Ags upset in Anaheim
ANAHEIM, Calif. – Twice this season, Cal State Northridge waved a white flag of surrender in losses of more than 20 points to Utah State’s men’s basketball team.
Not this time.
Northridge made the Aggies see red Friday night, upsetting No. 21 USU 63-62 in the Big West Tournament semifinals at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Matador guard Joseph Frazier hit a 3-pointer with 29 seconds remaining and gave Northridge a one-point lead it held on the victory.
The Aggies had chances in the final seconds, but Jason Williams missed a tough baseline shot with :02 left. Northridge’s Thomas Shewmake grabbed the rebound and took off running with the ball in celebration, but the officials whistled him for traveling and gave USU one more chance with the ball under the basket and eight-tenths of a second remaining.
Aggie guard Mark Brown inbounded the ball in a play designed for center Nate Harris cutting to the basket, but Harris was unable to break free and the ball bounced away as time expired.
Frazier, who had not played in the two previous matchups between the teams, finished the game with 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting, but it was the red-hot shooting of junior guard Ian Boylan that was the big difference for the Matadors.
Boylan scored 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting, hitting 4-of-7 from beyond the arc, including one from the parking lot with the shot clock winding down.
“There were times during this season with trials that we’ve gone through, that I didn’t know where we were going to end up,” Northridge Head Coach Bobby Braswell said. “I told them before the game that [winning it] was their destiny.”
Playing its third game in three nights, Northridge continued streaking behind the play of Boylan, who got the Matadors to the semifinals by scoring a career-high 31 points against Cal State Fullerton Wednesday and icing the CSUN victory over UC Santa Barbara with key free throws in the final seconds of the game.
Boylan’s 17 first-half points, coupled with a five-minute scoring drought by the Aggies, helped the Matadors to a 13-point lead before the break, their biggest of the game.
“My mindset going into this game was that they are too talented at every position to allow them to come down the floor and run their sets,” Braswell said. “We tried to force them to shoot the ball from the perimeter, because we know how tough it is to shoot when you haven’t played in a place before.”
CSUN turned 16 USU turnovers into 23 points in the game. The Aggies forced 14 turnovers but only converted them into 12 points.
“All the credit in the world goes to [Northridge],” Utah State Head Coach Stew Morrill said. “We weren’t very sharp. There’s usually a reason you don’t play well and it’s usually called the opponent.”
Morrill said he didn’t know how big a factor the week-long layoff between games for USU was. Facing the Matadors after they had built up steam by winning two games already in the tournament, however, was a factor, Morrill said.
CSUN looked nothing like the team USU blew out by 26 points in the Spectrum while fans chanted “Northridge High School.”
Or the team that fell 49-67 at home to the Aggies.
“Confidence is a strange thing,” Morrill said. “They had a lot of confidence going in.”
The addition of Frazier to the lineup and the improved play of Boylan ended up making the difference in the game.
Utah State battled back in the second half, taking its first lead since early in the game at the 10-minute mark. The Aggies went up by six with 4:23 left.
Spencer Nelson scored 19 points to pace the Aggies, hitting 5-of-7 from the field and 8-of-9 from the line. Nelson also grabbed 11 boards for Utah State, which outrebounded CSUN 29-18 in the game.
Cardell Butler and Jason William also scored in double figures for the Aggies with 11 and 10 points respectively. Utah State shot 42.9 percent from the field, compared to 53.8 percent for the Matadors.
Despite the relatively short trip from Northridge, about 60 miles from Anaheim, the Matadors managed to bring only about 100 fans to the game.
About 3,000 Utah State supporters were on hand at the convention center.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu
Aggie Cardell Butler looks to pass the ball around Cal State´s Ian Boylan. Butler finished the game with 10. (Photo by Ryan Talbot)