The Chico State men’s basketball team begins the home stretch of 2012-13 with its most harrowing road trip of the season this weekend. The Wildcats hit the road Wednesday evening for the four-plus hour drive to Arcata. They’ll play long-time rival Humboldt State Thursday night, arrive back in Chico on Friday, and catch a plane to Southern California later that night in preparation for their game against first-place Cal Poly Pomona on Saturday.
Makes you tired just to read about it, right?
But the Wildcats have no time to feel sorry for themselves. At 10-6 overall and 7-5 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, the defending CCAA champions are not quite in the position they had hoped to be in following the first half of conference action. They’re five games behind conference leader Cal Poly Pomona.
The Wildcats are in third place – very respectable for one of the toughest conferences in the nation – but so are Cal State L.A. and San Francisco State. The top four teams in the final conference standings will have the opportunity to host a first-round game in the CCAA Championship Tournament.
Thus, this challenging weekend is important. Humboldt State, shockingly, is actually alone in last place in the CCAA. But Arcata is always a tough place to play and the Lumberjacks are showing some signs of awaking from their early-season slumber, having beaten good Cal State Dominguez Hills and San Francisco State squads over the past two weekends.
The Lumberjacks are now 7-9 overall and 3-9 in the CCAA. One of those losses came at Chico State earlier this season. The Wildcats held Humboldt State’s usually high-powered offense to 33-percent shooting in a 63-48 win. Jason Conrad led the way with 11 points, nine rebounds, and a tremendous defensive effort, while Damario Sims scored 18 points and Rashad Parker 11 in his first collegiate start.
Chico State now leads the series, which has been renewed at least once every year since 1933, 121-72.
Cal Poly Pomona snuck past the Wildcats 67-64 the night before that, rallying from a five-point deficit with 3:39 to play. The Wildcats built that lead on the shoulders of sharpshooter James Staniland, who scored a career-high 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting (6-of-7 from 3-point range) against the vaunted Broncos zone.
Saturday night’s matchup actually features the top two defenses in the nation in terms of scoring. The Broncos lead the nation, allowing only 53.6 points per game, while the Wildcats are second at 57.1 points allowed per game.
Both games are scheduled to tipoff at approximately 7:30 p.m. and can be heard locally on AM 1290 KPAY and streaming online at www.chicowildcats.com.
