CSUN SAVES ITS SEASON FROM SINKING.Byline: Jill Painter Staff Writer MISSOULA, Mont. - It took 20 minutes to nearly destroy it and another 20 to save it. Cal State Northridge's breakthrough basketball season was coming to a crashing halt Thursday night after a horrible first half against Big Sky Conference leader Montana State. The Matadors (12-8) couldn't do anything right and trailed by 12 points at halftime. They seemed to sense their lofty plans were in jeopardy jeopardy, in law, condition of a person charged with a crime and thus in danger of punishment. At common law a defendant could be exposed to jeopardy for the same offense only once; exposing a person twice is known as double jeopardy. . Somehow, CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge rallied for a 72-65 victory over Montana State to move into a three-way tie for first place in the Big Sky with a 5-2 conference record. CSUN ends its two-game road trip tonight at Montana (7-10, 2-4). ``I never thought of the alternative - what happens if we go 4-3,'' coach Bobby Braswell Bobby Braswell, an American basketball coach, is currently the head coach for Cal State Northridge. Braswell was named the fourth head coach in Northridge history on April 30, 1996, succeeding the retired Pete Cassidy. said. ``We knew it was a game for first place on the road against a team that's ahead of us (in the standings). I told the guys before the game that you couldn't ask for anything better.'' If anyone was relieved - and it sure looked like it - no one said as much. In the second half, CSUN looked like the veteran team it is. The Matadors are favored to win the Big Sky, and if they do, they'll undoubtedly look at the Montana State game as a turning point. ``It wasn't a sense of relief,'' Braswell said. ``It was a sense of, where was our basketball team the first half, knowing everything that was at stake here? People don't understand this about coaching, you can have the greatest players and have the best system in the world but the bottom line is these guys go out on the floor and play. ``They had to decide if they're going to listen and be coachable and they had to decide if they're going to believe in what you're doing or they're not. In the first half, we played the dumbest basketball I've seen us play.'' --Another streak? Montana started conference play with a 2-3 mark last year but went 10-1 the rest of the way to win a share of the Big Sky championship at 12-4. Montana upset Northern Arizona Northern Arizona is dominated by the Colorado Plateau, the southern border of which in Arizona is called the Mogollon Rim. In the West lies the Grand Canyon, which was cut by the flow of the Colorado River while the land slowly rose around it. 78-63 on Thursday night to end a four-game losing streak. --Off the mark: John Burrell John Buster Burrell (born November 22, 1940 in Fort Worth, Texas) was an American football wide receiver in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Washington Redskins. He played college football for Rice University. was nearly unstoppable the first five conference games but has struggled the last two. Burrell, who averages 15.3 points per game, was held to six on Thursday. He had 12 points against Eastern Washington
Scoreless in the first is a Vancouver based sketch comedy group, formed in the summer of 2005. They have traveled to shows in Vancouver and Seattle, and are currently working on a series of shorts on youtube.com. half. CSUN at MONTANA Tipoff: 7:05 p.m., at Dahlberg Arena Dahlberg Arena is a 7,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Missoula, Montana. The arena, which opened in 1955, is home to the University of Montana Grizzlies and Lady Griz basketball teams. TV/Radio Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the broadcast at GoMatadors.com CSUN (12-8, 5-2) update: Northridge moved back into first place in the Big Sky Conference on Thursday but it did so the hard way. After a miserable first half at Montana State, CSUN rallied from a 12-point deficit to win 72-65. Montana (7-10, 2-4) update: Last year's Big Sky champion was struggling until a 78-63 upset win over Northern Arizona on Thursday night at home. Forward Jared Buckmaster had 20 points and made 4 of 6 3-pointers and point guard Shane Christensen had 14 points, seven assists and five rebounds. -Jill Painter CAPTION(S): box Box: CSUN at MONTANA (see text) |
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