The Chico State men’s basketball team has its sights set on March Madness. A crazy-good January would be a major step toward reaching that goal. The Wildcats begin a stretch of six January home games this weekend when UC San Diego visits Acker Gym Friday night and Cal State East Bay comes calling Saturday. Both games are scheduled to tip at approximately at 7:30.
Chico State enters the weekend 7-3 overall and tied for sixth place with UC San Diego in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) at 3-3. The conference’s top eight teams at the end of the regular season will qualify for the CCAA Championship Tournament. The top four teams will host a first-round tournament game. Cal State East Bay (2-8 overall and 0-6 in the CCAA) is still in the process of reclassifying to NCAA Division II and is not eligible for postseason play.
The Wildcats swept last season’s home and away series against UC San Diego and Cal State East Bay. That helped propel them to a fifth-place finish in the CCAA at 12-10 and their first postseason appearance in four years.
Players like sophomore leading scorer Damario Sims (14.0 points per game) and freshman Sean Park are planning to make sure it was the first in a long string of playoff appearances. Park’s 23 points in Saturday night’s loss at now-10th-ranked Cal State Dominguez Hills are the most scored by a Chico State freshman since 2006, and if he can maintain his current scoring average of 11.3 points per game it would be the highest by a Wildcats freshman since George Maderos’ 16 points per game in 1951-52.
Meanwhile, Zach Graves is one of four seniors (along with Terence Pellum, Roderick Hawkins and Chris Sharp) whose future is now. Graves has put together three of the top five scoring performances of his career against UC San Diego, and both Pellum and Hawkins have historically turned in solid performances against the Tritons and Cal State East Bay. Sharp missed last season with a foot injury.
They, along with junior point guard Jay Flores, who currently ranks sixth in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio and 23rd in assists, hope to lead the Wildcats on a deep run into the postseason. These six home games in January might set them up to do just that.
Two wins this weekend would also match the Wildcats’ best record through 12 games since the 1942-43 team started 10-2. Five teams have started 9-3 since then, including last year’s squad.
Wildcat fans can follow both Friday and Saturday games, and every Chico State basketball game, via Live Stats, available on the Chico State Athletics website. All games are also broadcast live on ESPN 101.7 and 1340 AM locally and online through the Wildcat Athletics website, with Mike Baca and Mike Wessels providing the play-by-play.
PRE-GAME NOTES
