CS Bakersfield Buries CSUN With 31-7 Run in Second Half

No doubt members of the Cal State Northridge basketball team thought that they had reached a seasonal low when they lost to Cal State Bakersfield by 24 points three weeks ago.

They were wrong.

What transpired in a 12-point loss to Bakersfield on Thursday in a California Collegiate Athletic Assn. game at CSUN broke new ground for futility.

Bakersfield won, 71-59, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The really awful numbers were posted in the last 12 minutes of the game.

That was when the Roadrunners (16-6, 5-4 in CCAA play) dropped the anvil on the Matadors in a 31-7 run.

For the record, this kind of thing has happened before. It was two years ago that San Francisco burried CSUN with a 30-2 run that lasted 10:43. At least that was an away game and few local fans were watching.

For most of the first half, the Matadors were simply electrifying on offense. Despite the absence of center Todd Bowser, who missed his fourth game because of a badly bruised left hip, CSUN made 14 of 19 shots in the opening 21 minutes.

Northridge (13-9) was purring along smoothly in the second half, too--until someone pulled the plug.

“The up-tempo is what we’re best at,” said point guard Darren Matsubara, trying to be diplomatic. “We played into their hands. I’ve been saying all year we’re not a halfcourt team.

“It’s like if you can’t dunk, you don’t dunk. We can’t run the spread.”

Northridge built a 12-point lead in the first eight minutes of the second half, effectively running its fast break off turnovers forced by a pressure defense.

That advantage was comfortable for a very short period.

Although Bakersfield took more than nine minutes to make its second field goal of the half--a baseline jump shot by Troy Price--it cut CSUN’s lead to seven with 10:40 remaining.

Two minutes later, with the the Matadors still ahead by seven, Bakersfield got a big lift from an unexpected source.

Brian Volenec, a reserve forward, stripped the ball from Matsubara and Karl Becker within a minute and broke away from slam dunks each time. The second dunk cut the Matador advantage to 57-53 with 7:11 left.

Northridge did little fighting back.

After Sandy Brown made a layup with 10:02 left, CSUN went almost eight minutes without field goal. In between, the Matadors made only three of seven free throws.

“I think we contributed greatly to our own demise,” CSUN Coach Pete Cassidy said.

The problems started, the players said, when they were instructed to halt the pressure on defense and slow down offensively.

“It seems like every time we hear the word ‘spread’ it gets us lazy,” Matsubara said.

Cassidy said that his team’s troubles actually started before he slowed the tempo. A fullcourt trap by Bakersfield had the Matadors flustered, he said.

The loss dropped Northridge to 4-5 in the CCAA and into sixth place in the conference standings. Cal State Dominguez Hills defeated UC Riverside on Thursday to move into a first-place tie with the Highlanders. Both have 8-1 conference records.

The Matadors were led in scoring by Jemarl Baker, who had 11 points. Matsubara added 10. Derrick Gathers, who came in averaging 17.5 points, was held to nine, tying his season low. Price had 16 points and seven rebounds to lead Bakersfield in both categories.