BRASWELL LOSES COOL AND GAME WEBER ST. 113, CSUN 92.

Byline: Chris Branam Staff Writer

OGDEN, Utah - The Sundance Film Festival is dominating the weekend here, even if most of the stars are 50 miles away, up in the snow in tourist-laden Park City.

Inside Dee Events Center, Bobby Braswell put on a once-in-a-lifetime performance not seen by any movie critic or ``Entertainment Tonight'' film crew. He wanted to send a message to the Big Sky Conference, the one the Cal State Northridge men's basketball team failed to do in a disappointing 113-92 loss to Weber State on Saturday night in front of 4,428.

Braswell, CSUN's fourth-year coach, was merciless toward the three officials in the second half, and he got a technical foul at the 7 minute, 32-second mark - his first since the 1996-97 season - and a second technical and an automatic ejection with 3:06 left.

After the game, Braswell, who said it was his first ejection from a game as a coach, chose his words very carefully.

``I don't want to get suspended,'' he said. ``I look at the (final) stat sheet, (the Wildcats) shot 53 free throws to our 21. That's interesting. We had how many guys foul out? Three guys fouled out. That's interesting.

``(Harold) Arceneaux had 16 free throws, (Eddie) Gill had 14 free throws. Interesting. Now I know why they call it `The Show.' ''

Braswell, who has been vocal toward officiating in the past but never this strongly, started losing his cool in the midst of a 21-3 run by Weber State that broke open a game that was tied at 62 with 12:10 left. He charged the court after one call against CSUN and bumped official Brent Smith, who immediately signaled a technical.

Later, Braswell got the ball when it was knocked out-oounds in front of the Northridge bench and he rolled it the length of the court in a mocking move. That's when Smith threw Braswell out of the game.

``I don't know if (our) heart was taken away,'' Braswell said. ``It gets discouraging. You're playing good defense all the time and the other team is always getting to the free-throw line. This was just a weird game.

``This is one of the reasons why us going to the Big West Conference is probably one of the best things we could ever do. This is the reason why.''

Northridge, which dropped to 5-3 in the Big Sky and into a second-place tie with Weber State, had a three-game winning streak snapped. CSUN (13-6) took a 40-37 halftime lead but gave up 76 points in the second half to a WSU team that had lost two consecutive games at home for the first time in 10 years.

``We played a terrible half of basketball,'' said junior center Brian Heinle, who made good on his bid to pick up the slack with the absence of Andre Larry with a career-high 34 points. ``We weren't playing the way we've played defense the whole year. We got killed on the boards, I know that.''

And at the free-throw line. True, the Wildcats (13-6) outrebounded the Matadors 46-32, but Weber also made 34 of 35 free-throw attempts in the second half, including its last 32 in a row.

Arceneaux, a senior forward and the Big Sky MVP last year, had a season- high 36 points. Gill, a senior guard, had 29 and nine assists.

``I didn't feel very good going into this (game),'' WSU coach Joe Cravens said, remembering the Wildcats' 76-66 loss Friday night to Northern Arizona. ``We didn't have time to prepare. For our guys to win tonight, it was a real character-check, a gut-check.''