POMONA – Chico State men’s basketball coach Greg Clink would be wise to book a return flight on “Amnesia Airlines” after the Wildcats wrapped up a weekend to forget with an 82-65 loss at defending National Champion Cal Poly Pomona Saturday night at Kellogg Gymnasium. They entered a weekend on the road against the California Collegiate Athletic Association’s (CCAA) two winningest teams since 2000 (Pomona and Cal State San Bernardino) with high hopes. But they aren’t the first team to return home empty handed on this trip and they most certainly won’t be the last.
So now, at 9-5 overall and 5-5 in the CCAA, the Wildcats can focus forward to Friday night’s huge home showdown with San Francisco State, one of two teams they trail by two games or less for the important fourth-place position in the CCAA standings. That’s the first of four straight home games for the Wildcats.
For Wildcats leading scorer Damario Sims and point guard Jay Flores the friendly atmosphere of Acker Gym will be most welcome. The pair combined to miss 24 of 28 shots Saturday night, including 16 of 18 from beyond the arc. Roderick Hawkins and Sean Park combined to hit 13-of-23 shots, but the rest of the Wildcats were only 11-for-45 (24 percent).
Hawkins led all scorers with a season-high 22 points and converted 8-of-10 free throws to move past Ken
Piercy (1952-56) into fifth place on the Wildcats’ career made free throws list. Hawkins, who scored 18 in the second half, also grabbed nine rebounds to nudge closer to becoming just the 11th player in Chico State history to pull down 500 in his career. He now has 481. Park, on pace to become the highest-scoring freshman at Chico State since George Maderos in 1950-51, chipped in 16 points by hitting a season-high 3-of-5 threes.
Flores had the worst two shooting nights of his career this weekend, missing all 10 of his shots Friday and hitting only 2-of-13 Saturday, but still managed to dish out a career-best 10 assists, which is the most by a Chico State player since Justin Argenal did the same on Feb. 6, 2009.
And speaking of career-bests, Terence Pellum pulled down a career-high 12 rebounds to go along with his nine points and two blocked shots. The senior center moved past Don Fowler (1988-90) into seventh place on the school’s career rejection list with 49.
Still, all of those individual honors must have felt a bit hollow for the Wildcats, who watched an early 4-0 lead vanish in a haze of Broncos buckets and blocked shots. It took the Broncos 10 minutes to turn that deficit into a 25-9 lead, and they never looked back.
Flores’ half court buzzer beater provided a second of excitement for the Wildcats, but when the looked up at the scoreboard to head into intermission, they trailed 40-21.
A Park 3-pointer pulled the Wildcats as close as 46-30 early in the second half, but the Broncos quickly pushed the lead back into the 20s. Flores and Park sunk consecutive 3-pointers that cut the lead to 14 with 2:32 left, and Zach Graves’ trey made it 74-62 with 2:05 remaining, bringing to mind the Wildcats’ comeback from 14 points down with 3:44 to beat the Broncos last season.
But Park turned it over on the next possession and the Broncos kept them at bay.
The Wildcats stand alone in sixth place in the CCAA standings, a game behind San Francisco State and two behind fourth-place Cal State L.A. The top eight teams at the end of the regular season earn berths in the CCAA Championship Tournament (the winner of which earns an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament). The top four teams earned the right to host a first-round home game.
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