SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. ? The UC San Diego men's basketball team, participating in its first Division II postseason, advanced to the California Collegiate Athletic Association title game with a 72-65 victory over San Francisco State Friday night at Cal State San Bernardino's Coussoulis Arena.
The Tritons, after ending their regular season on a five-game losing streak and sliding into the league tournament's seventh seed, have reversed their momentum and taken the CCAA by storm in early March. The championship game between the Tritons and Cal Poly Pomona tips off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and with a victory, UCSD will be guaranteed a spot the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time. The Tritons and Broncos split the season series and CPP has won 13 of 20 all-time matchups between the two teams. This season, UCSD defeated the Broncos, 55-52, on Jan. 18 in La Jolla but CPP got revenge at home on Feb. 23, 78-76.
Coming off of Tuesday's upset win against No. 13 CSUSB, host of the league's postseason action, UCSD took a large early lead on SFSU Friday and didn't allow the Gators to hold an advantage at any point in the 40 minutes of play.
UCSD came out firing in the first half against the Gators, shooting 16-for-26 over the first 20 minutes. Only two Triton buckets went unassisted during that span while the defense held SFSU to a 39.1 percent shooting effort. From the 14:03 to 7:17 marks in the opening half, UCSD ripped off 13-0 run that featured nine points from bench players.
"San Francisco State is a very, very good basketball team," Triton head coach Chris Carlson said, "and we had no lack of motivation going in, having lost to them twice this season. We took it up a notch tonight.
Carlson's squad led by as many as 20 points at different times in the first half and took a 39-24 lead into halftime. The Gators never backed down though and even cut the Triton lead to just five points, 56-51, with 7:35 remaining in regulation.
The next six UCSD points all came off the hands of All-CCAA performer Henry Patterson, figuratively closing the door on SFSU's comeback chances. In the seven-point win, Patterson led all scorers with 22 points on an 8-for-10 shooting display. He also grabbed seven rebounds.
“Henry Patterson is an all-league player and he's been giving this kind of effort since he enrolled at UCSD," Carlson said. "He put us on his back tonight and let us ride him to another win. That means a lot to this team."
The Tritons picked up 22 assists in total as junior Kelvin Kim collected a career-high nine while senior Clint Allard, named to the All-CCAA second team Wednesday, dished out eight of his own.
For the Gators, Alex Thomas led the way with 21 points on 8-for-15 shooting. A last-second three-pointer from Thomas at the final buzzer cut the final score from a 10-point different to a seven-point margin.
"We came out with great energy and focus," Carlson said. "We knew we'd need it against a well-coached team. Now, we need to get as much rest as possible because it's going to be essential to have the same kind of energy tomorrow night. We're thankful for the opportunity to still be playing."
UCSD, now 17-11 this season, will take on the winner of the Cal State Dominguez Hills and Cal Poly Pomona matchup that started at 8 p.m. Friday. Tip-off for Saturday's championship game is set for 7:30 p.m. Audio and video coverage will be available at the Cal State San Bernardino athletics website at csusbathletics.com.
