.
The first half kicked off with UCSD managing to score 4 points before CSUN scored a layup and began to work toward balancing the scales. For every Triton point, the Matadors put up two. Thanks to a 6-0 run in the final two minutes of the first half, the Matadors gained a decisive 39-30 lead going into halftime.
Scoring — from beyond the arc, in particular — was a weak point for the Tritons, who mustered a disappointing 16.7% 3-point percentage in the first half.
“Our 3-point percentage has fallen a little bit, kind of got [better] a little bit in the second half, but a little too late,” a visibly dejected head coach Clint Allard said to The UCSD Guardian in a postgame interview.
A change in the lineup preceded the game; instead of junior guard Aidan Burke rounding out the starting five, sophomore guard Alex Chaikin took his place. A lineup change this late into the season is rare — especially since Burke has started all 17 games thus far — but with Chaikin leading the team in 3-pointers made, it seemed that the Tritons wanted to have a stronger offensive start.
“We’ll keep evaluating what’s kind of the best for us,” Allard said. “[I] thought we could use a little scoring punch off the beginning.”
The Tritons went on a 6-0 run at the beginning of the second half to claw their way back to their lead with just over seven minutes remaining. UCSD took advantage of opportunities to score off of fast breaks five times to maintain its lead. The Tritons held the Matadors back until a layup followed by a free throw put CSUN in front 79-76.
Two points down with a minute and a half left in the game, a Chaikin 3-pointer tied the score 79-79. However, a contentious foul called on freshman guard Hudson Mayes during a Matador layup changed the course of the game, giving CSUN an opportunity to convert an and-one. Three points down, Chaikin tried to make up for the deficit with a 3-pointer but was successfully blocked by CSUN. The Matadors managed to score once more, successfully going on a 5-0 run to end the game in their favor 84-79.
Looking past the defeat, Allard noted the lessons the Tritons will have to keep in mind for upcoming games.
“Another physical team, we’re going to have to match that physicality; we’re going to have to protect the paint again; we’re going to have to rebound,” Allard said. “There are some similarities. We’re going to have to bear a good defensive team. We’re going to have to make sure that we’re creating good looks, having some confidence and knocking ‘em down.”
The downtrodden Tritons will play two away games against Cal State Bakersfield and UC Davis before returning to LionTree Arena on Saturday, Jan. 24, to face off against UC Irvine.
