CSUN Holds Off UCR, 67-60

Saturday, January 6

Riverside, CA

UC Riverside

Cal State Northridge

1/6/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

The visiting Cal State Northridge Matadors held off the surging UC Riverside Highlanders to post a 67-60 win in a Big West Conference game in front of 593 fans at the Student Recreation Center in Riverside Saturday.

The Highlanders are now 3-13, 0-4 in the Big West. Northridge is 7-7, 1-2.

Senior guard Justin Bell led the Highlanders in scoring with 17 points, and sophomore guard Chris Johnson had 15 off of the bench. Freshman guard Charles Jim-George had 12 points. As a team, the Highlanders shot 34.0% (17-of-50) from the field and 35.7% (10-of-28) from the three-point line. Free throws proved to be a problem for UCR, as they hit just 16-of-25 (64.0%), below their season average.

Terrell Jones led the Matadors with 16 points and added 10 rebounds, including eight on the offensive end. Thomas Shewmake had eight points and 11 defensive rebounds. Jonathan Heard had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds and outrebounded UCR 46-25. The Matadors shot 45.5% (25-of-55) from the field, 33.3% (5-of-15) from the three point line and just 60.0% (12-of-20) from the free throw line.

With the Matadors leading leading 60-55, Bell rebounded a Shewmake miss and ran the length of the court, before dishing it off to Johnson for a layup that made it 60-57. But at the other end Jones pulled down his eighth offensive rebound of the game off of a miss by Jason Hill and put it back to put the lead back to five at 62-57 with under a minute to go. UCR was then forced to foul in attempts to get back in the game, but the Matadors hit three of four to make it 65-60. Freshman forward Henrik Thomsen drained a three, his first basket of the game with 13.2 seconds left, but Heard hit a pair of free throws to close it out.

The Highlanders tied the score three times in the second half, but each time the Highlanders made a run the Matadors would hit a clutch shot to regain the lead.

The teams entered the intermission tied at 34-34. Cal State Northridge led the Highlanders by as many as eight in the first half, the last time at 25-17 with 8:08 remaining. UCR came back with a 12-4 run, including a pair of threes and a pair of free throws by Charles Jim-George to tie the score at 29-29. Northridge dominated the boards in the first half, 21-10 and had 12 second chance points, compared to none for UCR. However, UCR forced the Matadors into 11 turnovers and converted 15 points off of the give-aways.