CARSON, Calif. – When it comes to getting home tomorrow morning, Chico State basketball play-by-play man Mike Wessels is in great hands. Wildcats men’s basketball Head Coach Greg Clink is on the job.
“Stick with me Mike. I’ll get you on the plane,” Clink told Wessels playfully following the Wildcats’ huge 66-57 win at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
If you’re with Clink, you’re flyin’. In just his fourth season at the helm, the Wildcats have officially reached the height of their California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) tenure, notching their 20th win for the 13th time in the 96-year history of the program and the first time since Clink was named the team’s Most Inspirational Player as a senior in 1993. They also finished the regular season with their best road record since 1993 at 9-4. Not surprisingly, the last time the Wildcats won a conference crown was in 1993 when they were part of the Northern California Athletic Conference.
Chico State (with Wessels in tow) will come home in a tie with Cal Poly Pomona for first place with games against Cal State Monterey Bay and Cal State East Bay Thursday and Friday, respectively, remaining in the regular season. The Broncos will host Cal State L.A. Wednesday and Cal State Dominguez Hills Friday.
The Wildcats made a season-high 14 3-pointers – four from Damario Sims and three each from Amir Carraway and James Staniland – against a Toros team that entered the weekend ranked 12th in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage defense at 29.7 percent.
Six different Wildcats combined for eight 3-pointers as they roared to 40 first-half points and a four-point lead against a Toros team that beat Chico State 49-46 back on Jan. 13 in Chico. That game, and specifically the second half in which the Wildcats missed 13 of 14 3-pointers and made just one shot in the final 10 minutes, is one of the few blotches on the Wildcats’ season.
Cal State Dominguez Hills scored the first four points of the second half to tie the game briefly at 40-40, but there were zero blotches for the Wildcats after that.
Carraway converted a three-point play 25 seconds after hitting a 3-pointer to give the Wildcats a 46-40 lead they would not give up. He buried another 3 on the Wildcats’ next possession to make it a seven-point game, and Staniland followed suit with 13:48 to play.
Chico State couldn’t shake the Toros, however, until Sims sank 3s on consecutive possessions and set up Jay Flores for one the next time down. Just like that, a six-point lead had ballooned to 13 with 8:57 to play.
“It’s a tough guy’s game when you play down here, but we brought it tonight,” said Carraway, who along with Sims led the Wildcats with 16 points.
Now 20-6 on the season and 14-6 in the CCAA, the Wildcats are one of the toughest teams in the land. And this season, they’re bringing it every night.
GAME NOTES – The only official announcement can come out of the CCAA offices next Saturday morning, but the Wildcats seem to have locked up a first-round home game in the CCAA Championship Tournament on Feb. 28 and would earn the top seed if they wind up in a tie for first with Cal Poly Pomona in almost all possible tiebreaker scenarios…Chico State’s 14 made 3-pointers are its most since knocking down 17 on Nov. 24, 2007 in a 75-64 victory against Hawaii Pacific...The school record for wins is 25, set in 1984…The Wildcats improved to 16-0 this season when shooting at least 30 percent from 3-point range…They’re 20-1 when scoring at least 60 points…They’re 32-3 in Clink’s four seasons when holding opponents to fewer than 60 points…Six of the 10 ranked teams in Wednesday’s inaugural West Region poll lost at least once this weekend, including #6 Humboldt State, which dropped two.
QUOTE TO NOTE
“He’s in there on the floor exhausted. He’s sitting on the floor in there right now, just absolutely dead,” said Clink of point guard Jay Flores. Flores dished out eight assists and led the Wildcats with six rebounds while playing a game-high 35 minutes.
BOX SCORE
